Mediagazer: Google News highlights unique content with Editors' Picks (Yogita Mehta/The Official Google Blog)

11:15 PM ET, August 4, 2011

Top News:

Yogita Mehta / The Official Google Blog:

Google News highlights unique content with Editors' Picks — (Cross-posted on the Google News Blog) — News organizations tell stories online in ways that bring together the best of traditional and digital journalism, whether that involves long-form investigative features …

Discussion: Search Engine Land and WebProNews

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Google News gets a new human touch, launching publisher-curated Editors' Picks as a standing section — When Google News launched in 2002, it did so with some declarations: “This page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors.” And: “No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this page.”

Discussion: @niemanlab, @marshallk and @gaberivera, more at Techmeme »

American Journalism Review:

A Welcome Change — After years of decline, the audience for network news jumps upward. Thurs. August 4, 2011 By Deborah Potter

Discussion: Poynter

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Media stocks drop more than the market as a whole — Stocks fell across the board Thursday in the worst day of trading since 2008. The drop was fueled by a global credit crisis and a weak U.S. economic recovery, with the expectation that Friday's jobs report will add to the worries.

Discussion: MarketBeat and Fox News

Gail Shister / TVNewser:

Rick Sanchez on Cable News: 'It's an ugly, nasty, vitriolic business' — CNN exile Rick Sanchez is not a big fan of cable news. — “It's an ugly, nasty, vitriolic business,” Sanchez, 53, says from his home in Atlanta. “Every day, it's a knife fight in an alley, and you don't walk away …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Random Pixels and Loose Talk, Riptide 2.0, All Things CNN and Poynter

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

9 reasons newspapers are suddenly asking print subscribers to pay for full Web access — After years of searching for a workable paid digital content model, a wave of small and mid-sized newspapers have all hit on the same solution: Ask print subscribers to pay just a little more to get full website access.

John Higginson / Metro.co.uk:

Guardian journalist: Phone hacking gave me a ‘thrill’ — A Guardian executive admitted hacking telephone messages - and getting a ‘voyeuristic thrill’ from it. — Assistant editor David Leigh said he intercepted voicemails in an article written in December 2006 in order to investigate …

Discussion: New York Magazine and Runnin' Scared

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of ARPU — 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. — We've seen lots of consternation over numbers recently.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Warner Bros. Pulls Back the Curtain on Flixster Collections, Its Ambitious Digital Video Bet — Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes spent a lot of yesterday's earnings call discussing the company's future in digital video. Here's one of his focal points: Flixster Collections …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat and Mashable!, more at Techmeme »

Bloomberg:

Murdoch's Cleanup Effort Draws Criticism — News Corp. (NWSA)'s Rupert Murdoch told British lawmakers he's the “best person” to clean up the company after a phone-hacking scandal. Fifteen days later, it isn't clear how he'll accomplish that. — The committee the New York-based media company set …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

The Atlantic Launches a Video Aggregator With a Twist — The Atlantic, which added a photo section to its brainy Web site earlier this year, has taken the next logical step: A digital nook dedicated to moving pictures. — The site's new section joins many other sites' video verticals which bring you clips from around the Web.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Jerry Barmash / FishbowlNY:

Former Longtime WNBC Anchor Carol Jenkins Says TV News Industry Going ‘Right Direction’ for Women, Blacks — Carol Jenkins was a top-notch broadcast journalist for several decades in New York. She is most remembered for her nearly quarter-century at WNBC as an anchor and reporter.

Discussion: womensmediacenter.com and TVSpy

Keach Hagey / On Media's Blog:

Fox Business launches series on Media Matters — The Fox News fight against Media Matters is now being taken up by its cousin, Fox Business. — Fox Business published a 2,500-word investigation into the legitimacy of Media Matters' tax-exempt status yesterday, promising it was the first in a three-part series.

Discussion: FoxBusiness.com and Big Journalism

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Digitas Jordan Bitterman: ROI for Online Video Advertising is Double Television's — While advertisers and ad networks are driving online video ad rates “to the floor,” the lower prices are making the media more efficient, providing a return on investment of 3 to 5X for digital video versus 2X …

Thanks:daisywhitney