Mediagazer: Revenge of the TV Buyers (Mike Shields/digiday:DAILY)

1:05 PM ET, August 18, 2011

Top News:

Amelia Hill / Guardian:

First US-based NoW reporter is arrested — James Desborough is arrested by London police investigating UK hacking allegations — James Desborough, an award-winning reporter at the former News of the World newspaper, has been arrested by officers investigating the phone-hacking scandal.

Discussion: New York Times, Adweek, Broadcasting & Cable, The Wire, New York Magazine, Deadline.com, The First Post, The New Yorker Blog and Gawker

Verne G. Kopytoff / New York Times:

That Remake of AOL? It's Still Being Written — SAN FRANCISCO — AOL hit a hard bump on its road to becoming a digital media company. — Last week it reported another loss and told Wall Street analysts it was not going to get much better: operating income for the year could be down as much as 20 percent because of weaker ad sales.

Discussion: Media Nation and The New York Observer

Bloomberg:

AOL Discounted Gets Last, Best Hope in Private Equity — For a private equity firm that's looking for the cheapest way to get online, AOL Inc. (AOL) is trading for 57 cents on the dollar. — The Internet pioneer spun off from Time Warner Inc. (TWX) in 2009 plunged to a record low last week …

Discussion: Betabeat and The Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Michael A. Memoli / Los Angeles Times:

In China, reporters covering Biden get the heave-ho — Only minutes into the vice president's remarks, Chinese officials began directing journalists toward the exits. Soon the shooing became shoving. — Reporting from Beijing— Vice President Joe Biden's famously loquacious style …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, TPMDC and The New Yorker Blog

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Memo to newspapers: The future of media is a two-way street — Plenty of newspapers and other mainstream media entities are happy to use social tools like Twitter and Facebook to promote their content, host comments on their news stories in order to build traffic, and otherwise try and take advantage of the web.

Discussion: mediabistro.com and JackLail.com, Thanks:mathewi

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:

A life unravelled ... whistleblower who incurred wrath of the Murdoch empire — Relentless legal pursuit of ex-News Corp employee likened to ‘Rambo tactics’ — Five years ago Robert Emmel was enjoying the American dream. He lived in a detached house in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia …

Discussion: Company Town

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Questions Surround Hulu Auction … With first bids for online video provider Hulu believed to be due late this week, there is a slew of open questions about the auction. — Among them: Will Google bid for the joint venture now that it has already agreed to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in its biggest deal ever?

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of what to read next — 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'd all like to know what comes next. That can be a spiritual quest …

Mike Shields / digiday:DAILY:

Revenge of the TV Buyers — Free TV on the Web seems increasingly doomed, as the broadcast networks are rapidly taking back control of their online content distribution. Meanwhile, Nielsen is pushing TV-like measurement for Web campaigns. Soon, many believe, TV networks will be able …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb

David Hiltbrand / Sacramento Bee:

CNN anchor Don Lemon: Talented, imperious, scarred, publicly out — PHILADELPHIA - Want a yardstick for how far into the post-ironic era we have drifted? — This summer, TV newsman Don Lemon published a memoir, “Transparent,” in which he came out as gay and talked about being sexually abused as a boy.

Discussion: Inside Cable News

Zeke Turner / WWD:

Times Magazine Hires Jon Kelly — Photo By CLINT SPAULDING/PatrickMcMullan.com … New York Times Sunday Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren has hired Jon Kelly away from Bloomberg Businessweek. — Kelly, 29, will run the front of the Sunday Magazine and Greg Veis will become politics editor.

Discussion: The New York Observer

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

YouTube, music publishers settle copyright beef — A group of music publishers that joined a class action lawsuit filed against YouTube in 2007 have reached a settlement with Google's video-sharing site. — David Israelite, CEO of the National Music Publishers Association, in a photo taken earlier this summer

Discussion: paidContent, YouTube Blog, Techland and Electronista

David W. Chen / New York Times:

Discrimination Suit Against Bloomberg L.P. Is Rejected — In a major victory for Bloomberg L.P., the financial and media services giant founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a federal judge has dismissed claims that the company engaged in a pattern of discrimination against pregnant women who took maternity leaves.

Discussion: City Room, TPMDC, Gawker, On Media's Blog, SAI and New York Magazine