Mediagazer: Google Ponders Pay-TV Business (Wall Street Journal)

12:45 AM ET, November 4, 2011

Top News:

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

AP issues staff guidelines on retweets, no ‘personal opinions’ allowed or implied — The Associated Press has added a new entry on retweeting to its social media guidelines. Staffers are reminded to keep their opinions to themselves. … Disclaimers — like “retweets do not constitute endorsements” …

Discussion: ap.org and 10,000 Words

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:

News Corp HR chief quits — Beryl Cook, who has been with the firm for 22 years, says she wants to return to Asia to be closer to her family — News Corp's top human resources executive has quit the media conglomerate as it deals with the effects of a phone-hacking scandal at its UK newspapers.

Discussion: Media Week, Media Decoder, Company Town and NetNewsCheck Latest

Business Wire:
Beryl Cook to Step Down as Chief Human Resources Officer of News Corporation

Discussion: Poynter

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Murdoch fails to win Hunt's full backing

Discussion: Press Gazette

Kevin Roderick / LA Observed:

New round of belt-tightening at L.A. Times — According to a couple of independent newsroom sources, Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton called meetings on Wednesday to inform affected people that the design, news operations and web operations staffs would be combined into one department, along with at least some of the copy editors.

Discussion: Free Press

Wall Street Journal:

Google Ponders Pay-TV Business — Pilot Project in Kansas City Would Rival Cable, Satellite — Internet giant Google Inc. is considering a plan to offer paid cable-TV services to consumers, a move that could unleash a new wave of competition within the traditional TV business.

Discussion: New York Magazine, Mashable!, Electronista, parislemon and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Gabe Rivera / Mediagazer News:

Meet Mediagazer's New (Human) Editors — If the last thing you heard about Mediagazer's staffing was its founding editor's move to The Observer, you were probably wondering who was now running the show. Well, for over a month we've been quietly assembling a team spanning three time zones …

Discussion: Beet.TV

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

The Journal Fizzles on Occupy Oakland Protest — Several thousand Occupy movement protestors shut down the Port of Oakland yesterday, a week after Oakland police attacked the protest with tear gas and, allegedly, flashbang grenades and rubber bullets. Big news story.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer

Matthew Fleischer / FishbowlLA:
Cartoonist Susie Cagle Arrested at Occupy Oakland Protests

Discussion: Poynter, The Bay Citizen, TVSpy and FishbowlNY

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Amazon Won't Pay Self-Published Author For Books It Mistakenly Gave Away — Amazon's self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing, has a rule: If you use it to publish a book, and then sell that same book on another site at a lower price, KDP retains the right to drop the price of your book in the Kindle Store too.

Discussion: Forbes, The Next Web and Future of Journalism

Wall Street Journal:
Amazon, Now a Book Lender

Discussion: GigaOM, Gizmodo, Forbes, Amazon.com, Wired Magazine, MediaFile, The Week, CNET News, WebProNews, ShortFormBlog, Softpedia News, PC Magazine, Techland, paidContent, GeekWire, Business Insider, Pocket-lint and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Emily Bell:

Google+ and Journalist Profiles: the best thing since sliced bread or the worst thing since bundled browsers? — The announcement from Google, that it is going to allow journalists to become more visible in its Google News service, as long as they have a profile on the Google+ social platform has sparked some comment and reaction.

Discussion: GigaOM, Future of Journalism and Alexander Howard

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of Yahoo Livestand — Those Pew research numbers — 11 percent of U.S. adults owning a tablet, tablet news-reading numbers off the charts — make everybody even hungrier. — Yahoo is the latest to try to get in on the growing banquet of reading riches …

Discussion: MinOnline, GigaOM, eMedia Vitals, Wall Street Journal, MediaPost and Forbes

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Shannon High Jumps to CNN, Will Oversee New Morning Show — TVNewser has learned Shannon High is leaving NBC's Peacock Productions to join CNN where she will oversee the new four-hour morning show. An announcement on the hire, and the new show, could come as early as tomorrow.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Wrap, TVSpy, Inside Cable News and TVWeek.com

Andrea Morabito / Broadcasting & Cable:
CNN Makes Morning Lineup Revamp Official

Discussion: TVNewser

Katy Bachman / Adweek:

“The Internet Community is Always in a Complete Lather” — With the debate over bills meant to crack down on digital piracy heating up on Capitol Hill, Adweek caught up with Robert Levine, author of Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and Copyhype

Darren Murph / Engadget:

B&N launching Nook Tablet for $249 on November 16th, and we've got the dirty details — Sitting down? Good. Come November 16th, Amazon's Kindle Fire will have company. We've wrapped our paws around a stash of documents confirming the impending launch of the first bona fide tablet in the Nook line …

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Gizmodo and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Joel Gunter / Journalism.co.uk:

Fifth of FT.com traffic coming from mobile devices — Overall digital subscriptions at the FT are up 30%, according to publisher Pearson, with 15% of new subscriptions for mobile devices — A fifth of the traffic to the FT's website is now coming from mobile devices, publisher Pearson announced today.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:
Despite Apple spat, Financial Times digital subscriptions see 30% growth in the last year

Discussion: Editors Weblog, Financial Times, paidContent and Noted

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
FT Group revenue up 6%

Discussion: BtoB Magazine, Epicenter, mnilive.com and Press Gazette

Brandon Griggs / CNN:

Steve Jobs biography is top-selling book in the U.S. — (CNN) — In its first week on sale, Walter Isaacson's biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs sold 379,000 copies in the U.S., making it by far the top-selling book in the country. — The book, titled simply “Steve Jobs,” …

Discussion: CNET News, Speakeasy and Bookseller news

Alex Williams / New York Times:
Short Sainthood for Steve Jobs

Discussion: Forbes

Rachel King / Between the Lines Blog:

Magazine publishers divided over giving digital issues for free — Summary: Giving away digital magazines for free could be a backwards and detrimental step for the publishing industry. — SAN FRANCISCO — Offering full, digital copies of magazines on tablets for free to existing print subscribers …

Discussion: MediaPost

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:

CBS turned down an ad-based Apple TV deal — CBS CEO Les Moonves is known to occasionally drop pieces of information that he's not supposed to on his company's earnings calls, and this quarter was no exception. When asked about CBS's appetite for striking deals with new streaming providers …

Discussion: Engadget, 9to5Mac, Electronista, Multichannel, MacRumors and Home Media Magazine, more at Techmeme »

Colleen Taylor / GigaOM:

Twitter quietly debuts new ‘Top News’ and ‘Top People’ search features — Twitter's web interface got a couple of nice new additions Wednesday, seemingly aimed at making it easier to find relevant content when conducting a search within the site. — For some users, Twitter's website …

Discussion: Future of Journalism and WebProNews