Mediagazer: Morning TV's Tabloid Turn (Howard Kurtz/The Daily Beast)

1:55 PM ET, November 14, 2011

Top News:

Chelsea Clinton to Report for NBC — NBC is to announce on Monday morning that it has hired Chelsea Clinton to become a full-time special correspondent for NBC News. — The appointment is immediate. Ms. Clinton will show up at the news division offices oon Monday morning, said Steve Capus …

Discussion: St. Petersburg Times, Forbes, Adweek, National Review, Gawker, CJR, The Corsair, Company Town, New York Magazine, TVNewser, PolitickerNY, The Wrap, Washington Post, Inside Cable News, The Huffington Post, Chickaboomer, Business Insider and The Daily Caller

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
Chelsea Clinton's Hiring At NBC News Prompts Skeptical Reactions From Media

Discussion: Washington Post

Alan Cowell / New York Times:

British Judge Investigates Journalistic Practices — LONDON — After the phone hacking scandal that has seared its way through Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in this country, a senior British judge opened an inquiry on Monday into the way journalists operate and the elusive balance between press freedom and individual rights to privacy.

Discussion: Guardian and @jamesro47

James Robinson / paidContent:

Private Investigator's Notebooks Offer New Details In Phone Hacking Case — The names of 28 News International employees appear in notebooks belonging to Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the News of the World, the Leveson inquiry into press standards heard on its first day at London's high court.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Guardian and Press Gazette

Georgina Prodhan / Reuters: Press probe says more papers may have phone-hacked

Adrian Croft / Reuters:

James Murdoch “kept in dark” on hacking: report — (Reuters) - News Corp's James Murdoch was “kept in the dark” about the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World by his subordinates who tried to manage the problem, the newspaper's former chief reporter said on Monday.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter: News Corp.: Review in Australia Found No Evidence of Phone Hacking

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:

Kindle Fire, First Reviews: Hot Gadget Or Just Another Lukewarm Tablet? — A new day, and a new device to challenge Apple's iPad in the market for tablets. — At $199, the Kindle Fire, which starts shipping this week to those who ordered early, might attract a huge volume of buyers simply because it has lowered the cost barrier.

Discussion: TechCrunch, The New York Observer, VentureBeat, MinOnline, msnbc.com, PC Magazine, The Week, MacRumors, ZDNet and Between the Lines Blog, more at Techmeme »

Steven Levy / Wired:
Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than You Think

Discussion: Engadget, Future of Journalism, The Verge, GigaOM, New York Times, Fortune, GeekWire, Gizmodo, Wired and Media Decoder, more at Techmeme »

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:
Amazon Decides To Ship Kindle Fire And Kindle Touch Early

Discussion: mediabistro.com, CNET News, Amazon.com and AllThingsD, more at Techmeme »

Tom Watson MP:

Society of Editors Conference 2011 #soe11 — I am very sorry that I will not be able to attend the conference today. — Roy Greenslade has just revealed that six months ago, members of the DCMS Select Committee were the targets of covert surveillance by private investigators and journalists working for News International.

Discussion: Guardian, Telegraph and News Hounds

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:
Casting light on the News of the World shadowing of MPs

Discussion: Business Insider

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Newsweek, Mired in Red Ink, Cancels Longtime Political Series — It has been one of Newsweek's signature ventures and a staple of American political journalism since 1984. — Every presidential election season, the magazine detached a small group of reporters from their daily jobs for a year …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Business Insider and Crikey

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Publisher and Managing Editor Are Out at Newsweek/Daily Beast — The publisher and managing editor of Newsweek and The Daily Beast are leaving their jobs, two high-level departures that signal distress inside the company as it struggles to turn its fortunes around.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Poynter

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Morning TV's Tabloid Turn — As CBS goes serious for sunrise, stars at rival networks grumble about the fluffy fare. — For three frustrating DECADES, CBS has been the biggest loser in the morning. Now, rather than trying to beat Today and Good Morning America at their own game, the network wants to change the rules.

Discussion: TVNewser, The Huffington Post, Inside Cable News and Chickaboomer

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

CNN iReport Gets Major Relaunch As a ‘Social Network for News’ — Since launching five years ago, CNN's iReport has become the gold standard when it comes to traditional media companies utilizing user-generated content. Thousands of videos, photos and stories that began as posts on the site have been featured on CNN's networks.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Lost Remote and NewscastStudio Blog

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Twitter, the conversation-enabler? Actually, most news orgs use the service as a glorified RSS feed — As much as we tout Twitter for its conversational abilities — for its revolutionary capacity to create discursive, rather than simply distributive, relationships with news consumers …

Discussion: Journalism.org, TVNewser, Multichannel, Lost Remote, The Wrap, Broadcasting & Cable, MediaPost, Poynter and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Steve Myers / Poynter:

George Will: Wife's work on Rick Perry's campaign doesn't pose problem — Asked about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's election chances on ABC's “This Week” on Sunday, syndicated columnist George Will disclosed that his wife has joined the campaign, then proceeded to say that candidates can recover …

Discussion: Splice Today and The Politico

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Reality TV's Instant Stars Populate a Magazine — Reality television stars tend to lack certain attributes: discretion, shame, gainful employment. One thing they don't seem to want for is exposure. — Yet that is exactly what American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer …

Discussion: New York Magazine

David Carr / New York Times:

The Media Equation: Paton Prepares His Newspapers for a World Without Print — Last week, John Paton met with executives of the MediaNews Group, the second-largest newspaper chain by circulation in the country, home to papers like The Denver Post, The Detroit News, The Salt Lake Tribune …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Poynter, Noted, Future of Journalism and Big News Network.com

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Exclusive: Disney Acquires “Sophisticated” Mommy Blog Platform Babble Media — Disney, which has been busy reorganizing its interactive group, is buying Babble Media, a New York-based parenting platform that features several hundred mom bloggers. — The entertainment giant declined …

Discussion: paidContent and Business Insider