Mediagazer: Ben Smith, Dylan Byers Launch New Media Blog For Politico (The Huffington Post)

1:05 PM ET, November 4, 2011

Top News:

Erik Larson / Bloomberg:

News Corp. Begins Settlement Program for Phone-Hacking Victims — News Corp. (NWSA)'s U.K. unit started a voluntary settlement program for thousands of potential victims of phone hacking by the company's News of the World tabloid, which was shuttered in July as the scandal expanded.

Discussion: Gawker, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine, Journalism.co.uk and Company Town

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Man arrested over alleged police payments named as Sun journalist — Reporter arrested over alleged payments to police officers believed to be paper's district editor, Jamie Pyatt — A Sun journalist has been arrested as part of Scotland Yard's investigation into alleged payments to police officers by newspapers.

Discussion: Reuters, Press Gazette and Guardian

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:
News Corp HR chief quits

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

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Phone hacking: number of possible victims is almost 5,800, police confirm

Discussion: Press Gazette, The Huffington Post and Crikey

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

Discussion: Poynter

Associated Press:

AP Exclusive: CIA following Twitter, Facebook — McLEAN, Va. (AP) — In an anonymous industrial park in Virginia, in an unassuming brick building, the CIA is following tweets — up to 5 million a day. — At the agency's Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the “vengeful librarians” …

Discussion: Gawker, Future Journalism Project, Business Insider and The Politico, more at Techmeme »

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: SlashGear, WebProNews, Softpedia News, paidContent, AllThingsD, Fortune, Mashable!, Digits, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, Gizmodo and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

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: AdAge, VideoNuze, VentureBeat, Kansas City Star, Fast Company, SlashGear, Deadline.com, Gizmodo, Mashable!, Electronista, Engadget, Future of Journalism, New York Magazine and parislemon, more at Techmeme »

Steven Mufson / Washington Post:

Washington Post Co. posts $6.2M loss in third quarter — The Washington Post Co. lost $6.2 million, or 82 cents a share, in the third quarter of 2011 as a result of a series of one-time charges, a sharp contraction in its education business and continued deterioration in its newspaper and online publishing division.

Discussion: Poynter, The Huffington Post, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Business Wire

The Huffington Post:

Ben Smith, Dylan Byers Launch New Media Blog For Politico … Ben Smith Media Blog , Ben Smith Politico , Dylan Byers Politico , Politico , Politico Media Blog , Media News — Politico announced Friday that it is shaking up its media coverage in the run-up to the 2012 election.

Discussion: @benpolitico and @dylanbyers

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, App Advice, SlashGear, iDownloadBlog.com, 9to5Mac, Electronista, NetNewsCheck Latest, Multichannel, Gizmodo, MacRumors and Home Media Magazine, more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

HLN Finally Launches a Website To Call Its Own — HLN's web presence has long been relegated to a subsection of CNN.com. That in and of itself is not a bad thing, as CNN has one of the strongest digital presences of any news organization. But as the focus of coverage by CNN and HLN have diverged …

Discussion: HLNtv.com

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Magazine Awards Revamped, Again — Last year, the American Society of Magazine Editors caused a kerfuffle in editorial circles when it changed how it determines its prestigious general excellence awards. From then on, ASME said, honors would be based on magazine content rather than circulation size.

Discussion: mediabistro.com and FishbowlNY

Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:

DirecTV Rises Most in Two Years After Adding Record Customers — Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) — DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite- television provider, rose the most in two years after adding a record number of net subscribers in the third quarter. — DirecTV added 327,000 U.S. users …

Discussion: Associated Press, Reuters and Forbes.com

Steven Jacobs / Street Fight:

Main Street Connect Announces New CEO, $7 Million in Funding — Main Street Connect, the network of hyperlocal news sites, announced yesterday that Thompson Reuters' Global Head of Product Management Zohar Yardeni would come on as CEO, replacing founder Carll Tucker who will become chairman of the company's board of directors.

Adam Hochberg / Poynter:

U.S. Marshals ordered to seize Righthaven assets — A federal court has ordered U.S. Marshals to seize $63,720 in assets from Righthaven - the embattled Law Vegas company that files copyright infringement lawsuits. Righthaven tried to make money by acquiring the copyrights to newspaper articles …

Discussion: paidContent

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: Poynter, Los Angeles Times, The New York Observer, Grist, Media Research Center and New York Times