Mediagazer: Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2011 Results (Sue Fondrie/bulwer-lytton.com)

6:45 AM ET, July 27, 2011

Top News:

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: Forbes.com, msnbc.com, The Huffington Post, The First Post, Future of Journalism and Liberal Conspiracy

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes.com:

Claim: Smoking Gun Recording Links Piers Morgan to Hacking — CNN host Piers Morgan was editor of a British tabloid, the Daily Mirror, at a time when many British tabloid reporters were committing illegal hacking of voicemails. Morgan has vociferously denied personal involvement in or knowledge …

Discussion: The Wire, BBC, Telegraph, Salon, Adweek, Mediaite, http://www.Stinkyjournalism …, The Wrap, The Huffington Post, Financial Times, The Nation and New York Times

The Brads:

The Brads - This is Why Your Newspaper is Dying — Quick note: The first panel is taken from the Denver Post, not the New York Times. I didn't notice the byline in there. The story's author actually does a very good job of linking out to other sites

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Designing a big news site is about more than beauty — It appears to be Pick On News Web Designers Day today. This comic — poking at news sites' unwillingness to link, misuse of thumbnails, and addictions to share buttons, among other things — made the rounds of Twitter, to the point of crashing cartoonist Brad Colbow's site.

Discussion: stdout.be and The Wall Blog

Martin Belam / currybetdotnet:
4 key pieces of audience engagement missing from Andy Rutledge's news redux

Discussion: 10,000 Words, blogs.journalism.co.uk, GigaOM and The Business Insider

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

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 …

Discussion: GigaOM, Broadcasting & Cable, paidContent, Company Town, New York Times, Lost Remote and TVbytheNumbers, more at Techmeme »

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

Jon Lafayette / Broadcasting & Cable:

Comcast, NBCU Bring Dynamic Ads to VOD — Kraft, Chrysler are initial sponsors — In a bit of synergy between its cable business and its networks, Comcast and NBCUniversal say they are working together to use dynamic ad insertion in On Demand programming.

Discussion: Multichannel News, MediaPost, rbr.com and The Wrap, Thanks:beet_tv

Adrian Chen / Gawker:

Tech News Is So Phenomenally Boring — You never read tech news, do you? Good. Somehow, the story of the accidental early release of a Facebook iPad app everyone was expecting is threatening to turn into a week-long saga. Make it stop! This is the most boring s**t ever.

Discussion: parislemon, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, Telegraph, PC World, Scripting News, TechCrunch, Betabeat, All Facebook, Techi.com, @alexia, The Business Insider, 9to5Mac, Forbes.com and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

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: Press Gazette

Tim Johnson / McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Crime reporter believed probing boss's death killed in Mexico — MEXICO CITY — A Mexican crime reporter said to have been looking into the recent execution slaying of her editor was found dead Tuesday. — The body of Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz was dumped on a street in the city of Veracruz …

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

NewsTrust dives into the fact-check business with expanded Truthsquad — Just in time for the 2012 elections, the cottage industry of media fact-checking is ramping up. That latest addition is Truthsquad, which began last year as a pilot project of NewsTrust.

Discussion: Future Journalism Project

Huffington Post Canada:

The Me Media … What makes the new media interesting? — For some, it's the many new voices who can now find an audience. Whether it's a blog, podcast or Twitter feed, the new media is less about the consumption of content and aimed much closer to the reality that anyone who has something …

Discussion: Chris Houchens

David Kaplan / paidContent:

About.com Vet Darline Jean Promoted To CEO; Will Report To Nisenholtz — The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) is making some personnel shifts at its About Group unit once again with the promotion of CFO Darline Jean to CEO. In addition, About is also making some adjustments to its executive sales team.

Discussion: Media Decoder

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Read It Later Raises $2.5 Million, Wants To Become The Dropbox Of Content — Read It Later, the popular service that lets you bookmark a webpage and access it later from any smartphone, computer, or tablet, has raised a $2.5 million funding round. The round marks the company's first external funding …

Discussion: GigaOM and AllThingsD

Damien McCrystal / Guardian:

Phone hacking: the case for the defence — Celebrities encourage intrusion, and we have a right to know about anything that affects politicians' ability to do their jobs — The most extraordinary thing about the News International crisis is the way in which it has caused the British national media …

Discussion: Guardian, Erik Wemple, Jon Slattery and themediablog.typepad.com