Mediagazer: The Ben Bradlee of Phone Hacking (Dylan Byers/Adweek)

7:00 PM ET, July 14, 2011

Top News:

In Interview, Murdoch Defends News Corp. — In his first significant public comments on the tabloid newspaper scandal that has engulfed his media empire, News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch vigorously defended the company's handling of the crisis but said it would establish …

Discussion: Company Town, Deadline.com, Adweek, Mixed Media, Gawker, Poynter, The Huffington Post, TVNewser, paidContent, Future of Journalism, On Media's Blog, The Wire, Runnin' Scared, Bloomberg and Salon

New York Times:

Murdochs Now Say They Will Appear Before Parliament — LONDON — In an abrupt about-face, News Corporation said Tuesday afternoon that Rupert Murdoch and his son James would testify next week before a British parliamentary panel looking into phone hacking. They will appear along with Rebekah Brooks …

Discussion: Poynter, Guardian, The Lede, The Wire, New York Magazine, Mediaite and The Rumpus.net

Tom Hays / Associated Press:

AP source: FBI investigating News Corp. — Below: — updated 2011-07-14T18:18:48 — NEW YORK — A law enforcement official says the FBI has opened an investigation into allegations that media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. sought to hack into the phones of Sept. 11 victims.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Adweek, TVNewser, Future of Journalism, Mediaite, The Wire, Guardian, Broadcasting & Cable and Gothamist

Brian Braiker / Adweek:

The Murdoch Maelstrom Comes West — Editors at the New York Post pulled junior staffers into two closed-door meetings on Tuesday and told them, “We have to be on our P's and Q's and not engage in any kind of obvious, unethical journalistic things,” according to a source close to the Post.

Dylan Byers / Adweek:

The Ben Bradlee of Phone Hacking — Rupert Murdoch has met his match. — For years now, the News Corp. head has seemed bulletproof, or at least Teflon-coated; scandal has seemingly slid right off him. But suddenly the ongoing furor over phone hacking in the U.K. has put his media empire in real peril.

Discussion: Guardian, Kempton, Media & Entertainment, The Independent and TVNewser

Tom Hays / Associated Press:

AP source: FBI reviews News Corp. 9/11 phone claim — The FBI has begun a preliminary inquiry based on concerns in Congress over a report that media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. sought to hack into the phones of Sept. 11 victims, a law enforcement official said Thursday.

Discussion: New York Magazine, Reuters, PC Magazine, The Raw Story and The Huffington Post

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

The Myths of Murdoch: Real, Unreal and Surreal — Forget the tired “gate” applied to this scandal, as in the limp Phonegate. This News Corp scandal so far surpasses mere phone treachery that the name diminishes what's at stake. Perhaps our so-far unnamed scandal will lend “Murdochian” …

Discussion: Time, Capital New York and Guardian

Guardian:

Phone hacking: Rupert Murdoch calls in PR firm Edelman — PR company will report directly to general manager of News International — Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has called in PR and lobbying specialists Edelman to help the embattled company handle mounting public anger …

Discussion: Mixed Media, paidContent, Mogulite, Kempton, FishbowlNY and Reuters

New York Times:
Father and Son Split on Tactics in Murdoch Family Drama

Discussion: Time, Guardian, Business Week, Company Town, DealBook, The First Post, New York Magazine, The Wire, Gordon's Republic, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal

Hélène Mulholland / Guardian:
Phone hacking: Rupert Murdoch summonsed to appear before MPs

Discussion: Adweek, Gothamist, The Wire and Media Law Prof Blog

Julie Moos / Poynter:
Whatever happened to the WSJ editorial integrity committee?

Discussion: Tom Watson, Yahoo! News, Bloomberg, The Nation, The Lede, The Wrap, New York Magazine, On Media's Blog, Salon and ProPublica

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Handicapping Who Survives the Coming Purge at News Corp.

Discussion: Guardian, On Media's Blog, Mediaite, Crikey, Gordon's Republic, USA Today, News Desk and Poynter

Seung Min Kim / The Politico:
GOPer wants FBI probe of Rupert Murdoch

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Poynter, boxer.authoring.testing.senate …, The Wrap, Adweek, Free Press, The Nation, Mediaite, Swampland, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, Gothamist, Indecision Forever and Gizmodo Australia

Jxpaton / Digital First:

Our Next Big Step — Today we announced that the Journal Register Company has been bought by Alden Global Capital. And that's terrific news for us. — Alden has been an investor in our Company for some time and they have had a courtside seat to the Journal Register Company's radical makeover following our Digital First strategy.

Discussion: Poynter, CJR and paidContent

Journal Register Company:

Journal Register Company Acquired by Alden Global Capital — Yardley, PA - Journal Register Company, a leading multi-media company in local news and information, announced today that Alden Global Capital ("Alden") has purchased the Company. — “This is a great vote of confidence from Alden …

Discussion: Poynter and Deal Journal

Jonathan / awe.sm:

Twitter drives 4 times as much traffic as you think it does — Over the last few weeks, TechCrunch has run a couple posts using their own referrer logs to measure how sharing on various social services drives traffic. In these and other analyses based solely on referrer information …

Discussion: TechCrunch and AllThingsD

Peter Apps / Reuters:

Analysis: Press barons lose information monopoly in Twitter era — (Reuters) - Britain's celebrities might no longer have to worry about the News of the World hacking phones or rifling their bins, but the manner of the paper's demise shows controlling information is getting much more difficult.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and Big News Network.com

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:

How to: create a Facebook page as a journalist — Why journalists should create a Facebook fan page, examples of best practice and tips on setting up a page — “Facebook is a rolodex of more than 750 million potential sources,” journalist programme manager at Facebook Vadim Lavrusik told Journalism.co.uk.

Discussion: Poynter, Facebook and Journalism.co.uk

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:

BBC.com Says It's In The Black, Two Years Ahead Of Schedule — BBC's push to make money from its overseas businesses, particularly online, had a good boost this morning, when the international site, BBC.com, announced that it has reached profitability—two years ahead of schedule.

Discussion: BBC Worldwide Blog and The Next Web

David Cay Johnston / Reuters:

How I misread News Corp's taxes — (Reuters) - Readers, I apologize. The premise of my debut column for Reuters, on News Corp's taxes, was wrong, 100 percent dead wrong. — Rupert Murdoch's News Corp did not get a $4.8 billion tax refund for the past four years, as I reported.

Discussion: Poynter, Regret the Error, Mediaite, Reason, The Atlantic Wire and NPR

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

BBC publishes its social media guidelines for journalists — We've written before about the double-edged sword of social media. On the one hand it can boost profiles and raise revenue, on the other it can get a lot of people in hot-water if someone steps even a little bit out of line.

Discussion: BBC and eMedia Vitals