Mediagazer: Tech Industry Buys Itself a Mouthpiece (Ryan Tate/Gawker)

10:20 PM ET, January 16, 2012

Top News:

Drew Olanoff / The Next Web:

Wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours on Wednesday to protest against SOPA — Today, founder of the non-profit behind information archive Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, announced that the site will go dark for 24 hours on Wednesday in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Twitter's Dick Costolo calls Wikipedia's SOPA blackout ‘foolish’ [Updated]

Discussion: GeekWire, GigaOM and Forbes, more at Techmeme »

Paul Carr / PandoDaily:
Costolo is Right: Wikipedia's SOPA Blackout is a Terrible Idea

Discussion: Boing Boing and The Next Web

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Sarah Lacy Debuts New Tech Site, PandoDaily — $2M+ in Funding and Guess Who's Working for Her? (Video) — As has been widely reported, well-known TechCrunch columnist and Silicon Valley journalist Sarah Lacy has a new gig: Running her own new tech news site, which debuts today.

Discussion: parislemon, GigaOM, VentureBeat, AdAge, PandoDaily, WebProNews and Editors Weblog, more at Techmeme »

Ryan Tate / Gawker:

Tech Industry Buys Itself a Mouthpiece — How did Silicon Valleys bigwigs react when their favorite trade publication adopted strict new conflicts of interest policies? They banded together to pay someone else to cover them. — Former TechCrunch reporter Sarah Lacy today launched PandoDaily …

Discussion: PandoDaily, SiliconFilter and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:
Why I Started PandoDaily — Several months ago I became obsessed …

Discussion: TechCrunch, DealBook, The Jane Dough, Business Insider, Talking Biz News and Uncrunched, more at Techmeme »

Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune:

Tribune offers newsroom voluntary buyouts — Looking to reduce costs as it continues to grapple with a changing media landscape and challenging economy, the Chicago Tribune told employees Monday it will offer an undisclosed number of voluntary buyouts in the newsroom.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Trinity Mirror's Sly Bailey: ‘No evidence our journalists hacked phones’ — Chief executive of Trinity Mirror Sly Bailey tells Leveson inquiry there is ‘no evidence’ to support allegations of phone hacking, as she stood by her decision not to investigate the matter internally

Discussion: Media Week and Journalism.co.uk

BBC:

Leveson Inquiry: Mirror phone hacking possibly hidden - editor — The Daily Mirror's editor has told a media ethics inquiry that phone hacking “might well have been” taking place when he was the paper's showbiz editor. — Richard Wallace told the Leveson Inquiry he had no knowledge …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, @benfenton, @hackinginquiry, @lisaocarroll, @dansabbagh, Tangerine, Press Gazette, @dansabbagh, @keirsimmonsitv, @skymarkwhite, @benfenton, @dansabbagh, @lisaocarroll, @benfenton and Associated Press

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Murdoch rant claims are untrue, says Brown

Discussion: Press Gazette and Guardian

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Google calls Murdoch's piracy allegations ‘nonsense’ — News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is talking nonsense, according to Google. — Google cofounder Sergey Brin. — Murdoch, a Twitter user for only the past several weeks, used the service to fire a barrage of accusations Saturday night …

Discussion: MediaPost, Digital Spy, Business Insider, paidContent, DCist, ZDNet, NetNewsCheck Latest, VentureBeat, Daily Dot, Crikey, AllThingsD, eMedia Vitals and Forbes, more at Techmeme »

Joe Flint / Company Town: Calemzuk exits as CEO of News Corp.'s Shine Americas

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Murdoch shows he doesn't understand how content works

Discussion: Techdirt and TVNewser

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

‘The Salad Days Are Over at Bloomberg:’ Dispatches From Inside America's Most Paranoid Media Company — Last week, we brought you some firsthand cries of rage, despair, and frustration from inside Bloomberg headquarters. The most paranoid headquarters in all of the New York media world?

Discussion: Inside Cable News and Talking Biz News

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Fox and Twitter Join Forces for Republican Debate — At the next Republican presidential primary debate on Monday night, Fox News will be measuring viewers' reactions to each answer on Twitter, the social Web site that acts as an online water cooler during big television events.

Discussion: Lost Remote, Mashable!, NetNewsCheck Latest, Twitter Blog, WebProNews, The FJP and TVNewser

Pat Maio / North County Times:

New owners of San Diego Union-Tribune look to build media centre — San Diego developer Doug Manchester and radio executive John Lynch, who bought The San Diego Union-Tribune for $110 million a month ago, said they could pursue other newspapers or “video and audio” enterprises to wrap …

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Associated Press Opens North Korea Bureau — When Associated Press executives and journalists attempted to open a North Korean bureau last month, they arrived in Pyongyang just hours after the death of Kim Jong Il. AP journalists hit the ground running and provided text and photos …

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

Ad Age Reports That HuffPo Reports That Hollywood Life Reports That Us Weekly Reports ... In the World of Web-Powered Celebrity Journalism, a Mind-Numbing Game of Telephone — I confess that I took the bait. A few days ago I saw a link in my Twitter stream that offered …