Mediagazer: Hearst Passes 300,000 Monthly Digital Subscribers, Takes a Bow (Peter Kafka/AllThingsD)

9:05 AM ET, September 28, 2011

Top News:

Julia Angwin / Digits:

Wall Street Journal Revises Its Privacy Policy — The Wall Street Journal revised its website privacy policy on Tuesday to allow the site to connect personally identifiable information with Web browsing data without user consent. — Previously, the Journal's privacy policy stated that it would obtain …

Discussion: Lauren Weinstein

Dan Gillmor / Google+: What a crappy and hypocritical move by the Wall Street Journal …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Hearst Passes 300,000 Monthly Digital Subscribers, Takes a Bow — Hearst, which is about to sell its digital magazines via Amazon's new tablet, wants the world to know it's selling its digital magazines on plenty of other gadgets, too: The publisher says it is now racking up more than 300,000 paid digital downloads per month.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, NetNewsCheck Latest, AppleInsider, WWD Media Headlines, Electronista, Medacity, CNET News, Editors Weblog, PC Magazine and Softpedia News

Media Decoder:

James Rubin Abruptly Departs Bloomberg — 5:03 p.m. | Updated James P. Rubin, a former assistant secretary of state hired by Bloomberg News just 10 months ago to help lead its new opinion-writing section, has left his job after a rocky start. — His departure came as a surprise …

Discussion: Poynter, The Huffington Post, On Media's Blog, Business Insider and Talking Biz News

Bloomberg:

News Corp. Marketer Used Movie Lessons to Instill Fear in Rivals, Clients — A News Corp. unit that used lessons gleaned from gangster films to motivate employees and crush rivals is the latest arm of Rupert Murdoch's media empire to be swept up in a probe that began with hacking and bribery allegations.

Discussion: Business Insider and Mogulite

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:
James Murdoch's press adviser resigns

Discussion: paidContent:UK, MediaFile, Financial Times, Erik Wemple, Adweek, New York Magazine and Guardian

David Folkenflik / NPR:
News Corp.'s U.K. Actions Under Scrutiny In U.S.

Discussion: Poynter and Capital New York

Jerry Barmash / FishbowlNY:

WNET/MetroFocus Reporter Calls Arrest at Occupy Wall Street Protest ‘Pretty Terrifying’ — A young reporter got caught in the crosshairs of a chaotic scene in Lower Manhattan. John Farley (left) of WNET's new online local news magazine, MetroFocus was at the Occupy Wall Street protests on September 24th.

Discussion: Yahoo! News and Future of Journalism

Adrianne Jeffries / The New York Observer:
Beating the Street: Is ‘Occupy Wall Street’ the Battle of the Battery, or the Bonfire of the Humanities Majors?

Discussion: MetroFocus, BAGnewsNotes, Gawker, Associated Press and Media Matters for America

Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:

In switch, cable operators want to go “a la carte” — * Programmers will resist attempts to unbundle programs — * Sports rights and retransmission fees are biggest costs — U.S. cable operators are privately working on a plan to force programmers to unbundle their networks and allow customers …

Discussion: GigaOM, Electronista, Gizmodo and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:

Time Warner Cable Said to Be Close to Offering HBO Go to Subscribers — Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) is close to offering the HBO Go application to its 12.2 million video subscribers, enabling them to watch shows including “The Sopranos” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on mobile devices …

Discussion: Deadline.com

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Sports Illustrated Gets Roles for Swimsuit Models in EA's New ‘Need for Speed’ — Offers Subscription Plus Full Game for Less Than the Game's Retail Cost — Sports Illustrated is trying to find new readers by integrating a pair of its Swimsuit models, as well as billboards promoting the magazine …

Discussion: New York Post

Christina Warren / Mashable!:
Sports Illustrated Puts Football Rivals on the iPhone and iPad

Discussion: mediabistro.com, App Advice and eMedia Vitals

Ryan Block / gdgt:

Oh, one more thing about the Amazon tablet: the second, better version is coming very soon — Yesterday I posted about how the Kindle teams used the RIM PlayBook to get a color e-reader product out the door (gdgt.com/discuss/the- amazon-tablet-will- look-like-...).

Gail Shister / TVNewser:

Andy Rooney To End Regular ‘60 Minutes’ Appearances — First on TVNewser: Andy Rooney's “60 Minutes” commentary on Sunday is expected to be his last regular appearance, TVNewser has learned. — Rooney, who began his whimsical end-of-show pieces in 1978, was MIA from last week's 44th-season premiere.

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Media Decoder, Broadcasting & Cable, Wall Street Journal, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, Speakeasy, On Media's Blog, New York Magazine, Gawker and CBS News

Dave Itzkoff / ArtsBeat:

Questions Raised About Dylan Show at Gagosian — Michael Kennedy Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery — Bob Dylan in his studio in the late 1980s. — The freewheeling artistic style of Bob Dylan, who has drawn on a variety of sources in creating his music and has previously raised questions …

Discussion: Guardian and The New York Observer

Alison Flood / Guardian:

Julian Assange memoir sells just 644 copies — Huge publicity last week managed to generate only very modest sales for his ‘Unauthorised Autobiography’ — Despite acres of publicity and buckets of scandal, Julian Assange's unauthorised autobiography sold just 644 copies last week.

Discussion: Bookseller news and Gawker

J.C. Derrick / Reporters Committee News:

Reporters removed by police at D.C. Council meeting — Keywords: City politics; Meetings laws — Several reporters claim the Washington, D.C., city council violated its own open meetings law when it ordered police to remove the media from a recent meeting, which was called to discuss in-fighting among council members.

Ben Popper / Betabeat:

How Newsweek's Most Notorious Fellow Got Caught Conning Silicon Alley — Jerry Guo considers himself a modern nomad. The 24-year-old Chinese-American stays in a different apartment each month, couch surfing or subletting, whatever works best. “Moving around makes it easier to find cool new venues,” Mr. Guo explained.

Discussion: Poynter and Gawker

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

Observer Media Group Launches GalleristNY — Tomorrow the Observer Media Group will launch GalleristNY.com, a spin-off of Observer.com. — GalleristNY will be dedicated to the comprehensive coverage of the New York art world, in The Observer's irreverent house style.

Discussion: Adweek

Nancy Scola / The Atlantic Online:

Facebook PAC: When Social Media Companies Discover They're Big Media — A season of political moves should remind us of the corporate interests of the new Internet utilities — On Monday, Facebook filed papers to launch FB PAC. The political action committee is designed …

Discussion: Hillicon Valley, Techland, ZDNet and The Daily Caller

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Shakeup At Paramount Claims Digital Vet Lesinski; Maguire Gets Home Media — Tom Lesinski, who has headed digital at Paramount (NYSE: VIA) as long as it's mattered, is out in a major reorganization that folds the Paramount Digital Entertainment into other divisions, most notably a single unit …

Discussion: Company Town, Home Media Magazine and Home Media Magazine

Larry O'Connor / Big Journalism:

Exclusive Interview: Ford Pulls Anti-Bailout Ad After ‘Questions’ From White House — This is all that remains of the very popular Ford commercial that went viral on the internet and was featured on cable news channels over the past three weeks: — According to the Detroit News …