Mediagazer: AOL's Activist Investors Say Armstrong's Content Play Isn't Working (Ben Popper/Betabeat)

8:05 PM ET, December 21, 2011

Top News:

Heather Mills: ‘I Never Played Piers Morgan Voicemail Tapes’ — Heather Mills, the former wife of pop star Sir Paul McCartney, said that she never disclosed private voicemail messages from her ex-husband to former tabloid editor Piers Morgan. Mills said that Morgan, who yesterday told …

BBC:

Phone hacking ‘bog-standard tool’ says former Mirror journalist — Phone hacking appeared to be a “bog-standard journalistic tool” for gathering information, a former Daily Mirror financial reporter has said. — James Hipwell, who was jailed in 2006 for writing about firms whose shares he owned …

Discussion: Business Insider, @tom_watson, @joelmgunter and @patrickfoster2

Guardian: First police officer arrested over alleged payments for journalists

Guardian: Leveson inquiry: Piers Morgan's phone was hacked, says ex-Mirror journalist

Jason Deans / Guardian: Met aims to give Leveson more detail on deletion of Milly Dowler's voicemails

Guardian: Leveson inquiry cost £855,300 for first three months

Peter Lauria / Reuters:

Robinson exit to cost New York Times over $15 million — (Reuters) - Janet Robinson, who will step down as chief executive of the New York Times Co on December 31, will receive an exit package in excess of $15 million, according to people familiar with the situation.

Discussion: The New York Observer and Business Insider

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Five things I would do as CEO of the New York Times

Discussion: Gawker and eMedia Vitals

Fox Sports:

Report: NBC reporter charged with DUI — NBC News correspondent Jay Gray charged with drunken driving after he attended a party at the house of the attorney for accused child molester Jerry Sandusky, TMZ reported Tuesday. — According to the report, Gray was pulled over after drinking …

Discussion: TMZ.com, @sganim, The Hollywood Gossip and TVSpy

NPR:

WikiLeaks Military Hearing Faces Closing Arguments — FORT MEADE, Maryland (AP) — Lawyers for the Army intelligence analyst blamed for the biggest national security leak in American history rested their case Wednesday, with closing arguments ahead before Pfc. Bradley Manning learns whether he will face a court-martial.

Larry Shaughnessy / CNN: Bradley Manning defenses calls only 2 witnesses

David Brauer / MinnPost:

Is ex-reporter Christine Clayburg paying TV journalists to help clients tell their good news stories? — In October, MinnPost ran a John Reinan column headlined, “Former TV reporter Christine Clayburg tells news of corporate clients.” — “As traditional media wither and new communication channels …

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Al Jazeera English wins first duPont as 14 news orgs awarded with broadcast, digital honors — Al Jazeera English has won its first Alfred I. duPont award for excellence in broadcast and digital journalism, one of 14 the Columbia School of Journalism announced this morning …

Discussion: Editors Weblog, Columbia University …, TVSpy, National Review and TVNewser

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:
The New York Times Honored with First Ever Digital Reporting duPont Award

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and The Huffington Post

Julie Moos / Poynter:

PEJ: Economy is the most-covered story of the year — In its annual “Year in News” release, PEJ says the economy was 2011′s big story, with 20 percent of news time and space dedicated to it in print, online, TV news and radio. That's up from 14 percent in 2010.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Journalism.org, The Wrap, Pew Research Center, The Huffington Post, Capital New York and Forbes

Ben Popper / Betabeat:

AOL's Activist Investors Say Armstrong's Content Play Isn't Working — Starboard Value LP, who's 4.5 percent stake in AOL makes it one of the company's largest shareholders, is taking aim at Tim Armstrong and his attempt to reinvent AOL as a media powerhouse.

Discussion: VentureBeat, NetNewsCheck Latest, MediaPost, Digits, Media & Entertainment, Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and Deal Journal

Street Fight / @streetfightmag:
AOL shareholder sends Tim Armstrong letter complaining that Patch, will “lose as much as $150 million in 2011.” http://t.co/5AECpiM3

Discussion: Business Insider and WebProNews, more at Techmeme »

Kevin Roderick / LA Observed:

Times ‘terminates’ blogging pressman Ed Padgett — Ed Padgett, a Los Angeles Times employee for 39 years, has been in trouble with the bosses before for his blog posts. This time, he says today, Human Resources called from out of nowhere to tell him he had been fired.

Discussion: edpadgett.blogspot.com, Gannett Blog and mediabistro.com

Larry Platt / Philly.com:

How do we report about our own? — I have been a journalist for more than a quarter century, and I have never had a professional experience that was sadder - or more shocking - than reading the allegations leveled against Bill Conlin today. — As detailed by the Inquirer's Nancy Phillips …

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Bleacher Report, Deadspin and Philly.com

A.J. Daulerio / Deadspin:
A Conversation With Bill Conlin The Day Before The Inquirer Dropped Its Molestation Story

Discussion: The Philly Post and Speak Easy

Will Bunch / Boston Herald:
Philly papers share outrage over Bill Conlin case

Discussion: NY Daily News

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘The New York Observer,’ in a bid to go national, will expand its editorial department — The New York Observer is gearing up to go national. — The 25-year-old weekly newspaper is considering spinning off a nationally focused website, and will increase the size of the full-time editorial staff …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Kindle for iOS update brings magazines, newspapers, textbooks to iPad — Amazon has just pushed a new revision of its Kindle app to the iTunes App Store, and iPad owners will definitely want to hit that update button. That's because they now have access to the same full-color magazines …

Discussion: Poynter, Product reviews, VentureBeat and TUAW, more at Techmeme »

Lauren Indvik / Mashable:
Kindle Adds Periodicals to iOS Apps: But Will Consumers Read Them?

Discussion: The Next Web and SiliconFilter

Mac McClelland / Mother Jones:

What Is Good Fact-Checking? — Amid PolitiFact's “lie of the year” controversy, a shout-out to what it takes to get to the facts of the matter. — Editors' note: The controversy over PolitiFact's seemingly not-so-politics-free-fact-checking (vol. 1 and vol. 2) and subsequent commentary …

Discussion: Attackerman and Washington Monthly

Adam Serwer / Mother Jones:
Defeating the Point of Fact-Checking

Discussion: Watchdog Blog, Mediaite and Swampland

Richard Adams / Guardian:

What does CNN do with Piers Morgan now? | Richard Adams — The host's bumbling testimony about his part in the phone hacking scandal surely has CNN wondering what it got itself into — If CNN wants an incisive big-name interviewer, it should consider hiring Robert Jay QC …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Press Gazette, Guardian, TVWeek.com, Associated Press, Telegraph, Jon Slattery, Digital Spy, New York Magazine and FishbowlNY

Nancy Messieh / The Next Web:

On Twitter, people want to follow personal versus official accounts of journalists — The International Journal of Communication has released a report, looking back on how Twitter was used this year to disseminate information during the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

Discussion: GigaOM, The FJP and Global Voices

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Glenn Mulcaire wins legal fees battle with News of the World publisher — News Group Newspapers had no right to cancel private eye's legal fees over alleged phone hacking, high court rules — Glenn Mulcaire has won his high court bid to force News Group Newspapers to continue to fund his legal fees in cases of alleged phone hacking.

Discussion: Digital Spy and Press Gazette