Mediagazer: News Corporation's letter to MPs

4:40 PM ET, December 7, 2011

Top News:

Justice Department Confirms E-Book Probe — WASHINGTON—The U.S. Justice Department confirmed Wednesday that it is conducting an antitrust investigation into the pricing of electronic books, the latest antitrust watchdog to probe whether there was improper collusion by publishers and Apple Inc. to prevent discounting.

Discussion: The New York Observer, MacRumors and Tech Trader Daily, more at Techmeme »

Know Your Mobile:

Exclusive: Amazon Kindle Fire coming to UK in January — Know Your Mobile has been told Amazon's Android-powered Kindle Fire tablet will be getting a UK release date in January — Amazon will be bringing the Kindle Fire to the UK, a source close to the launch has informed us.

Discussion: paidContent:UK, Softpedia News, Electronista, eBookNewser and Pocket-lint, more at Techmeme »

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent: Amazon's Kindle Fire Could Be Going International Sooner Rather Than Later

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

James Murdoch's lawyers confirm Tom Watson was put under surveillance — News Corp lawyers say three NI staff were involved in setting up monitoring, but it is not appropriate to name them — James Murdoch's lawyers have confirmed that Labour MP Tom Watson was put under surveillance for a week in 2009 …

Discussion: Poynter and The New Yorker Blog

Guardian: News Corporation's letter to MPs - full text

Bloomberg:

Bloomberg News Responds to Bernanke Criticism — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in a letter to four senior lawmakers today that recent news articles about the central bank's emergency lending programs contained “egregious errors.” — While Bernanke's letter …

Discussion: Online NewsHour, The New York Observer and News on News

Felix Salmon / Reuters: Smackdown of the day: Bloomberg vs the Fed

Binyamin Appelbaum / Economix:
Fed Lashes Out at ‘Errors’ in Reporting

Discussion: FT Alphaville and Forbes

Joel Gunter / Journalism.co.uk:

Phone hacking: Glenn Mulcaire arrested, reports suggest — Arrest is 18th by the Metropolitan police's phone hacking investigation Operation Weeting — The Metropolitan police arrested the man at an address in London at 7am today — Copyright: Alberto OG on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Discussion: Press Gazette, rbr.com, Daily Mail, The Wrap and Guardian

Sky News: Sky Sources: Glenn Mulcaire Held Over Hacking

Oliver Duff / The Independent:
Rebekah? ‘We helped choose her police station’

Discussion: Press Gazette

Telegraph: Andy Coulson sues News Group over refusal to pay phone hacking legal fees

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Broadcasters call for action over signal interference — Five international broadcasters have issued a joint statement in response to ‘an increase in deliberate interference’ of their signals in the past year — A group of international broadcasters, including the BBC …

Steve Myers / Poynter:

No live tweeting or blogging from Jerry Sandusky preliminary hearing — A Pennsylvania judge has set out the rules for covering Jerry Sandusky's preliminary hearing next week. Half of the 200 or so seats in the courtroom will be reserved for media, plus another 100 in a satellite courtroom with closed-circuit video.

Discussion: PennLive.com and mediabistro.com

Buzz Bissinger / The Daily Beast:
How Jerry Sandusky Played The New York Times in His Interview

Discussion: Eagle News Online, Erik Wemple, Forbes, Slate and newsfeed.time.com

Sean Ludwig / VentureBeat:

Flipboard launches sleek iPhone app with new ‘Cover Stories’ section — Popular iPad news reading application Flipboard has made the move to the iPhone and while it retains its smart and simple design, it also has added a new Cover Stories section to boot. — Flipboard's application …

David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Flipboard CEO's new media mission: ‘crawl the social networks’

Discussion: Inside Flipboard, The Verge and MacStories

Sean Ludwig / VentureBeat:
Flipboard iPhone app launch takes down entire service (updated)

Discussion: CNET News and MacRumors, more at Techmeme »

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Why news sites should add Facebook's new ‘Subscribe’ button — Facebook exec Joanna Shields just revealed at a conference that the social network is poised to roll out a “Subscribe” button that will allow users to subscribe to other users' updates. Think of it as a Twitter “follow” button for Facebook, embeddable on any site.

Discussion: The Next Web, AllThingsD, ZDNet, WebProNews and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Netflix CEO Compares Company To Bank Of America And Oakland A's — Ouch. Reed Hastings addressed a room of investors and media experts today in a bid to reignite confidence in his company. After his curious speech, it's unlikely many of them will be jumping back on the Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) bandwagon anytime soon.

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:
Netflix's Chief Sees HBO as Its Main Rival

Discussion: VentureBeat, Hollywood Reporter, Home Media Magazine, The Week, Techland, Consumer Reports News, CNET News, Reuters, paidContent and Deadline.com, more at Techmeme »

Guardian:

Leveson inquiry: NoW's Neville Thurlbeck to give evidence — Former News of the World chief reporter to appear next week, as will journalist who wrote Kate McCann private diaries story — Neville Thurlbeck, the former News of the World chief reporter, is to appear before the Leveson inquiry next week.

Discussion: Press Gazette

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Verizon Won't Talk About Its Talks to Build a Netflix-Style Service. But It Is Definitely Talking. — Those stories about Verizon launching its own Netflix-style video service? Ignore them, says Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. Those are “all just speculation by people who like to write blogs.”

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, VideoNuze, Wall Street Journal and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

Merrill Knox / TVNewser:

Michelle Jaconi To Helm Breaking News Unit For CNN's Washington Bureau — CNN is creating a new unit to coordinate live coverage and produce breaking news out of the Washington Bureau, bureau chief Sam Feist announced Tuesday. Michelle Jaconi will serve as executive producer of the team.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable

Patrick Meighan / My Occupy LA Arrest,:

My Occupy LA Arrest, by Patrick Meighan — My name is Patrick Meighan, and I'm a husband, a father, a writer on the Fox animated sitcom “Family Guy”, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica. I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 …