Mediagazer: Confessions of a Publisher: “We're in Amazon's Sights and They're Going to Kill Us” (Sarah Lacy/PandoDaily)

7:45 AM ET, January 18, 2012

Top News:

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

SOPA Rep Blasts Wikipedia Blackout, Says Law To Go Forward In Feb. — Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tx), who is leading a push to pass a controversial anti-piracy bill, issued a statement today scolding Wikipedia over its plan to go dark with its English-language website for 24 hours in protest of the legislation.

Discussion: Media News, AdAge, TechCrunch, Company Town, /Film, The New Yorker Blog, Pocket-lint, Softpedia News, The Wrap, Home Media Magazine, Multichannel, Hillicon Valley and Forbes, more at Techmeme »

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:

Wikipedia Is Dark, But Mobile Site/Apps Stay Bright In SOPA Protest — A small loophole for Wikipedia's SOPA and PIPA protest, in which the English-language version of the site has gone dark for 24 hours: the mobile site and apps are still working. — As of the the time of writing …

Discussion: Guardian, more at Techmeme »

David Beard / Washington Post:

Wikipedia Blackout: An #altwiki Band-Aid — When Wikipedia goes dark on Wednesday, The Washington Post is joining several other media organizations, including the Guardian and NPR, to encourage a one-day crowdsourcing solution for those left searching for answers: #altwiki. — That's basically it.

Discussion: Guardian, Daily Dot, Media Decoder, VentureBeat, Digital Trends and Telegraph, more at Techmeme »

Julie Moos / Poynter:

What the SOPA blackout really looks like — Wikipedia and some other large websites are “blacking out” Wednesday to protest legislation that would limit online activities. (Learn more about that legislation in our guide to what journalists need to know about SOPA and PIPA.)

Discussion: St. Petersburg Times, Business Insider and The Verge

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Sources: Four More Board Members Will Be Following Yang Out the Door — According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo Co-founder Jerry Yang is just the first shoe to drop in what is shaping up to be what looks like a large exodus of board members from the Silicon Valley Internet company.

Discussion: PandoDaily, Guardian, Deal Journal, The Wall Blog, PC Magazine, AdAge, Forbes, Electronista, VentureBeat, mocoNews, GeekWire and DealBook, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Jerry Yang Leaves Yahoo — Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has left the company's board of directors and all other positions, the company announced today, marking the start of what may be a series of changes in the boardroom. — Yang, who co-founded the Web giant in 1995 …

Discussion: Yahoo! Inc., Forbes, Pocket-lint, Guardian, Bigmouthmedia Search …, AdExchanger.com, Business Insider, PandoDaily, MediaNama, CNET, GigaOM, Adweek, TechCrunch, MediaPost and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Guardian:

Leveson inquiry: Rosie Nixon, Lucie Cave, Lisa Byrne - live — Full coverage as magazine and local newspaper editors give evidence at inquiry into media standards and phone hacking — 10.04am: Three celebrity magazine editors are giving evidence together.

David Folkenflik / NPR:

In Britain, Calls To Regulate A Freewheeling Press — The 168-year-old British tabloid, News of the World, was closed last July after a widespread scandal that involved phone and voice mail hacking. Now there's a debate about placing new regulations on the British press.

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian: Editors warn of regulation's ‘chilling effect’

Dylan Stableford / Yahoo! News:

Sarah Palin slams Newsweek for giving ‘conspiracy kook writer’ Andrew Sullivan cover story — Like many conservatives, Sarah Palin is up in arms over this week's controversy-baiting Newsweek cover story by Andrew Sullivan, who asks, “Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?”

Discussion: The Hollywood Gossip

Dylan Byers / Politico:
Tina Brown and the Newsweek covers

Discussion: Gawker, The Huffington Post, The Daily Dish and The Politico

Valerie Block / Crain's New York:

Huffington Post is developing a new video offering — Al-Jazeera could contribute content to the project. — Arianna Huffington, the president and editor in chief of Huffington Post Media Group, was quite the social butterfly during a recent trip to Doha, Qatar.

Discussion: Forbes, Beet.TV and Future of Journalism

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York: Howard Fineman explains the relationship between The Huffington Post and Patch

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Reuters Launches Web TV Channel, Bringing 10 New & Original Shows To YouTube — The move to bring original programming to the web continues to heat up this week, with today's announcement of Reuters TV, a new YouTube channel featuring ten new commentary and analysis shows from the news and media division of Thomson Reuters.

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

What Politico's Beltway cash cow, its print edition, wants from New York (and what it doesn't) — Mike Allen's influential daily Playbook email blast this morning had news of special interest to Politico's New York readers: The politics brand was now exporting its print edition to Manhattan.

Discussion: Politico, Future of Journalism, Adweek and Poynter

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:
Politico Comes to New York

Discussion: FishbowlDC, GalleyCat and 10,000 Words

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

AP tells staff how to correct erroneous tweets in new social media guidelines — The Associated Press updated its social media guidelines today, adding sections about correcting erroneous tweets and deleting tweets. The guidelines, which have been updated three times in the past year …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Press Association:

Brown impersonated for Sunday Times — Someone working for The Sunday Times called Abbey National pretending to be Gordon Brown to obtain details about the former prime minister's finances, the paper's editor has said. — John Witherow confirmed that the paper “blagged” …

Discussion: Press Association

David Allen Green / New Statesman:
The Times admission about computer hacking

Discussion: FleetStreetBlues

Reuters:
UK politicans and police to blame for hacking-editor

Discussion: @adamboultonsky, Press Gazette, Journalism.co.uk, Guardian and Jon Slattery

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Jenkins on Paterno story: 'I certainly didn't walk away from the interview satisfied' — Sally Jenkins interviewed former Penn State coach Joe Paterno twice and walked away unsure whether he was telling her the truth about Jerry Sandusky. “It was tough, tricky interview …

Discussion: Jerry Sandusky and Live Q&A's

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Why Is NBCUniversal Threatening To Report Commenters They Disagree With To Their Employers? — This one is a little bizarre. David Seaman, a contributor to Business Insider, claims that he lost his contributor status at the site following a dispute he had with an NBCUniversal employee …

Discussion: David Seaman

Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:

Confessions of a Publisher: “We're in Amazon's Sights and They're Going to Kill Us” — When you see Snooki's book on the New York Times Best Seller List, you know publishing is in trouble. — You can blame readers and say publishing is just giving the public what they want. But that's only half the problem.

Daniel Nye Griffiths / Forbes:

It Takes Tweets to Tango - Murdoch, Kutcher, the ur-Jack and the dangers of Twitter — Rupert Murdoch's recent tweets in support of SOPA have, not surprisingly, caused a degree of anaphylaxis - although, realistically, the chances of Murdoch and Cory Doctorow releasing a joint statement …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Jim Romenesko:

Conversation-starter: Your Pulitzer Prize favorites? — As many journalists know, the deadline for Pulitzer entries is next Wednesday. This morning I got in touch with the journalist who reported and wrote one of my favorite 2011 investigations — “Inside Amazon's Warehouse” — to see if he'd submitted his series yet.