Mediagazer: Besser to Oz: “You Were Right” (Curtis Brainard/CJR)

2:55 AM ET, December 8, 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: paidContent, The Verge, The New York Observer, CNET News, MacRumors and Tech Trader Daily, more at Techmeme »

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: The New Yorker Blog

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

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: mocoNews, Softpedia News, Electronista and eBookNewser

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

Discussion: AllThingsD

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, News on News and The New York Observer

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

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

Discussion: The Huffington Post, FT Alphaville and Forbes

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, Business Insider, PC Magazine, ZDNet, AllThingsD, Future of Journalism and WebProNews

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 …

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Yahoo Building New York Studio … NEW YORK About 5,000 square feet in an office building at the corner of Manhattan's 40th Street and Avenue of the Americas will become the city's next major studio space by mid-March. — But the company that is looking to transform …

Discussion: NYConvergence.com, CNET News and Medacity

Melissa Bell / Washington Post:

Drone journalism? The idea could fly in the U.S. — This January, the FAA will be proposing new rules on the use of drones in American airspace — a possibility some see as positively Orwellian, but others, including some journalists, see as an opportunity.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

If we are all journalists, should we all be protected? — The bloggers vs. journalists debate may seem like something that's of interest only to media-industry insiders, but it has very real implications for society when it comes to protecting freedom of information, as the case of blogger Crystal Cox has highlighted this week.

Discussion: The Daily Weekly, MarketingVox News & Trends and Guardian

Curtis Cartier / Seattle Weekly:
Unlike Oregon, Bloggers Are Journalists in Washington State, Do Qualify for Legal Protections

Discussion: Forbes, CNET News, Kevin Padrick …, ShortFormBlog, Korr Values, The Daily Weekly, The FJP, Erik Wemple, Free Press, The Daily Weekly, the Econsultancy blog and Street Fight

Tom Bartlett / Washingtonian Magazine:

How Do You Explain Gene Weingarten? — He's juvenile and more than a little crazy. Friends say he barely copes with day-to-day life. He also happens to be one hell of a writer. — The son asks the father why he's not wearing a seat belt. The father says it's because long ago the father's sister drowned.

Discussion: FishbowlDC, The New Yorker Blog and Random Pixels and Loose Talk

Dan Trombetto / Folio:

Condé Nast Partners with AdMeld in Private Digital Ad Exchange — eBay and Macy's among participating clients. — In a major magazine publisher first, Condé Nast launched a private advertising exchange for select digital clientele. Partnering with service provider AdMeld …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab and NetNewsCheck Latest

Reuters:

Newspaper companies put their money where the clicks are — (Reuters) - Media companies McClatchy Co and Media General Inc, which are seeing their focus on online content starting to pay off, are speeding up their investments in digital media. — Newspaper publishers in the United States …

Discussion: Poynter

Curtis Brainard / CJR:

Besser to Oz: “You Were Right” — Consumer Reports confirms arsenic-in-apple-juice investigation — After accusing Dr. Mehmet Oz of “fear mongering” for reporting that some brands of apple juice contained high levels of arsenic, ABC News's senior health and medical editor, Dr. Richard Besser …

Discussion: MediaShift, Editors Weblog and Consumer Reports News

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

PCC proposes wide-ranging shakeup of press self-regulation — Press Complaints Commission hopes front page adjudications would help restore confidence after phone-hacking scandal — Newspapers would be obliged to trail brokered corrections on the front page as part of a wide-ranging shakeup …

Alistair Foster / The Independent:

Bullied to death? Channel 4 executive died of overdose ‘after abuse by bosses’ — A Channel 4 executive took a fatal drugs overdose after being “systematically bullied” by her bosses, a coroner heard today. Sarah Mulvey, 34, who made programmes such as Brat Camp and How To Look Good Naked …

Sky News:

Sky Sources: Glenn Mulcaire Held Over Hacking — Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire has been arrested as part of the phone-hacking inquiry, according to Sky sources. — Police said a 41-year-old man was arrested this morning as part of Operation Weeting.

Discussion: Digital Spy

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

Joel Gunter / Journalism.co.uk:
Phone hacking: Glenn Mulcaire arrested, reports suggest

Discussion: rbr.com, Press Gazette and Guardian

Michael E. Ruane / Washington Post:

‘WAR!’ How a stunned media broke the Pearl Harbor news. — For a time on Dec. 7, 1941, millions of Americans were getting their news about the attack on Pearl Harbor through a person named Ruthjane Rumelt. — She was an aide to White House Press secretary Stephen T. Early …

Discussion: The Huffington Post