Mediagazer: LA Times Layoffs Due To Movie Ad Falloffs (Nikki Finke/Deadline.com)

6:10 PM ET, July 28, 2011

Top News:

News of the World targeted phone of Sarah Payne's mother — Evidence found in private detective's notes believed to relate to phone Rebekah Brooks gave to Sara Payne — Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard …

Discussion: Salon, Poynter, New York Times, The Lede, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Gawker, The Daily Beast, msnbc.com, NetNewsCheck Latest, Adweek, The Huffington Post, Press Gazette, The Wire and Financial Times

Wall Street Journal:
U.K. Tabloid's Lawyer Had a Ringside Seat

Discussion: The New York Observer

Ian Katz / Guardian: The Coulson affair: Guardian questions to Downing Street

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Here's What Steve Forbes Is Telling His Staff About That Brutal Fortune Article — Fortune depantsed longtime rival Forbes today with a story detailing the business magazine's finances, which have been terrible. — Don't worry about it, Forbes chairman Steve Forbes tells his staff, via an internal memo which you can read below.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, New York Magazine, The Business Insider and FishbowlNY

Katie Benner / Fortune:

The Forbes family's big deal causes big trouble — After default, emergency restructuring was needed to satisfy lenders. — Malcolm's sons (from left): Timothy, Christopher, Robert, and Steve in 1993 — FORTUNE — The Forbes family has poked itself in the eye with its “capitalist tool.”

Discussion: The Business Insider, Poynter, Adweek, FishbowlNY, Mr NYC and The Huffington Post

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of Netflix and the digital shift — Editor's Note: Each week, Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of news for the Lab. — Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says he is surprised that customers …

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Can news publishers learn anything from Netflix? — Users of Netflix's digital movie-rental service have been up in arms about a sudden change to the company's pricing plans, which appears to be aimed at reducing demand for its DVD-by-mail service by jacking up prices.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Thanks:bradfordcross

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Why The Atlantic joined up with Pulse — and what the app's usage stats can tell data-hungry publishers — Just last week Pulse struck a new partnership agreement, adding The Atlantic, The Atlantic Wire, and The National Journal to its list of featured content providers.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, NetNewsCheck Latest and Cision

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

A defense of charging more for Web TV (Q&A) — So apparently we were just kidding ourselves and the Internet really isn't going to send us to some digital TV Shangri-La, where all the content was free of charge, available at our fingertips, and killed commercial breaks.

Discussion: CNET News, TorrentFreak, mediabistro.com, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, GigaOM and AllThingsD

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Netflix Is for Movies, Hulu Is for TV Shows. Neither Is for Your iPad or Your iPhone.

Discussion: Media Maverick and MediaPost

Nielsen Wire:
What Netflix and Hulu Users are Watching... and How

Jane Martinson / Guardian:

James Murdoch back to chair BSkyB board meeting — Broadcaster claims ‘back to business as usual’ but pressure continues to mount on James Murdoch — James Murdoch will on Thursday chair a full board meeting of BSkyB for the first time since his family firm dropped its bid for full control of the satellite business.

Discussion: CJR, Company Town, Media News, Advertising …, Crikey and On Media's Blog

Ben Fenton / Financial Times: BSkyB directors back James Murdoch

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:

Anatomy of a Twitter rumor: When a story's too juicy not to retweet — The latest example of ‘think before you retweet’ emerged today when a false rumor spread like wildfire that British journalist and TV presenter Piers Morgan had been suspended from his position as a CNN talkshow host.

Discussion: Felix, Adweek, The New York Observer, New York Magazine, Guardian, Poynter, Lost Remote, American Journalism Review, AdAge and Kirk LaPointe's …

Lens:

Back in Action and Back on Page 1 — “He will be missed until — as I have no doubt he will — he returns to action, cameras blazing.” — Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, offered this brave prognosis to the staff in October, hours after the photographer Joao Silva lost …

Discussion: Poynter, Journalism.co.uk, Mediaite, New York Times and New York Magazine

Nikki Finke / Deadline.com:

LA Times Layoffs Due To Movie Ad Falloffs — The Los Angeles Times began another round of buyouts and layoffs extending into August. And all because of what internal sources say is a dramatic shortfall in movie advertising revenue. “Film advertising is down -25% under the projections for this time of year.

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Newsbeat debuts as robust, real-time Web analytics tool for news publishers — The people behind the popular realtime analytics tool Chartbeat launched a new version today specifically designed for news publishers, called Newsbeat. It is a more powerful tool for understanding your Web traffic, but also comes at a higher cost.

Discussion: 10,000 Words, Future of Journalism, TechCrunch and VentureBeat

Philip Bump / Mediaite:

The New Yorker Goes Digital - But Leaves Its Iconic Covers Behind — An issue of the New Yorker may be long and densely packed, but at least one only comes every seven days. It's possible that the incarcerated manage to read every issue. I am skeptical of anyone else who makes that claim.

Discussion: Poynter

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

BBC iPlayer goes global with iPad app launch in 11 countries — Western Europe first for subscription-based service, with US to follow later in 2011 — BBC Worldwide is launching its global iPlayer service on Thursday, via an iPad app that will be made available in 11 countries in Western Europe.

Discussion: VentureBeat, MediaPost, The Next Web, PC Magazine, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, SocialTimes.com, ITProPortal, Mobile Entertainment, MacStories, Crikey, Gizmodo and Future of Journalism

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Sharpton's Push for Comcast Raises Issues About Possible MSNBC Job — Last year, Comcast was lining up the Rev. Al Sharpton to lobby for its bid for NBCUniversal. This year, the cable news channel owned by NBCUniversal, MSNBC, is weighing whether to make him a daily television host.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Company Town, Poynter, On Media's Blog, Free Press and Inside Cable News

Peter Horrocks / BBC:

BBC stringer killed in Afghanistan — This morning we received the extremely sad news that the BBC's stringer in Oruzgan province in Afghanistan, Ahmed Omed Khpulwak, had been killed. He died in the city of Tarin Kowt during a prolonged assault involving suicide attackers.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, BBC, TVNewser and Guardian

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

6 ways Twitter has made me a better writer — It's been almost four years since I first set up my Twitter account. I joined in August 2007 as part of a story I was writing about the implications Twitter could have for journalism. — “I never thought I'd be a Twitterer who twittered tweets” was my lead.