Mediagazer: The newsonomics of U.S. media concentration (Ken Doctor/Nieman Journalism Lab)

12:00 PM ET, July 22, 2011

Top News:

Justice Department Prepares Subpoenas in News Corp. Inquiry — The U.S. Justice Department is preparing subpoenas as part of preliminary investigations into News Corp. relating to alleged foreign bribery and alleged hacking of voicemail of Sept. 11 victims, according to a government official.

Guardian: James Murdoch: groomed for the top but now looking down the barrel

Guardian:
James Murdoch misled MPs, say former News of the World editor and lawyer

Discussion: New York Times, Forbes.com, BBC, MediaFile, The Awl, Kleinman, Press Gazette, The Wrap, Media Week, Media Law Prof Blog, The Wire, Jon Slattery, paidContent:UK and App Advice

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:
News Corp.'s The Sun Fires Editor Over Phone-Hacking Connections

Discussion: Press Gazette, Guardian and Adweek

Reuters:
James Murdoch denies misleading panel

Discussion: New York Magazine and Adweek

Business Week:
Will the Scandal Tame Murdoch?

Discussion: Company Town and Washington Post

Keach Hagey / On Media's Blog:

David Leonhardt next NYT Washington bureau chief? — The New York Times newsrooms in Washington and New York have been buzzing with the rumor that David Leonhardt will soon be named the paper's next Washington bureau chief. — Filling the slot is Executive Editor Jill Abramson's …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Gawker, Poynter, New York Magazine, The New York Observer and Media News

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Times Names David Leonhardt Washington Bureau Chief — The New York Times has named David Leonhardt, this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary and the paper's Economic Scene columnist, as its next Washington bureau chief. — His appointment is the first major staffing decision …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Lornet Turnbull / Seattle Times:

State DOL cancels driver's license of ex-reporter in country illegally — The state of Washington has canceled the driver's license of a journalist who, in a New York Times Magazine article last month, revealed that for 14 years he kept a secret from his U.S. employers: He is an illegal immigrant.

Discussion: Poynter, The New York Observer, Washington Post and On Media's Blog

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Don't Hold Your Breath on That Apple Hulu Deal — If you stop by a Subaru dealer and end up kicking the tires on a new Outback, are you in early talks to consider a bid on a new Outback? — Well, sure. But if you drive off the lot and never come back, no one's going to be shocked.

Discussion: Electronista and Fortune, more at Techmeme »

Ian Sherr / Wall Street Journal:

Apple Explores Hulu Bid — Apple Inc. is in the early stages of examining Hulu LLC, a video-streaming pioneer that is being considered for sale by its owners. — Apple, which sits on $76.2 billion in cash and investments, is in the preliminary stages of looking at the site …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

‘The Daily’ Launches A New Version; Hopes For Assist From Spotify — Another News Corp (NSDQ: NWS). tabloid is making news today and this time it has nothing to do with Parliament or police. The Daily is out with a new edition that erases some of the biggest complaints about the iPad tab …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Future of Journalism

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Demand Media's Lawyers Go After Critical Blog as Stock Sags — There's something perversely flattering about having an entire website devoted to your supposed terribleness. But Demand Media is evidently not enjoying the attention from Demand Studios Sucks, a blog maintained by refugees …

Discussion: Demand Studios Sucks

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

News orgs: Post to Facebook at noon for peak engagement — After analyzing the keys to engagement on journalists' Facebook pages, the social network has analyzed the number of comments and likes on sampled news organization pages to determine best practices for engaging with readers.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and Facebook

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of U.S. media concentration — The rise and potential fall of Rupert Murdoch is a hell of a story. It is, though, closer to the Guardian's Simon Jenkins' description Tuesday, “not a Berlin Wall moment, just daft hysteria.” Facing only the meager competition of the slow …

Nitasha Tiku / Betabeat:

Khoi Vinh: Publishers Should Be Developing for the Mobile Web Instead of Making Replica Apps — Mr. Subtraction himself. — For this week's cover story about Condé Nast's struggle developing for the iPad, Betabeat had the opportunity to talk to Khoi Vinh, former Design Director for NYTimes.com.

Discussion: The Business Insider

David Kaplan / paidContent:
Condé Nast And Adobe Try To Get A Handle On Digital Mag Metrics

Discussion: Noted, MediaPost, Adweek, MinOnline, Folio, Future of Journalism and The New York Observer

Michael Miner / News & Features, Chicago Reader:

The elusive definition of “journalist” — News used to be dispensed by an identifiable priesthood. Welcome to the reformation. — What the hell is a journalist anyway, and why should we need to define one? A journalist, says one of my daughters, making me swallow hard, is someone you can believe is trying to tell you the truth.

Lois Beckett / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Instapaper, Read It Later, Byliner: Platform founders on the pageview economics of time-shifted reading — When Byliner.com launched last month, there was plenty of enthusiasm about their new “Pandora of narrative non-fiction” from fans of long-form journalism.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

CNN, Piers Morgan, and the Hacking Scandal — It would be rather ironic if Fox News enemy CNN turns out to have a hacking-scandal-by-association problem on its hands, brought on by News Corp.'s woes and CNN's decision to hire a former British tabloid editor to anchor an hour of primetime.

Discussion: Guy Fawkes' blog, Yahoo! News and Gawker

Maria Bustillos / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Marshall McLuhan, Superstar — Today would have been Marshall McLuhan's 100th birthday. Continuing our informal McLuhan Week at the Lab, we present this essay by Maria Bustillos on McLuhan's unique status as a media theorist who was also a media star. … The public intellectual was invented in the mid-20th century.

Discussion: Epicenter, CBC News, The New York Observer and Brain Pickings

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

NYT's Nisenholtz: 'We're Not Naive About Google' — A revealing bit of conversation at the end of the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) earnings call between an analyst, digital head Martin Nisenholtz and CEO Janet Robinson about Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and the About.com response to the change in search algorithms that hit About, among others.