Mediagazer: Facebook PAC: When Social Media Companies Discover They're Big Media (Nancy Scola/The Atlantic Online)

3:35 AM ET, September 28, 2011

Top News:

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

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 …

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

James Murdoch's press adviser resigns — Alice Macandrew understood to have quit amid disagreements over the handling of the phone-hacking scandal — One of James Murdoch's closest advisers has resigned from News Corporation, it emerged on Tuesday, amid disagreements over the way the media group dealt with the phone-hacking scandal.

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

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

Discussion: Poynter and Capital New York

Helene Mulholland / Guardian:
Sun newspaper involved in phone hacking, claims Labour's Tom Watson

Discussion: paidContent:UK and The Huffington Post

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: WWD Media Headlines, AppleInsider, Electronista, Engadget, CNET News, Medacity, Editors Weblog, PC Magazine, Softpedia News and Future of Journalism

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

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: Media Decoder, The Huffington Post, Mediaite, Speakeasy, On Media's Blog, Broadcasting & Cable, New York Magazine, Gawker and CBS 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

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: MetroFocus, Future of Journalism and The New York Observer

David Kaplan / paidContent:

About Group Restructures Guide Operations Team; 15 Gone, 10 Being Added — The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Co.'s About Group is reorganizing the way its Guide teams operate, as new CEO Darline Jean charts a path out of spiraling ad declines related to the weak economy and users.

Discussion: Poynter, Business Insider, @antderosa, The Next Web, @benpopper, The Wrap, Adweek and NetNewsCheck Latest, more at Techmeme »

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Shakeup At Paramount Claims Digital Vet Lesinski; Maguire Gets Home Media — Tom Lesinski, who has headed digital at Paramount 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 …

Discussion: Detroit News, National Review, Big Government, The Daily Caller, Forbes, Mediaite and Michelle Malkin

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

How publishers can overcome the abundance problem in mobile advertising — The mobile advertising market is booming. Total U.S. mobile ad spending is expected to rise from almost $800 million last year to $4 billion in 2015. This sounds great to publishers hoping to build mobile revenue streams.

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: Gawker

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

Tim Carmody / Epicenter:

Netflix Isn't a Cable Company; Netflix Is a Video Channel — Have you guys seen Shrek Forever After? (Don't worry; I'm going somewhere with this.) — So after the first three Shrek movies, the once-disruptive ogre has settled down into quiet, prosperous family life.

Thanks:tcarmody

Brian Steinberg / AdAge:

Conan's Ratings Are Down, but He's Huge Online — Turner's New Pitch to Advertisers Touts Late-Night Host's Web Popularity — It's a natural angle, considering the intensifying scrutiny around the weakened TV ratings-and the “make-goods” that have come with them-for Mr. O'Brien's late-night “Conan” show on TBS.

Business Insider:

Guess Who Made The Highest Bid For Hulu — Remember how a group of bidders was circling around Hulu a couple weeks ago? Whatever happened with that? — Two sources tell us that satellite TV provider Dish was the highest bidder, coming in around $1.9 billion. It beat out both Amazon and Yahoo.

Discussion: Online Video News, VatorNews, Light Reading, Deadline.com, rbr.com, GeekWire, Gizmodo, Company Town, MediaPost, The Wrap, Future of Journalism, Adweek, VentureBeat and Electronista

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Licensed journalists in Britain? Surely Labour is joking... Can Labour's shadow culture secretary, Ivan Lewis, be serious? — In his party conference speech today he implied that journalists should be licensed and that naughty journalists should be de-licensed. — Come back John Wilkes.

Discussion: Telegraph, Jack Shafer, FleetStreetBlues and Guardian

Patrick Wintour / Guardian:
Labour plans tighter media regulation

Discussion: Digital Spy, Telegraph, Boing Boing, Erik Wemple, Press Gazette, The First Post, The Huffington Post, Sky News and Helen Lewis Hasteley

Christina Warren / Mashable!:

Sports Illustrated Puts Football Rivals on the iPhone and iPad — Sports Illustrated continues its push into digital arenas that extend beyond the print publication. The company's latest iOS app, Sports Illustrated Football Rivals for iPhone [iTunes link] and iPad [iTunes link] …

Discussion: AdAge, mediabistro.com, App Advice and eMedia Vitals