Mediagazer: A Groupon for Newspapers? — Newspapers, in danger of having … (Lucia Moses/Adweek)

2:30 PM ET, November 17, 2011

Top News:

British Tabloid Paper Portrayed as Prompting Suicides — LONDON — A lawyer representing 51 people who say they were victims of phone hacking and press intrusion told a hearing on Wednesday that his clients and their families had been followed, spied on, threatened, harassed, vilified …

Discussion: TVWeek.com

Paul Sonne / Wall Street Journal:

Police, News Corp. Question U.K. Hacking Total — LONDON—Lawyers for the Metropolitan Police and News Corp. have disputed the suggestion, made at a public inquiry here Monday, that a private investigator's notebook identifies at least 28 employees of News Corp.'s U.K. newspaper unit as people …

Discussion: Poynter

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Sun's former head of features sues News Corp execs over sacking — Matt Nixson seeks £100,000 in damages after being abruptly fired from his job on 21 July — The Sun's former head of features, who was sacked in July, is suing News Group Newspapers and four members …

Discussion: Adweek

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Journalists Beaten, Arrested During Occupy Wall Street Protests — As thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters took to the streets on Thursday, journalists once again found themselves a target of police violence and arrests. — Reporters took to Twitter and, in some cases …

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Amazon KindlePhone for 2012? — Amazon just rolled out a full-fledged tablet. Next year, says Citigroup's research department, it could have its own phone. Here's the topline from analyst Mark Mahaney's newest note: — “Based on our supply chain channel checks in Asia led by Kevin Chang …

Discussion: Forbes, VentureBeat, ZDNet, The Wrap, CNET News, PC Magazine, Future of Journalism, Techland, Between the Lines Blog and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

Julie Moos / Poynter:

AP says safety concern was behind memo about journalists tweeting colleagues' arrest — AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll has sent a memo to all employees clarifying why staffers were cautioned Tuesday not to tweet about two journalists caught up in the Occupy Wall Street eviction from Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Media Decoder, LA Observed, The News About The News, Mediaite, Boing Boing and New York Magazine

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Memo to AP: Twitter is the newswire now

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

A Groupon for Newspapers? — Newspapers, in danger of having their advertising lunch eaten by Groupon and its ilk, have teamed up to form an online deals platform. — Eight publishing and media companies are launching the common digital shopping platform, called Find n Save.

Discussion: Poynter, Broadcasting & Cable, Future of Journalism and mnilive.com

David Kaplan / paidContent: Major Newspaper Publisher Band Together On Social Shopping Portal

Tiffany Hsu / LA Times:

San Diego Union-Tribune sold to hotel magnate Doug Manchester — The San Diego Union-Tribune is being sold to MLIM, owned by local hotel magnate Doug Manchester, said current owner Platinum Equity. — Terms of the deal weren't disclosed by Los Angeles-based Platinum …

Matt Potter / San Diego Reader:
Manchester Purchase of Union-Tribune Raises Questions of Timing

Discussion: Poynter

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Barnes & Noble: Explosive App, Nook Newsstand Growth; Women Are Key — Speaking at Liberty Media's annual investor meeting this afternoon, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) CEO William Lynch highlighted the bookseller's strategy going forward. He expects the company will sell $1.8 billion …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Gawker Media's Nick Denton Wants Out of the Porn Business — Pssst. Hey. You. Want to buy a porn site? — Nick Denton has something for you: The Gawker Media owner is pawning off Fleshbot, the porn site he has operated for eight years in addition to sites like Gawker, Gizmodo and Deadspin.

Discussion: VentureBeat, FishbowlNY, Fleshbot, AVN and Medacity

Glenn Peoples / Hollywood Reporter:

Google Music Launch Unveils a Solid Competitor to Apple, Amazon, Spotify … Google did not disappoint in its hotly anticipated launch event for Google Music in Los Angeles this afternoon. Although the company is relatively late in launching a music-download store, it has put together …

Discussion: New York Times, The Official Google Blog, Search Engine Land and GigaOM, more at Techmeme »

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Don't Be Too Disappointed By Google Music's Lackluster Debut

Discussion: the Econsultancy blog, more at Techmeme »

Martha Mendoza / Associated Press:

AP Impact: Right-to-know laws often ignored … Satbir Sharma's wife is dead. His family lives in fear in rural India. His father's left leg is shattered, leaving him on crutches for life. — Sharma's only consolation lies in a new law that gives him the right to know what will happen …

Discussion: 10,000 Words

Roy Greenslade / Guardian: Paper still blocked after three-year freedom of information battle

Amy Thomson / Bloomberg:

Time Warner Cable's Marcus Sees HBO Go Agreement ‘Soon’ for Mobile Devices — Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC), the second- largest U.S. cable-television provider, is nearing a deal with HBO to offer the HBO Go application to subscribers so they can watch shows on mobile devices, its chief operating officer said.

Discussion: Deadline.com

Ian Burrell / The Independent:

BBC aired documentary made by TV company in the pay of Mubarak — The BBC has admitted 15 breaches of its editorial guidelines and has bought documentaries for “nominal” fees aslittle as £1 from a company that was working to promote foreign governments such as the Egyptian regime of the now-deposed Hosni Mubarak.

Discussion: BBC

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:

Google Tells Congress: Financial Embargo Of WikiLeaks Shows How To Deal With Web Piracy — A massive copyright fight is scaling up over the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that Hollywood sees as a panacea for online copyright violation and Silicon Valley sees as a fundamental threat to the Internet itself.

Discussion: GigaOM, The Raw Story, ESET ThreatBlog, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Techdirt, Mixed Media and Firstpost, more at Techmeme »

Jessica Roy / 10,000 Words:
How The Stop Online Piracy Act Could Impact Journalists

Discussion: Forbes, MediaShift, Media Nation, Between the Lines Blog, Mashable!, Ars Technica, The Next Web, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Kickstarter Blog and Runnin' Scared, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Has Netflix Put Its Checkbook Away? — If you're waiting to hear about more big Netflix content deals in the near future, you may be disappointed. — J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth reports back from a recent huddle with Netflix managers, and says he thinks they're done writing checks for a while …

Discussion: rbr.com

Alysia Santo / CJR:

Public Radio and the Freelance Journalist — Should the same code of ethics apply? — Caitlin Curran was a freelance web producer for WNYC/PRI's radio show, The Takeaway, which has been covering the Occupy Wall Street protests. After a picture of Curran holding a sign at a recent OWS protest went viral …

New York Times:

Reuters Reporter Also Works for Yemen's President — The Reuters news agency on Thursday stood by its Yemen correspondent amid outrage from opposition activists over his employment by the government as a personal translator to President Ali Abdullah Saleh. — The reporter, Mohamed Sudam …

Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:

Motoring Into the Motor City: Introducing HuffPost Detroit — Today marks the rollout of our latest local section: HuffPost Detroit, fresh off the assembly line. — We motor into the Motor City with a clear editorial mission: to provide an alternative to the knee-jerk narrative the national media love to tell about Detroit.

Discussion: Poynter