Mediagazer: Online Ambitions, and a Dash of Real Estate, Drive Newspaper Deals (Tanzina Vega/New York Times)

4:20 PM ET, January 30, 2012

Top News:

Nick Davies / Guardian:

Mysteries of Data Pool 3 give Rupert Murdoch a whole new headache — The arrest of four Sun journalists threatens to open a fresh phase of the scandal surrounding News International — On Saturday morning, the police arrested four journalists who have worked for Rupert Murdoch.

Discussion: Times of India and Business Insider

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Sun arrests show that News Corp is now at war with itself — Lest anyone fails to read it, I must commend Nick Davies's piece, Mysteries of Data Pool 3. He tells how News Corporation's Management and Standards Committee (MSC) has handed police a huge cache of material.

Discussion: Guardian

Business Wire:
Teri Everett to Exit as News Corporation's Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Communications

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Variety, Reuters, @brianstelter, Media Decoder, The New York Observer, Hollywood Reporter and @michaelwolffnyc

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Former Cosmo editor gives $30 million to establish media innovation center at Stanford, Columbia — Stanford's engineering school and Columbia's journalism school will use the $30 million gift to establish the bi-coastal David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:

For ProPublica, More E-Books — ProPublica, the nonprofit news organization known for its investigative journalism, is about to expand its e-book efforts. — Following in the digital footsteps of The New Yorker, The New York Times, Politico, Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan …

Discussion: Jacket Copy, paidContent and eMedia Vitals

Mike Armstrong / Philly.com:

Inquirer, Daily News could be headed for sale — A minority shareholder of the parent company of The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News is looking to sell its 30 percent stake, according to a story in the New York Post. — Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that holds interests …

Discussion: New York Post and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Jim Romenesko:
Philly newspapers boss responds to NYP story

Discussion: Poynter

Tanzina Vega / New York Times:

Online Ambitions, and a Dash of Real Estate, Drive Newspaper Deals — IF the future of media is digital, who would want to buy a newspaper? Many people, it turns out. — Investors acquired the newspapers in several major American cities in the second half of 2011, including The San Diego Union-Tribune …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and The Newspaper Guild

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Gannett Misses Earnings Targets On Special Charges, Digital Revenue Up — Gannett (NYSE: GCI) Co. posted lower than expected earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011 after incurring special charges related to workforce restructuring and asset write-downs. A report also showed …

Discussion: PR Newswire, Forbes, MediaPost, MarketWatch, Associated Press, Agence France Presse, The CFO Report, fnno.com and Broadcasting & Cable

Kelly McBride / Poynter:

Yale Daily News, New York Times both make wrong call on Patrick Witt sexual assault complaint coverage — As the story of Yale University quarterback Patrick Witt (and his Rhodes scholarship that wasn't) got more convoluted last week, both The New York Times and the Yale Daily News came under …

Discussion: Forbes, National Review, SBNation.com, NESN.com and Yale Daily News

John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:

Where's the Fire? Kindle Sales Pushing Six Million for the Quarter. — Has anyone seen one of Amazon's new Kindle Fires in the wild? I haven't. But evidently they're everywhere. You just need to know where to look to find them — like Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Forbes, paidContent, CNET, VatorNews, PC Magazine and Mashable!, more at Techmeme »

David Carr / New York Times:

Twitter Gives Glimpse Into Rupert Murdoch's Mind — As American business has become more and more media savvy, its leaders have appeared in media less and less. Business reporters have to work their way past background conversations with underlings, written statements that state nothing …

Discussion: The Verge, Media Decoder, Gawker, @carr2n and @romenesko

Michael Brendan Dougherty / Business Insider:

Drudge Fights Back Against The Charge He Is In Romney's Pocket — On the top right corner of the Drudge Report, the master of the news-cycle links to a story from Politico in which former Senator Fred Thompson alleges Drudge is in Romney's pocket. — And just below that link …

Discussion: FishbowlDC and WebProNews

David Weigel / Slate: Drudge Winks — Before it's taken down, check out the joke Matt Drudge …

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Reports: Barnes & Noble Partnership With Waterstones; New Nook — Two separate reports published this weekend suggest that Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) is close to a partnership with UK bookstore chain Waterstones and, perhaps separately, will release a new Nook this spring. — The first article is from Bloomberg.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, CNET, VentureBeat, WebProNews, PC Magazine, GalleyCat and New York Times

Yahoo! News:

New York police spokesman comes under fire — NEW YORK (AP) — When word leaked out last year that New York police were showing an inflammatory movie about Muslims to trainees, news reporters flipped open their notebooks, picked up their phones and hit the speed dial for a man named Paul Browne.

Discussion: Capital New York

Dan Roberts / Guardian:

Newsdesk live: the next phase of our open commissioning project — Join the Guardian's national news editing team to help us shape the news agenda and pursue stories as they develop through the day — • Read our first Newsdesk live blogpost — In October, we launched the first phase …

Discussion: Poynter, 10,000 Words, News: News blog and pr-media-blog.co.uk