Mediagazer: Rachel Van Dongen, Washington Post Deputy Political Editor, Heads To Politico (Michael Calderone/The Huffington Post)

1:20 PM ET, December 19, 2011

Top News:

NYT sells Regional Media Group to Halifax — Halifax Media is buying the NY Times Regional Media Group. Sale wasn't supposed to be announced today ... but this web page was posted today by accident showing all of the RMG papers being owned by Halifax. Oops.

Discussion: paidContent, Poynter, @nytjim and Deal Journal

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder: Times Said to Sell Regional Newspapers

Edmund Lee / @edmundlee: Heads up on @nytimes selling regional media group to Halifax. The unit is headed up by Michael Golden, Sulzbergers cousin and COO

Patrick Foster / Guardian:

BBC admits using notorious private investigator to trace paedophile — Corporation once commissioned Steve Whittamore to trace criminal who journalists believed was planning to travel to UK — The BBC has admitted hiring a notorious private investigator who was convicted of supplying newspapers …

The Root:

Time Losing Only Black Correspondent — Steven Gray of Washington Bureau Announces His Exit — Five years ago, Journal-isms asked Ali Zelenko, vice president for communications at Time Inc., to name the journalists of color at Time magazine. — Among the 15 she listed …

Wall Street Journal:

Apple Plots Its TV Assault — Apple Inc. is moving forward with its assault on television, following up on the ambitions of its late co-founder, Steve Jobs. — In recent weeks, Apple executives have discussed their vision for the future of TV with media executives at several large companies …

BBC:

Call for Guardian corrections on NoW Milly stories — Milly Dowler was abducted and murdered by Levi Bellfield in 2002 — A News International executive has asked the Guardian to correct 26 articles alleging the News of the World deleted Milly Dowler's voicemails.

Joel Gunter / Journalism.co.uk: Hoare ‘named eight NoW staff linked to hacking’

Guardian:
Phone hacking was ‘routine’ at Sun and NoW, Sean Hoare allegedly told brother

Discussion: Guardian

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:

News Corp./Time Warner's Prince Alwaleed Invests $300 Million In Twitter — Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud of Saudi Arabia, an investor in media titans News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), is turning his attention now to social media: he and his investment group …

Discussion: Forbes, rbr.com, VentureBeat, Kingdom Holding Company, MediaPost, The Wrap, GigaOM, Bloomberg, Fortune, PC Magazine, AdAge and CNET News, more at Techmeme »

Andrea Morabito / Broadcasting & Cable:

ABC News Launches New Political Site — OTUSNews.com features “political stock market” measurement — ABC News has launched a new political Website, OTUS News (as in the moniker that stands for President “of the United States"). — Among other interactive elements, the site features a …

Discussion: mediabistro.com and Lost Remote

United Press International: ABC News says Walters is not retiring

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Publishers Challenge Audience Report — Magazine publishers are demanding explanations from GfK MRI after its fall magazine audience report showed more than two-thirds lost audience versus a year ago, many of them by double digits. — Some year-to-year audience fluctuations are common, but the fall report was unusual.

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Rachel Van Dongen, Washington Post Deputy Political Editor, Heads To Politico — NEW YORK — With the 2012 campaign heating up, Politico has just snagged the Washington Post's deputy political editor for its election team, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Alan D. Mutter / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Newspaper job cuts surged 30% in 2011 — The number of jobs eliminated in the newspaper industry rose by nearly 30% in 2011 from the prior year, according to the blog that has been tracking the human toll on the industry for the last five years. — Meanwhile, a separate analysis confirms …

Discussion: Poynter

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Bloomberg TV Hires Former CNBC Anchor — For the third time this month, a former CNBC anchor has found a new job at a CNBC rival. On Monday Bloomberg Television announced that Trish Regan, who was an anchor for CNBC until this year, is becoming an anchor of “Street Smart,” its 3 to 5 p.m. newscast …

Discussion: TVNewser, FishbowlNY, Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel, Inside Cable News, Business Insider and mnilive.com

Jeffrey ErnstFriedman / MapLight:

Sponsors of SOPA Act Pulled in 4 Times as Much in Contributions from Hollywood than Silicon Valley — The House Judiciary Committee on December 15 held a markup of the so-called SOPA Act (HR 3261), a bill that has produced surprising allegiances and adversaries and has pit some of California's …

Discussion: Techdirt and ZDNet, more at Techmeme »

Steve Myers / Poynter:

New York Times to raise home delivery rates in January — The Times is telling national subscribers like me that on Jan. 2, rates will increase 30 to 60 cents a week (4 to 4.5 percent) depending on the package. (I got a letter with my Sunday newspaper.) “This is our first home delivery rate increase …