Mediagazer: Media stocks drop more than the market as a whole (Julie Moos/Poynter)

2:55 AM ET, August 5, 2011

Top News:

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: Future of Journalism, @niemanlab, @marshallk and @gaberivera, more at Techmeme »

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

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

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Daily Beast-Newsweek Traffic Is Down 24 Percent From Last Year — Barry Diller is sanguine about the future of the merged Newsweek/Daily Beast news entity, even though he expects it to lose $50 million before crossing over into the black. “In a year, year-and-a-half or so …

Discussion: The New York Observer

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

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

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:

DirecTV CEO downplays interest in Hulu — One more potential Hulu acquirer has thrown its hat in the ring, with DirecTV admitting it has joined Apple, Yahoo, Google, Verizon, AT&T and Amazon in taking a look at the online video site's financials. But while it's an interesting opportunity …

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

The New York Observer Will Switch From Tabloid to Broadsheet — Beginning August 24, The New York Observer will be printed in a mini-broadsheet format, Observer Media Group president Christopher Barnes announced today. — The mini-broadsheet is a shorter, narrower version of the traditional broadsheet …

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.

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, Poynter and All Things CNN

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.

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:

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 …