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2:00 PM ET, July 15, 2011

Top News:

Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:

Rebekah Brooks Quits as News International Chief in Phone-Hacking Scandal — Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive officer of News Corp. (NWS)'s News International U.K. publishing unit, has stepped down amid a phone-hacking scandal that resulted in the closure of the News of the World tabloid she once edited.

Discussion: New York Times, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, AdAge, Poynter, Telegraph, Reuters, Mixed Media, The Wire, Mediaite, Guardian, CNN, CNBC, Business Wire, The Independent, Financial Times, The Times, C21Media and @benfenton

Guardian:

Rebekah Brooks's resignation letter — How News International's chief executive informed staff she was stepping down — Rebekah Brooks resigns over phone-hacking scandal — At News International we pride ourselves on setting the news agenda for the right reasons. Today we are leading the news for the wrong ones.

Discussion: Forbes.com, Adweek, New York Magazine, AdAge, The Wire, The Awl, Multichannel, Kempton, The Daily What, Company Town, paidContent, The First Post, News Desk, Editors Weblog, Globe and Mail, Future of Journalism, The Nation and Gawker

Telegraph:

Phone hacking: Rebekah Brooks resignation statement — Rebekah Brooks has resigned as chief executive of News International following the phone hacking scandal. Here is the internal memo that was sent to NI staff: — Rebekah Brooks resigns in wake of NOTW phone-hacking scandal

Discussion: Washington Post, AllThingsD, Epicenter, Poynter and ShortFormBlog

Jane Martinson / Guardian:

Tom Mockridge: profile of News International's new chief executive — Rebekah Brooks's replacement started as a print journalist down under before moving to run pay-TV channel Sky Italia — Tom Mockridge started his career as a national newspaper journalist working for the chief rival to Rupert Murdoch's interests in Australia.

Discussion: Forbes.com, mediabistro.com, Broadcasting & Cable and Adweek

Bruce Orwall / Wall Street Journal:

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 …

The Daily Beast:

Murdoch Scandal Roils WSJ — Faced with sleazy corporate cousins, reporters at the august Wall Street Journal are grappling with how to cover their boss's scandal—and their own survival. By Nick Summers. — On Tuesday, July 5, bureau chiefs and editors at The Wall Street Journal dialed …

Discussion: Poynter, http://www.Stinkyjournalism …, Erik Wemple, Company Town and The Nation

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

Down with Murdoch: Rebekah Brooks is gone, but now it's Parliament that's in trouble — Via World Economic Forum. — In an interview with The Wall Street Journal yesterday, Rupert Murdoch was hanging tough. — He said that in the massive phone-hacking scandal that has embroiled British Parliament …

Discussion: Forbes.com, Guardian, Journalism.co.uk and On Media's Blog

Martin Wolf / Financial Times:
Seize the chance for media reform

Discussion: blogs.ft.com

Sam Marsden / The Independent:
Murdoch to apologise in national newspapers

Discussion: Financial Times

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
Phone-hacking scandal highlights the differences in British, U.S. media

Discussion: The Volokh Conspiracy

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:
For Murdoch Loyalist, Another Stint in the Spotlight

Discussion: Guardian

Brian Braiker / Adweek:
The Murdoch Maelstrom Comes West

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog

Tom Hays / Associated Press:
AP source: FBI investigating News Corp.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Gothamist, The Wire, Guardian, The Huffington Post, Future of Journalism and Broadcasting & Cable

Tom Hays / Associated Press:
AP source: FBI reviews News Corp. 9/11 phone claim

Discussion: CJR, Runnin' Scared, The House Committee …, Felix Salmon, The Wrap, Reuters, PC Magazine, The Raw Story, Guardian, New York Times, New York Times and Newsonomics

Natasha Mohanty / Google News Blog:

Shareable Google News badges for your favorite topics — (Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog) — On Google News, the average reader of political news has read 20 articles about politics in the last six months. Where do you stand? — Starting today, in the U.S. edition of Google News …

Discussion: Poynter, The Awl, L.A. Times Tech Blog, @gnat, The Digital Media Machine, Gizmodo, Pocket-lint, Washington Post, Future Journalism Project, PC Magazine, Mashable!, Search Engine Land, Digital Trends, Softpedia News, WebProNews, Marketing Pilgrim and ZDNet, more at Techmeme »

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Facebook Working with Top News Brands on ‘Facebook Editions’ — If you're a leading news brand, this guy wants to be your friend. Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife — Facebook has a war on its hands, and Mark Zuckerberg knows it. Practically overnight, Google+ has gone from a rumor …

Discussion: Poynter

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Andrew Ross Sorkin Joins CNBC as Co-Anchor of ‘Squawk Box’ — First on TVNewser: CNBC has hired New York Times scribe and DealBook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin to be the new co-anchor of the signature morning program “Squawk Box,” TVNewser has learned. — Sorkin, who has been a contributor on CNBC …

Discussion: The Wire, Media Decoder, Adweek, Broadcasting & Cable, The Big Picture and @andrewrsorkin

D.M. Levine / Adweek:

CNN Keeping Mum About Piers Morgan Hacking Allegations — CNN hasn't been shy about covering the phone hacking related woes of News Corp., parent of rival news network Fox News. It's devoted more than 100 segments to the scandal, according to liberal press watchdog Media Matters.

Discussion: Media Matters for America, TVNewser, On Media's Blog, Inside Cable News, Guy Fawkes' blog, The Huffington Post and All Things CNN

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: Journalism.co.uk, WebProNews, Future of Journalism, The Next Web, Both Sides of the Table, Editors Weblog, the Econsultancy blog, eMedia Vitals, TechCrunch and AllThingsD

BBC:

Guardian apologises to the Sun over Gordon Brown story — Gordon Brown questioned how the Sun came about information on his son's medical condition — The Guardian has apologised to the Sun for reporting that it accessed Gordon Brown's son's medical records.

Discussion: paidContent, Poynter and blogs.telegraph.co.uk

Steve Green / VEGAS INC:

Judge: Righthaven masquerading as a company — A judge today fined newspaper copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas $5,000 for misleading a federal court about its lawsuits. — A Righthaven attorney, Shawn Mangano, said after a hearing before U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt …

Discussion: Free Press, Ars Technica, Techdirt, paidContent, WebProNews and Righthaven Victims

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: CJR, Poynter, NetNewsCheck Latest and paidContent