Mediagazer: Can AOL and Yahoo Come Back to Life? (Peter Burrows/Business Week)

4:30 PM ET, September 16, 2011

Top News:

David Leigh / Guardian:

Met seek court order to reveal Guardian's phone-hacking sources — Unprecedented move sees Scotland Yard use the Official Secrets Act to demand the paper hands over information — The Metropolitan police are seeking a court order under the Official Secrets Act to make Guardian reporters disclose …

Discussion: CJR, Gawker, Adweek, The Huffington Post, Jon Slattery and @louisemensch

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

It's Called Google Propeller and It's Aimed at Flipboard (and Facebook, Too, Natch) — Please see this disclosure related to me and Google. — Earlier today, well-known digerati dude Robert Scoble posted on his social feed on Google+ that the search giant was working on a social and news reader.

Discussion: Poynter, MediaPost, Future of Journalism, PC Magazine, Mashable!, VentureBeat, SplatF, This is my next, Softpedia News, eMedia Vitals, Robert Scoble, CNET News, App Advice, Electronista, CyberJournalist.net and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

NYT's Jill Abramson is flunking Twitter — Commentary: The new editor is sly, confident and self-effacing — NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Jill Abramson, the new executive editor of the New York Times, has a confession to make. Apparently, she is flunking Twitter 101.

Discussion: Poynter and Future of Journalism

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York: The 'Times" new editor spends an evening among the oxpeckers

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

@ pcAds: Hearst Wants Tablet Magazines To Adopt Movie, TV Pricing — New device opportunities should allow Hearst to drive its digital revenue model away from advertising reliance, and toward 50/50 equivalence with readers' payments, the publisher's president, David Carey, told the paidContent Advertising conference.

Discussion: Folio, mocoNews, eMedia Vitals, newsplexer and paidContent:UK

Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:

New York Times: iPhone announcement in weeks. Yes, we have more. — We passed up the New York Times iPhone story earlier because it didn't really contain any new product information. We've been hearing early October for awhile now in terms of when the iPhone gets released.

Knight Foundation:

Twitter, Facebook and Co. - good for teens and the First Amendment? — As social media's popularity grows, so does First Amendment appreciation - yet many teachers don't believe social media help students learn — Media Advisory: Virtual press conference will take place at noon, EST, Sept. 16.

Discussion: Poynter

Economist:

Unethical journalism: The depressing tale of Johann Hari — READERS of the Independent were in for a surprise this morning: a lengthy apology from that newspaper's star columnist Johann Hari, admitting to plagiarism and the online harrassment of rival journalists (via pseudonymous assaults …

Discussion: Editors Weblog and The New York Observer

Duff Wilson / New York Times:

Journalists Protest Withdrawal of a U.S. Doctor Database — Three journalism organizations on Thursday protested a decision by the Obama administration to remove a database of physician discipline and malpractice actions from the Web. — The National Practitioner Data Bank, created in 1986 …

Discussion: IRE and ZDNet

Peter Burrows / Business Week:

Can AOL and Yahoo Come Back to Life? — When Web companies stumble, as Yahoo and AOL have, they almost never recover — Shortly after the news broke that Yahoo! had ousted Chief Executive Carol Bartz on Sept. 6, Tim Armstrong's phone began ringing. According to people with knowledge …

Jason Fry / Poynter:

Rules of the game change as sports journalists compete against teams they cover — In September of 2009, when I started writing a weekly column about digital sportswriting for Indiana University's National Sports Journalism Center, I figured one of my major themes would be the fraught relationship between …

Discussion: Company Town and Washington Post

Michael Calderone / Huffington Post:

Reuters Raises Profile With Marquee Hires, Editor Aims To Become ‘Best In The World’ … NEW YORK — What is Reuters? Forty-two percent of Americans polled in May correctly identified Reuters as a global news agency. However, 22 percent had other ideas: London investment bank, New Jersey college, German airline, fast food chain.

Discussion: mediabistro.com, IJNet and Talking Biz News

Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:

Google Is Secretly Spending Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars Turning YouTube Into A Cable Alternative — Now we know what Google's “big ass ideas” for YouTube, Web TV, and (maybe) Hulu are: build an alternative to cable. — Last spring, news broke that Google would spend $100 million loading YouTube up with original content.

Discussion: Softpedia News, Felix Salmon and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

D.M. Levine / Adweek:

Vice Talks Porn But Delivers News at Upfront Also announces new HBO series to premiere next fall By D.M. Levine — “We're about to do the weirdest upfront ever,” Vice magazine CEO and co-founder Shane Smith told a loud audience of hundreds the hip and would-be hip last night …

Discussion: rbr.com, TVNewser and VICE

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Digits:

Arrington Talks New Blog (and How He ALMOST Stayed at AOL) — Michael Arrington is returning to the blogosphere. — The blogger, who is leaving AOL and TechCrunch over a fight over his new venture capital fund, said in an interview that he plans to start a personal blog in the coming days.

Discussion: Poynter, MediaPost, Erik Wemple and Business Insider