Mediagazer: Twitter revolutionizes not only politics and political coverage, but the way people meet (Glen Johnson/Boston Globe)

1:25 AM ET, January 4, 2012

Top News:

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

On Yacht, Murdoch Catches the Twitter Wave — Some people sunbathe and drink daiquiris on their Caribbean vacations. Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of the News Corporation, joined Twitter. — On Dec. 31 the media mogul, on board his 184-foot yacht, Rosehearty …

Discussion: Mixed Media, Business Insider, Forbes and New York Magazine

Guardian:

Wendi Deng Twitter account is a fake — The news that Wendi Deng had joined her husband Rupert Murdoch on Twitter and promptly engaged in flirtatious banter with the likes of Ricky Gervais seemed too good to be true, that's because it was.

Discussion: FP Passport, paidContent, Marketing Land, TechCrunch, The Raw Story, Future of Journalism and Hillicon Valley, more at Techmeme »

Emily Bell:

What Would Rupert Do? * The Lessons of a Tweeting Murdoch. — It used to be the case that the news media's engagement with social media and the commercial web was once reminiscent of Dr Samuel Johnson's quote about women preachers '..like a dog walking on its hinder legs.It is not done well …

Discussion: Guardian, Storyful and Fast Company

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:
Updated: Will The Real Wendi Deng Murdoch Please Stand Up?

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Gawker, Digiday, Naked Security, Forbes, Media Week, GigaOM, Erik Wemple and ZDNet, more at Techmeme »

Josh Halliday / @joshhalliday:
Person behind @Wendi_Deng acct claims to me he is British male in London & was “completely utterly shocked” when Twitter verified

Discussion: CNET and Guardian

Brian Stelter / The Caucus:
Taking to Twitter, Murdoch Signals Support for Santorum

Discussion: New York Times, Reuters, msnbc.com, ABCNEWS, Media Decoder, The Daily Caller, Gothamist, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine and Telegraph

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Political Reporters Caught In Iowa Media Crush — DES MOINES, Iowa — Following days of saturation caucus coverage, Washington Post chief correspondent Dan Balz was reminded Monday of a fortune cookie he recently cracked open. “Analyze only when necessary,” the cookie advised.

Discussion: Pressthink, New York Magazine and Poynter

Glen Johnson / Boston Globe:

Twitter revolutionizes not only politics and political coverage, but the way people meet — DES MOINES - After covering several presidential campaigns and living in Washington for five years, I know many members of the national political press corps. — Yet working now from Boston …

Alan D. Mutter / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Newspaper shares plunged 27% in 2011 — In a year when the stock market flailed mightily to end up almost exactly where it started, the shares of the publicly traded newspaper companies plummeted an average of 27% in 2011. — Of the 11 publicly held newspaper companies, the stock of only one …

Don Van Natta Jr / New York Times:

9/11 Relatives Who Suspect Hacking Await Answers — Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, relatives of some of the victims began suspecting that someone was eavesdropping on their telephones. — Some heard mysterious clicking sounds on their home and mobile phones.

Katherine Rushton / Telegraph: Murdoch hacking warning admission won't lead to review by BSkyB board

Michael Powell / New York Times:

Gotham: At Wall Street Protests, Clash of Reporting and Policing — In late November, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, ordered every precinct in his domain to read a statement. Officers, the commissioner said, must “respect the public's right to know about these events and the media's right of access to report.”

Discussion: Future of Journalism, New York Magazine and Gothamist

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Hearst U.S. Digital Biz ‘Solidly Profitable For The First Time’ In '11 — In a New Year letter to employees, Hearst president David Carey reiterated that the company's target this year is to reach over 1 million paid digital subscribers per month. — The full letter:

Discussion: AdExchanger.com, MediaPost, MinOnline, MediaPost, Future of Journalism, Folio and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

Google Chrome's ‘sponsored posts’ explained — Google has acknowledged that an ad campaign for its Chrome browser appears to have violated the company's own policies, landing it in some hot water this week when SEOBook's Aaron Wall and Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan highlighted some problems.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Search Engine Land, GigaOM and Gawker

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Google Blames Paid Link Policy Violation On Agency Unruly, Which Blames Sponsored Blogger

Discussion: Search Engine Land, The Verge, Search Engine Land and SEO Book.com, more at Techmeme »

Gordon MacMillan / The Wall:

Is the Sun looking at charging for content again? — Is News International looking again at charging for content from The Sun? I blogged last year that News International had ditched the idea of putting up a paywall for The Sun, but an archive website has now appeared offering access to historical Sun content for 50p an article.

Discussion: @leonwatson

Tom Krazit / paidContent:

USA Today Becomes Latest Publisher To Embrace Kindle Fire With Custom App — Amazon's Kindle Fire continues to draw interest from publishing companies, including ones who have already embraced Android tablets. This time, USA Today has decided to launch a specialized app …

Discussion: AllThingsD, VentureBeat, Forbes and MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

This Month's Apple Event To Focus On Publishing And iBooks — Apple will be holding a product event later this month in New York, Kara Swisher is reporting, and we've confirmed independently with a source. — According to the source the event will not involve any hardware at all and instead …