Mediagazer: Piano Media wants national paywalls all over Europe (Andrew Phelps/Nieman Journalism Lab)

4:05 AM ET, January 12, 2012

Top News:

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

PBS ‘Frontline’ Planning News Corp. Exposé? — Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera was out to dinner with his old friend and colleague from ABC News, Lowell Bergman, when things turned quite sour. Bergman is an esteemed journalist, having produced the now-infamous exposé of the tobacco companies for “60 Minutes.”

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Broadcasting & Cable, Future of Journalism and Online Video News

Erik Larson / Bloomberg:
Rupert Murdoch's Wedding Singer Sues News Corp. Over Phone Hacking

Discussion: Bloomberg and Guardian

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Will Anyone Buy Influential D.C. Magazine? — NEW YORK — The New Republic is on the market once again. But so far, its unclear if any media companies are interested in buying the influential, albeit unprofitable, Beltway political magazine. — “I looked at this a while ago and decided to pass …

Discussion: DealBook, Media Decoder and Wall Street Journal

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

New Republic owner quashes reports of liberal journal's sale — Despite reports to the contrary, the New Republic's principal owner insists the 98-year-old journal of liberal political opinion, reporting and arts criticism isn't shopping for a new owner. — “There's nothing there to the story …

John Eggerton / Multichannel News:

PEJ: Presidential Campaign Already Getting Too Much Coverage — But Result Mirrors Responses During Previous Campaign Primary Blitzes — According to the latest Project for Excellence in Journalism New Interest Index, 37% of respondents say there has already been too much coverage …

Discussion: Pew Research Center

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Journalists' campaign-trail secrets revealed

Discussion: The Huffington Post

John Cassidy / The New Yorker:
In Defense of Political Journalists

Discussion: Boston Phoenix and Poynter

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Private investigator Steve Whittamore used by MoS after arrest — Mail on Sunday editor Peter Wright first became aware of the newspaper's use of the private investigator in ‘early 2004’, who he said was used until September that year — Peter Wright, the editor of the Mail on Sunday …

Discussion: Guardian, Digital Spy, Neville Thurlbeck, @benfenton, @iburrell, @dansabbagh, Press Gazette, Journalism.co.uk and Press Gazette

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian: Paul Dacre had hand in accusing Hugh Grant of smears, Leveson inquiry hears

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Nick Kristof on Occupy and the rise of citizen journalism — Many traditional journalists seem inherently suspicious of “citizen journalism” — that is, the idea that anyone with a cellphone camera and a Twitter account can function as a journalist given the right circumstances.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and Journalism.org

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:
Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof Building His Own FarmVille

Discussion: Fast Company

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:

Did The Daily Launch Too Early? — News Corp.'s The Daily may have launched a year too early, but the company's perfectly okay with that. — Speaking on a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show on Monday, David Brinker, The Daily's Senior VP of Business Development and Operations …

Discussion: Company Town, ReadWriteWeb, NetNewsCheck Latest, Poynter, Epicenter, paidContent and PR Newswire

Rem Rieder / American Journalism Review:

A Troubling Approach to Employee Relations — Halifax Media Group, new owner of the former New York Times Co. regional papers, and its onerous non-compete contract. — Rem Rieder (rrieder@ajr.umd.edu) is AJR's editor and senior vice president. — Halifax backed off, which is very good news.

Discussion: Poynter and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Jim Romenesko: Letter to Romenesko: ‘Out came the non-competes’

Julie Moos / Poynter:
NYT limited layoffs to 200 employees in sale to Halifax

Discussion: Poynter

Jim Romenesko:

Kent State alum pulls $1M gift after student paper asks questions — The event was called off, though, after the student newspaper's enterprise reporter dug into Cope's past. Doug Brown reported: — At first glance, it makes us question the athletic department's ethical standards.

Discussion: College Media Matters and CJR

Steven Church / Businessweek:

Dodgers End Bankruptcy Fight With Fox Over Media Rights — Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) — The bankrupt Los Angeles Dodgers ended their court fight with News Corp.'s Fox Sports over future television rights, removing the last major barrier to a sale of the Major League Baseball team.

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Google uses AP results for New Hampshire election results map — After working with the Iowa Republican Party to count votes for the caucuses last week, Google produced a map of election results for the New Hampshire GOP primary on Tuesday night. In Iowa, Google provided the state GOP …

Discussion: Mashable!

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Philadelphia Experiment: Why a media company wants to be a tech incubator — One side effect of downsizing at most newspapers: a surplus of office space. That may be a cold blooded way of seeing the empty desks that haunt newsrooms and advertising departments, but in an era where newspapers …

Discussion: Philly.com

Pandora Young / FishbowlLA:

Gawker Editor: N-Word Did Not Get Blogger Fired — It's clear that using the word “nigga” in a post didn't exactly help Seth Abramovitch's career at Gawker. But A.J. Daulerio, the site's new editor, felt the need to write his own blog post explaining that was not what got Abramovitch fired.

Discussion: The Wrap and Gawker

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Piano Media wants national paywalls all over Europe — The expansion of Bratislava-based Piano Media into Slovenia is just the beginning of the company's efforts to bring national paywalls to five European countries by year's end. — Eight Slovene media outlets have agreed to unite behind a single paywall starting Jan. 16.

Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:

Exclusive: Microsoft Web TV subscription plan on hold — (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has put its talks with media companies about an online subscription service for TV shows and movies on hold, according to people familiar with the discussions. — The technology giant had been in intense talks …

Discussion: MediaFile, ZDNet, VentureBeat, Electronista, The Verge, Business Insider, MediaPost and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

John Plunkett / Guardian:

BSkyB axes Al Gore's Current TV from its pay-TV lineup — Sky makes ‘commercial decision’ to let go of documentary channel that has struggled for ratings — Al Gore's Current TV channel in the UK is facing closure after BSkyB - part owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation - axed it from its pay-TV lineup.

Discussion: Digital Spy, @iburrell and National Review

Ian Burrell / @iburrell: UK news-based TV channel Current, part of network set up by Al Gore, is facing closure because BSkyB is withdrawing funding, Current says