Mediagazer: Traffic Report: Why pageviews and engagement are up at Latimes.com (Justin Ellis/Nieman Journalism Lab)

9:25 AM ET, August 17, 2011

Top News:

Meg James / Company Town:

Elisabeth Murdoch makes $214 million on Shine sale — Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth Murdoch collected $214 million from the sale of her British TV production company, Shine Group, to her father's media company earlier this year. — In April, News Corp. paid $675 million …

Discussion: Adweek

Wall Street Journal:

New Issues Emerge for News Corp. in Britain — LONDON—New evidence given to Parliament by former News Corp. executives and legal advisers undercut the company's account of phone hacking at its News of the World tabloid and contradicted News Corp.'s longstanding assertion that it had conducted a thorough internal investigation.

Discussion: Mixed Media, The Huffington Post, AllThingsD and Media News, Advertising …

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent: Hacking: James Murdoch Replies To Parliament; Yes, No, Maybe

Press Gazette:
MPs ‘likely’ to recall James Murdoch

Discussion: Guardian, ProPublica, Press Gazette, NetNewsCheck Latest, Telegraph, The New Yorker Blog, AlterNet.org, rbr.com, Media Week and paidContent

Todd Spangler / Multichannel News:

Fox Urges Pay-TV Subs To Agitate For ‘TV Everywhere’ Access — Dish Currently the Only Distributor Signed on For Authentication Program — Fox Broadcasting is encouraging pay-TV customers to demand that their providers participate in its “TV Everywhere” service, in a tactic reminiscent …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, GigaOM, MediaPost and DSLreports

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Fox Starts Its Web Pullback, and ABC Gets Ready to Follow

Discussion: digiday:DAILY, Online Video News, VideoNuze, Lost Remote, Betabeat, Electronista and Digital Media Wire, more at Techmeme », Thanks:beet_tv

Brent Lang / The Wrap:

New York Times Site Goes Down (Updated) — It now appears that the New York Times site is up and running again. — However, for nearly 40 minutes on Tuesday night, the Gray Lady's online home hit the mat. — The web page of the New York Times briefly appeared to be down, with a message reading “page not found.”

Discussion: Adweek, NetNewsCheck Latest, @nytimes, @michaelroston and AllThingsD

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:
Why would anyone pay to read The New York Times online?

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Top Digital Journal News

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

BBC News editor: We may use social media photos without permission ‘in exceptional situations’ — BBC News has been criticized recently for using, without photographers' permission, photos posted on social networks. In response to a complaint, someone from BBC News had wrongly contended …

Discussion: paidContent:UK and Online Journalism Blog

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

What's the Most Popular Channel on YouTube? — ComScore Measures Largest Channels; Music Brands Top the List — Viewers pining for MTV's early era of three-minute lip-synched dramatizations have long known to turn to that grand repository of all video: YouTube.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Medacity, Future of Journalism and The Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Traffic Report: Why pageviews and engagement are up at Latimes.com — Traffic is undeniably big news in L.A. (Carmageddon, anyone?), so it's only fitting that the Los Angeles Times, the city's paper of record, is racking up some fairly impressive traffic numbers of its own.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Future of Journalism, Company Town and Journalism.co.uk

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

Ooyala Now Powering ESPN's Billion-Plus Video Streams — Today, Mountain View-based Ooyala, the fast-growing online video services provider, is announcing that it has landed a big content partner: The so-called “worldwide leader in sports”, ESPN. Those avid sports fans among us may have noticed …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Beet.TV

Rosie Gray / Runnin' Scared:

Nikki Finke Reacts to Her Power Bachelorette Ranking — Nikki Finke Reacts To Power Bachelorette Ranking — 78-Square-Foot Apartment Dweller Tells Us Why — New York City Scratch-N-Sniff Book Will Happen — How to Use an Umbrella in New York City — Murdoch Pie-Thrower Blogging From Jail

The New York Observer:
The Free Agent List: 2011′s 50 Media Power Bachelorettes

Discussion: FishbowlDC, Runnin' Scared and FishbowlNY

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

BBC Worldwide agrees £121m magazine sell-off — Private equity firm Exponent to take over 34 titles including Top Gear, Radio Times and Gardeners' World — BBC Worldwide has agreed the sale of its magazine business, which publishes titles including Top Gear and Radio Times, for £121m.

Discussion: The First Post, Media Week, Canadian Magazines and Press Gazette

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

A Slow Start For Anderson Cooper At 8 P.M. — Anderson Cooper moved into the most important time slot on cable news, 8 p.m., last week. But he didn't receive a very warm reception from viewers. — In his first week, Mr. Cooper attracted fewer viewers than the man he replaced, Eliot Spitzer, whose program was canceled on July 6.

Discussion: TV Tattle, TVNewser and The Wire

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

The Classical Will Publish Post-Punk Sports Journalism...If We Kickstart Them — Logo, by Jacob Weinstein, coming to a chip clip near you. If you live in Brooklyn. — Yesterday a Kickstarter announced the arrival of The Classical, yet another daily web publication dedicated to the burgeoning world of alternative sportswriting.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:

Tech Media Obsessed With Deals & Rumors - Bring Back Ideas — Big ideas aren't prevalent anymore, posited academic and author Neal Gabler in a New York Times op-ed. “We are living in an increasingly post-idea world,” he wrote, “a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can't instantly …

Discussion: The New York Observer, more at Techmeme »

Cal Fussman / Esquire:

C.J. Chivers: What I've Learned — The 46-year-old war reporter on joining the Marines, sleeping at Ground Zero, and the meaning of military — Chivers in Afghanistan in December 2007, on assignment for The New York Times. He was one of the first reporters on the ground when the war began in 2001.

Discussion: Poynter