Mediagazer: News Corp's independent directors hire own legal team over phone hacking (Dominic Rushe/Guardian)

5:40 AM ET, July 20, 2011

Top News:

Phone hacking row shows News Corp is no ordinary news company — Rupert Murdoch's news organisations are not in the news business. What they crave is influence — Watching the phone hacking crisis crack wide open over the last few weeks has left me puzzled about its ultimate causes …

Discussion: BuzzMachine, Poynter, The Huffington Post and Shelly Palmer Digital Living

D.M. Levine / Adweek:

Piers Morgan Emerges as A Staunch Defender of Murdoch — Rupert Murdoch has an increasingly outspoken defender on TV: Piers Morgan. After a week of relative silence on the subject of the ballooning hacking scandal, the CNN primetime host and one-time Murdoch tabloid editor has taken …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

John Plunkett / Guardian:

Brooks: hacking payments not my remit — Former News International chief says News of the World's managing editor approved payments to private detectives — The former News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, has deflected MPs' questions about the News of the World's payments …

Discussion: Media Week, Jon Slattery, Press Gazette, BBC, The Huffington Post, Crikey, Future of Journalism, The Nation, On Media's Blog and paidContent

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:

News Corp's independent directors hire own legal team over phone hacking — Law firm Debevoise & Plimpton appointed to advise News Corp's nine independent directors on the handling of the crisis — The independent directors of News Corp have appointed their own legal team …

Discussion: Globe and Mail, Erik Wemple, MediaPost, Hillicon Valley and AdAge

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:
The Statement The Murdochs Wanted To Make Before The MPs Said No

Discussion: Media Week, Guardian, Crikey, msnbc.com, TheMediaBriefing, www.parliament.uk, http://www.Stinkyjournalism …, Erik Wemple, Big Journalism, Gothamist, Future of Journalism, Editors Weblog, On Media's Blog, Adweek and BBC

John Cook / Gawker:
Rupert Murdoch Has Left the Building

Discussion: The Wire

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:
On Rupert Murdoch's performance before Parliament: Shockingly bad, or routine?

Discussion: Mediaite, Guardian, Media Week, On Media's Blog and WWD Media Headlines

BBC:
Phone hacking: Rupert Murdoch ‘humbled’ by MPs' probe

Foster Kamer / The New York Observer:
Video: Murdoch Attacked! Deng Fights Back! (Updated, With Slow-Motion Replay)

Discussion: blogs.telegraph.co.uk, The Daily Dish, Digital Spy, msnbc.com, @jonniemarbles and mUmBRELLA

Legalweek:
Harbottle defends Hackgate position; Grabiner to lead News Corp clean-up

Discussion: The Slog

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Murdoch & Son Visit Parliament and Return With a Big Helping Of Humble (and Shaving Cream) Pie

Reuters:
Special report: Rupert Murdoch, a hands-on newspaperman

Discussion: Editors Weblog, Guardian, MediaFile and Felix Salmon

Nick Robinson / BBC: From inside the Murdoch hearing

Bloomberg:

Microsoft Said to Drop Out of Hulu Auction — Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is dropping out of the bidding for Hulu LLC, the online video service put up for sale by its media-company owners, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. — Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington …

Discussion: Fortune, Electronista, The Next Web, The Wire and Seattle Times, more at Techmeme »

Andy Fixmer / Bloomberg:

Hulu Owners Offer 5-Year Show Extension — Hulu LLC, the online video service seeking bids, plans to offer suitors five years of access to shows from its media-company owners, including two years of exclusivity, two people with knowledge of the situation said.

Discussion: The Business Insider, Electronista, Adweek, Bloomberg, Online Video News and MediaPost

Paul Ford / New York Magazine:

Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings? — I do not enjoy Facebook — I find it cloying and impossible — but I am there every day. Last year I watched a friend struggle through breast cancer treatment in front of hundreds of friends. She broadcast her news with caution …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, The Awl and Anil Dash

Verne G. Kopytoff / New York Times:

Scribd Creates a Paid News Site — Relatively few people are willing to pay for an online newspaper or magazine. But what if they could pay a monthly fee for a vast library of news, like Netflix's subscription service for movies? — Scribd, a Web site that lets users share reports …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, paidContent and AllThingsD

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
With Float, Scribd Hopes To Become The Netflix Of Reading

Discussion: VentureBeat, Epicenter, GigaOM, App Advice, TeleRead, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, Fortune, Adweek, TUAW, ReadWriteWeb, CNET News, Shawn Blanc and Softpedia News, Thanks:beet_tv

Michael Crowley / Swampland:

Reporter Accosted After Bachmann Comments on Migraines — It's not easy to get to Michele Bachmann. Her appearance at a rally on Tuesday in Aiken, South Carolina, attended by perhaps 150 people, featured three uniformed police officers and two body guards in plain clothes.

Discussion: ABCNEWS, New York Magazine, nation.foxnews.com, New York Times, FishbowlDC, Indecision Forever, The Daily Caller, TPMDC and Ben Smith's Blog, Thanks:beet_tv

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Time Magazine Rolls Out Print/Digital Subscriptions — And Puts Up Another Web Pay Wall — Time magazine is making it easier for readers to subscribe to its digital and print editions. And it is making it harder for non-subscribers to read the magazine on the Web.

Discussion: Folio, Poynter, Publishing Executive News, Nieman Journalism Lab, digiday:DAILY, mocoNews, Audience Development, Electronista, VentureBeat, NetNewsCheck Latest, FishbowlNY and MediaPost

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Video: Piers Morgan Calls Out MP Louise Mensch For Accusations Against Him — We know Piers Morgan for his reality TV stints and his gig now as Larry King's replacement on CNN. But before that he was a well-known tabloid editor in the UK, helming first the now-defunct News of the World and then the Daily Mirror.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Mediaite and TVNewser

Burgess Everett / On Media's Blog:
Piers Morgan takes on tabloid scandal

Discussion: Mediaite, B&C, TVNewser, Future of Journalism, The Daily Beast, Multichannel, NPR Topics, Adweek, The Book Bench, GalleyCat, Forbes.com, AdAge and ThinkProgress

Fortune:

Brainstorm Tech video: Katzenberg on the future of movie watching — Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg sat down with Fortune's Andy Serwer to discuss 3D technology, joining the Zynga board, and why movies suck this summer. — Below is an unedited transcript — ANDY SERWER: Good afternoon, again.

Steven Jacobs / Street Fight:

Metro Publisher: Building a CMS for Hyperlocals — Two years ago, publishing consultancy firm Vangaurdistas saw a demand by small and medium-sized publishers for a CMS capable of integrating more dynamic digital content. In response, it created Metro Publisher, which has now created …

Martin Langeveld / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Tackable, BANG collaborate on a location-based digital newspaper — Ever since he was a beat reporter at the Palo Alto Daily News and the Contra Costa Times, Luke Stangel has been thinking about how to improve finding and consuming news by adding more specific location data to news content.