Mediagazer: Who is investor Randall Smith and why is he buying up newspaper companies? (Rick Edmonds/Poynter)

4:10 PM ET, July 27, 2011

Top News:

Fox TV Shows Get Pay Wall — Broadcaster to Delay Online Viewing for Eight Days Except for Subscribers — Fox Broadcasting plans to make its recently-aired TV episodes available on the Web only to paying subscribers, a new step as major broadcast TV networks consider reining in free Web offerings …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Fox Kicks Off the Great Web Video Piracy Boom of 2011 — It's perfectly logical for the TV networks to try to lock up their shows online. — Except for the part about it not working. — On Aug. 15, Fox will stop distributing its shows on Hulu and Fox.com a day after they air …

Discussion: Ars Technica, MediaPost, The Business Insider, Home Media Magazine, Company Town, The Consumerist, Betabeat and mediabistro.com

J-Lab:

2011 Knight-Batten Award Winners — Storify Wins $10,000 Knight-Batten Award — Data, Open-Source, Social Media Projects Prevail — Washington, D.C. - Storify, the social media publishing platform that lets users create stories by dragging and dropping elements from such social networks as Twitter …

Discussion: Poynter, Lost Remote, New Haven Independent and FishbowlLA

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes.com:

That Piers Morgan Smoking Gun? Not So Smoky. — Earlier, I reported the claim of British blogger Paul Staines, a/k/a Guido Fawkes, to be in possession of a recording that supposedly showed CNN host Piers Morgan was lying when he denied ever authorizing or countenancing illegal phone hacking as editor of the Daily Mirror.

Discussion: Telegraph, TVNewser, On Media's Blog, The New York Observer, Adweek, Salon, http://www.Stinkyjournalism … and Mediaite

Telegraph:

CNN's Piers Morgan ‘told interviewer stories were published based on phone tapping’ — Piers Morgan, the CNN broadcaster, has said that newspaper articles based on the findings of people paid to tap phones and rake through bins were published during his time as a tabloid newspaper editor, it can be disclosed.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Daily Beast, Gawker, The Daily Dish, National Review, The Wire, msnbc.com, HyperVocal, Erik Wemple, The First Post, The Huffington Post, Liberal Conspiracy and Future of Journalism

Jane Martinson / Guardian:

James Murdoch likely to remain BSkyB head after winning key backer — Sky deputy chairman Nicholas Ferguson understood to have given his backing after ‘long conversation’ in private meeting — James Murdoch is likely to remain chairman of satellite company BSkyB after winning the support …

Discussion: Deadline.com, The Wrap, New York Times, Adweek, Company Town, The Forum and Media News, Advertising …

New York Post:

Afghan book by Rolling Stone's Hastings goes MIA — Little, Brown has apparently canceled a much-anticipated book about the war in Afghanistan by Michael Hastings, based on “The Runaway General,” last summer's explosive Rolling Stone article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Discussion: Adweek, Mediaite, FishbowlNY, The New York Observer and New York Magazine

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Who is investor Randall Smith and why is he buying up newspaper companies? — Even in the close-mouthed world of hedge fund investment, Randall Smith, the principal of Alden Global Capital, gives new meaning to the euphemism “low profile.” — Smith's Alden bought out fellow hedge funds earlier …

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

The Remains of The Daily — One News Corp. property that has flown under the radar throughout company's recent melodramas is The Daily—the tablet newspaper launched to great fanfare in the basement of the Guggenheim in February. — Nobody thinks the staff at the iPad app is doing any phone-hacking.

Discussion: MediaFile, Poynter and Press Gazette

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Staff Recommends turns book suggestions and advertorials into a potential business model — For many journalists there's something halting to the phrase, let alone the idea, of an “advertorial publication.” After all, advertorials are something of a boogeyman (but a boogeyman with a checkbook …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

David Kaplan / paidContent:

IAC's Diller: Daily Beast/Newsweek Losses Are More Than Tolerable — IAC's media businesses—The Daily Beast/Newsweek, digital entertainment studio Electus and video site College Humor—don't often get a lot of attention during the company's earnings calls, since they're fairly small compared …

Sue Fondrie / bulwer-lytton.com:

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2011 Results — Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories. — Oshkosh, WI — The winner of the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is Sue Fondrie …

Discussion: Guardian, GalleyCat and Omnivoracious

Azi Paybarah / PolitickerNY:

Rupert's Post Game: His Royal Pie-ness Story on Page SShhh — LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 12: Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive officer of News Corp., is driven from his apartment on July 12, 2011 in London, England. Allegations emerged yesterday that private investigators working for The Sun …

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

If your news site isn't social, great design won't matter — There's been a lot of sound and fury in the media sphere recently, sparked by a blog post from web designer Andy Rutledge that tore apart the New York Times website for being ugly and cluttered. This caused a firestorm of sorts on Twitter …