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

12:15 PM ET, July 28, 2011

Top News:

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: FishbowlNY and The Business Insider

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: Poynter, FishbowlNY and The Business Insider

Guardian:

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

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Wall Street Journal:

U.K. Tabloid's Lawyer Had a Ringside Seat — LONDON—Tom Crone had insight into how the dirt was dug—and defended—at the News of the World, the now-closed tabloid at the center of the U.K. phone-hacking scandal. — Now he may be on a collision course with James Murdoch, the deputy chief operating officer of News Corp.

Discussion: The New York Observer

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

David Gelles / Financial Times: Friend of the Murdochs to lead internal probe into NoW

Nielsen Wire:

What Netflix and Hulu Users are Watching... and How — Streaming video online is on the rise in the U.S., and how consumers tune in differs greatly across services. According to a recent Nielsen survey, the majority of Netflix users report watching on a TV screen.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, GigaOM, Free Press, CNET News, Mobile Entertainment, SocialTimes.com, Engadget, ITProPortal, TVbytheNumbers, Mashable!, Future of Journalism, Electronista, Gizmodo, Broadcasting & Cable, Home Media Magazine and msnbc.com

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: mediabistro.com, CNET News, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, Broadcasting & Cable, GigaOM and AllThingsD, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Netflix Is for Movies, Hulu Is for TV Shows. Neither Is for Your iPad or Your iPhone. — Lots of you are using your phones to watch YouTube. But Netflix and Hulu? Not so much. — That's one of the takeaways from a new Nielsen report about viewing habits on the two online video services.

Discussion: MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

Ben Fenton / Financial Times:

BSkyB directors back James Murdoch — James Murdoch has won the unanimous support of BSkyB directors to remain as chairman, a person familiar with the situation said on Thursday. — He will remain chairman of the satellite broadcaster for the foreseeable future, directors decided …

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, Crikey and On Media's Blog

Wall Street Journal:
BSkyB Likely to Buy Back Shares

Discussion: Guardian

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

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: The Next Web, MacRumors, Beet.TV, SocialTimes.com, ITProPortal, Mobile Entertainment, 9to5Mac, MacStories, Crikey, Future of Journalism and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

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, Mediaite, New York Magazine, New York Times and Journalism.co.uk

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Jon Stewart Points Out the Downside of TV's Twitter-Love — Excellent twofer from “The Daily Show” last night: Deflating Twitter and TV news in one three-minute segment. — The Daily Show — Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Wire, NetNewsCheck Latest and TechCrunch

Justin D. Martin / CJR:

Apparently, Global News Orgs Don't Commit Online Errors — Is that why so many of them lack coherent corrections policies? — Far too many modern news organizations do not have public corrections policies or prominent corrections pages, something that has been well-stated at CJR.

Discussion: Regret the Error and FishbowlLA

Zev Chafets / New York Times:

Stinger: James O'Keefe's Greatest Hits — The temperature was hovering near 90 degrees on the afternoon of Memorial Day when James O'Keefe III emerged from the woods and ambled over to my car. He was tall and thin, with pale skin and matted reddish hair. When his mug shot ran in the papers …

Discussion: Poynter, Mediaite, Big Journalism and The Awl

Ari Melber / The Nation:

Media Blows Debt Crisis Coverage With Balance Bias — 1. The assumption that there is truth and legitimacy to both sides of every dispute. — 2. The iron law in political journalism that one side in a debate can never be exclusively right, or have a monopoly on the facts. —

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, Future of Journalism, TPMDC and Daily Kos