Mediagazer: Argentine sports obsession sprouts sportswriter schools (Juan Forero/Washington Post)

7:20 AM ET, January 4, 2012

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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, Media News, Softpedia News, Guardian, Business Insider, New York Magazine and The Caucus

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 …

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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.

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

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

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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 …

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.

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Dylan Byers / The Politico:

Current: Olbermann declined offer to anchor Iowa coverage — Keith Olbermann was noteably absent from Current TV's coverage of tonight's Iowa caucus results, setting off some speculation that the channel wanted to keep him off the air. This evening, Olbermann himself tweeted …

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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 …

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

News organizations embrace social data in 2012 election coverage — News organizations are crunching social media data in creative new ways as they fire up new websites and apps for 2012 election coverage. — The latest to debut is The Washington Post's @MentionMachine …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Washington Post and ReadWriteWeb

Juan Forero / Washington Post:

Argentine sports obsession sprouts sportswriter schools — BUENOS AIRES — Some make the mistake of calling Juan Carlos Rennis's school an academy, a word he associates with elitist institutions, blue blazers and snooty attitudes. — “We're a technical school,” Rennis, rector for 17 years, said with conviction.

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: VentureBeat, Search Engine Land, GigaOM and Gawker, more at Techmeme »

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

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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, Forbes, VentureBeat and MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

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, MediaPost, MinOnline, Future of Journalism, Folio and JIMROMENESKO.COM

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: paidContent:UK and @leonwatson