Mediagazer: Dianne Festa Expands NBC News Duties (Merrill Knox/TVNewser)

7:45 AM ET, November 8, 2011

Top News:

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

News organizations can finally create Google+ pages — Google+ has launched brand pages for businesses, finally enabling news organizations and other businesses, institutions or products to engage with people on the social network. NBC News, Good Morning America, Fox News and The New York Times …

Discussion: One Man & His Blog, Media News, Business Insider, YouTube Blog, ZDNet, The Official Google Blog, TechCrunch, The Wall Blog, Softpedia News, Pocket-lint and FishbowlNY, more at Techmeme »

Nick Davies / Guardian:

News of the World hired investigators to spy on hacking victims' lawyers — Exclusive: Investigators followed and filmed lawyers of hacking victims in apparent attempt to gather material on private lives — The News of the World hired a specialist private investigator to run covert surveillance …

Discussion: @davidfolkenflik, The New Yorker Blog, Digital Spy, Adweek, @dansabbagh, @dansabbagh, The Huffington Post, paidContent:UK, Jon Slattery, The Raw Story and BBC

Ryan Chittum / CJR: Dirty Business (As Usual) at News Corporation

Dylan Byers / Adweek:

Josh Tyrangiel Means Business — Josh Tyrangiel has a preposterous mission: to convince readers that a weekly business magazine left for dead two years ago is now a must-read. — That would be challenging enough in a good market. But in 2011, with print advertising still in crisis …

Dave Winer / Scripting News:

Martin leaves the Times — A quick note of appreciation for Martin Nisenholtz, who is leaving the NY Times. — The Times will of course tell the story of what he did for the Times. But he also made a very large contribution to the web, through RSS 2.0.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

Om Malik / GigaOM:
Martin Nisenholtz, Senior VP of Digital, leaving New York Times

Discussion: MediaPost, Mixed Media, Business Insider, paidContent, @rafat, The Huffington Post, @jeffjarvis, NetNewsCheck Latest, BtoB Magazine, AdAge, FishbowlNY, Future of Journalism, Poynter, The New York Observer, The Wrap and New York Times

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent: NYT Digital Head Martin Nisenholtz Retiring; Won't Be Replaced

Merrill Knox / TVNewser:

Dianne Festa Expands NBC News Duties — Dianne Festa's role as director of NBC News has been expanded, NBC News President Steve Capus announced in a memo to staffers Monday. — Festa is currently the editorial liaison to NBC's affiliates. In her new role, she will take on the task …

Amir Efrati / Digits:

Twitter Looks to TV, Media Partnerships for Growth — Twitter is becoming a big star on TV-and now the online-messaging service wants to shine even brighter. — A growing number of TV shows such as Fox's “Glee” and PBS's “Nova” regularly direct their viewers to Twitter in order to view …

Discussion: Lost Remote, Twitter Developers blogs, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, CNET News, ReadWriteWeb and L.A. Times Tech Blog

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

NY Times sues Huffington Post over parenting blog — The New York Times Co has sued AOL Inc to force its Huffington Post online news website to rename a parenting blog with a similar name to its own. — In a lawsuit filed late Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan ...

Discussion: Adweek, paidContent and Future of Journalism

John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:

Net Neutrality-Blocking Resolution Senate Vote Expected Thursday — Measure, which was approved in Senate, is almost certain to be voted down in Democrat-controlled House — Look for debate on Wednesday, Nov. 9, and a vote the following day on the primarily Republican-backed resolution …

Discussion: Hillicon Valley

Michael Martinez / CNN:

Study: More women, traditional media are blogging — Los Angeles (CNN) — The blogosphere — arguably the first engine of the new-media age — is becoming more female, while traditional media is horning in on the blogging action, a new study said Friday. — “It's healthy and it's mature …

Discussion: Medacity

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

At Sony Music, a Plan to Dominate the Industry — A huge self-portrait of Bono hangs in the Madison Avenue office of Doug Morris, the new chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment, and on a nearby table sit his snapshots, arm-in-arm with Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg.

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Now, Breathe: Demand Media Beats Wall Street Expectation in Q3 — Demand Media beat Wall Street expectations in the third quarter, posting a loss of five cents a share. Investors had expected it to lose from four to six cents. — Revenue was up 25 percent to $85.1 million, compared to $65.4 million in the same period a year ago.

Discussion: Forbes, CNBC and Investor Relations, more at Techmeme »

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD: What Answers Will Investors Be Demand-ing in the Q3 Call Today?

Claire Cain Miller / Bits:

Head of Google's Public Policy Operations Resigns — As Google faces stepped-up interrogations from regulators and policy makers, Alan Davidson, who runs its public policy operations for North and South America, announced Monday that he would leave the company this month.

Discussion: Hillicon Valley, more at Techmeme »

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Kelly Cobiella and Bazi Kanani Join ABC News — ABC News is on a talent hiring spree. In addition to two local news anchors from Chicago set to join the network. ABC News president Ben Sherwood has announced he is beefing up his international reporting staff with the hires of Kelly Cobiella …

Discussion: TVSpy

Paul Bond / Hollywood Reporter:

TumTiki Becomes Newest Destination for TV Shows and Movies on the Internet … Another online premium video site with an odd name launches today. This one, called TumTiki, has 700,000 movies and TV episodes to choose from, courtesy of relationships with Hulu, Amazon.com and a slew of other outlets.

Tommy Christopher / Mediaite:

Howard Kurtz Grills Politico's Jonathan Martin On Herman Cain Alleged Sexual Harassment Reporting - Update — On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday morning, host Howard Kurtz gave Politico reporter Jonathan Martin a grilling worthy of Bobby Flay over whether the online paper had enough to publish …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Caucus, The Politico, RADAR, FishbowlDC, Gawker and mediabistro.com

Gayle Feldman / The Bookseller:

Barnes & Noble plans international Nook launch — Barnes & Noble is to expand its e-book service internationally next year, the company's chief executive has revealed. The development was revealed at the company's New York press conference at which it unveiled its $249 Nook Tablet …

Discussion: paidContent