Mediagazer: James Murdoch Turns Down $6 Million Bonus, Citing PhoneGate (Peter Kafka/AllThingsD)

1:50 AM ET, September 3, 2011

Top News:

Paul Carr / TechCrunch:

The CrunchFund: Actually, Tim, We Don't All Have “Different” Standards — Yesterday afternoon, Mike Arrington and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong announced the launch of “the CrunchFund”, a venture fund that will — according to the New York Times — “invest in start-ups, including some that [Arrington] and his staff write about”.

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, Tweetage Wasteland, The Snitch, MediaFile, ReadWriteWeb, Forbes, Venture Capital Dispatch, The Next Web, FT Tech Hub, New York Times and PC Magazine, more at Techmeme »

Dan Primack / Fortune:

CrunchFund confusion — If Michael Arrington is leaving TechCrunch, what does that mean for the investors in CrunchFund? — Yesterday we were first to report that tech blogger Michael Arrington has launched a $20 million venture capital fund, which is being backed by AOL (AOL) and a group of Silicon Valley's top VC firms.

Discussion: The Business Insider, The Business Insider, Poynter, Venture Capital Dispatch, @eldon, Future Journalism Project, Adweek, @jayrosen_nyu, Fast Company, Felix Salmon, broadstuff, New York Magazine and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

SAI:

AOL SPOKESMAN: Mike Arrington Is No Longer Employed By This Company* — Update: WAIT! Now AOL Says Mike Arrington Is Still An Employee - In The Business Development Division — Earlier: TechCrunch founder and editor Michael Arrington is “not employed by AOL” anymore, AOL Huffington Post spokesperson Mario Ruiz tells us.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Mike Arrington, AOL Employee, Won't Have “Influence on Coverage,” Says AOL

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

Dave Winer / Scripting News:
Arrington is the future of what we used to call journalism

Discussion: GigaOM, VatorNews, Mark Evans Tech, Anil Dash and Adweek, more at Techmeme »

SAI: AOL Left Arianna Huffington In The Dark About Arrington's Controversial VC Fund

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch receives $12.5m bonus — News Corp chief's total pay package soars 47% to $33m, though his son James has declined $6m bonus — Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, received a $12.5m (£7.7m) cash bonus for the last financial year …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Hollywood Reporter, rbr.com, Media & Entertainment, Multichannel, New York Magazine, Adweek, Runnin' Scared, Broadcasting & Cable, FishbowlNY, Media News, Advertising … and Media Law Prof Blog

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

James Murdoch Turns Down $6 Million Bonus, Citing PhoneGate — News Corp. executive James Murdoch says he'll decline a $6 million bonus the company gave him for his performance in its last fiscal year, citing the ongoing PhoneGate scandal. — Murdoch, who is Deputy Chief Operating Officer …

Discussion: rbr.com

Joel Gunter / Journalism.co.uk:

Phone hacking: 34-year-old man arrested — Unnamed man arrested by officers from the Met police's Operation Weeting team in connection with phone hacking and perverting the course of justice — Today's arrest is the 15th by the Met police's Operation Weeting phone hacking investigation

Discussion: Guardian and Press Gazette

James Cusick / The Independent: Gordon Brown issues challenge over Sunday Times recordings

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Jim Breyer Joins News Corp. Board as Tom Perkins Departs

Discussion: paidContent, AllThingsD, Adweek, Forbes, FishbowlNY, Globe and Mail, TechCrunch and Deadline.com

Reuters:
Insight: Murdoch's tough guy Carlucci under pressure

Discussion: The Slog, Crikey, Stop Big Media News and Business Week

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Introducing Journo Ipsum, for all your nonsense-about-the-future-of- news textual needs — Anyone who's spent much time hanging around the publishing or design worlds knows about lorem ipsum, the classic Latin placeholder text used to dummy up prose filler in a layout.

Discussion: 10,000 Words and The Digital Reader

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:

Who gets Starz digital rights now? Probably no one — Starz dropped a bomb on Netflix Thursday, announcing to the world that it was ending negotiations for a renewal of their deal and pulling its content from the streaming service next March. That's led many to speculate about who might pick up those rights when they lapse.

Discussion: Company Town, Digits, Techland, Future of Journalism, Wall Street Journal and The Wire

Tim Carmody / Epicenter:
How the Starz-Netflix Divorce Will Remake Video

Discussion: The Next Web, GigaOM and Between the Lines Blog, more at Techmeme », Thanks:tcarmody

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Social media editor role expands to include fighting misinformation during breaking news — The buzzwords for social media editors at news outlets are conversation, curation and collaboration. But when using Twitter and its ilk to collect and disseminate news in real-time, another word is becoming just as important: corroboration.

Kevin Roderick / LA Observed:

Forced vacation use ordered at L.A. Times — More cost cutting: the same week that parent Tribune asked the bankruptcy judge to approve bonuses for 640 managers, Los Angeles Times employees received an email saying they will not accrue vacation for the rest of 2011.

Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:

Online video finally chipping away at broadcast TV — A quarter of people in countries with access to high-speed broadband are streaming video to their TV, although more than 80 percent still watch broadcast television as well. But that's slowly beginning to change: According to survey data …

more at Techmeme »

Amy Chozick / Wall Street Journal:

Hollywood's TV Factory — A surprising number of TV's most popular shows, from CBS's ‘The Big Bang Theory’ to NBC's ‘The Voice,’ come from one source. Backstage at the busiest studio in America. — “Casablanca” was shot at the Warner Bros. studio lot here, as were “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Million Dollar Baby.”

Discussion: Company Town and Stop Big Media News

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:UK:

Digital-First Guardian Cuts Down MediaGuardian, Two Other Print Supplements — More developments on the theme of printed newspapers going digital first. The Guardian has announced that the MediaGuardian, plus two other weekly supplements on education and society, will cease to be a standalone printed supplements after next week.

Discussion: Media News, Advertising … and Press Gazette

Ben Popper / Betabeat:

The Legal Risks of Rich Tong's Tumblr Fashion Week Proposal — Yesterday Betabeat broke the news that Tumblr fashion director Rich Tong was hoping to get big brands to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for product placement and branded content from Tumblr's “select bloggers”.

Discussion: The Corsair