Mediagazer: Time Warner Cable Said to Be Close to Offering HBO Go to Subscribers (Alex Sherman/Bloomberg)

4:35 AM ET, September 28, 2011

Top News:

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 — 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, Capital New York and Guardian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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