Mediagazer: Bay Citizen, Center for Investigative Reporting Announce Intent to Merge (Peter Lewis/The Bay Citizen)

10:50 AM ET, February 8, 2012

Top News:

Anna Heim / The Next Web:

Amazon Prime subscribers will get access to Viacom TV shows — Amazon has closed a deal with the media conglomerate Viacom that will let its Prime subscribers stream new TV shows, the company announced today. — This announcement doesn't come as a surprise, and confirms recent rumors …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Reuters, 9to5Google, CNET and Home Media Magazine

Ryan Lawler / Gigaom:
With Viacom deal, Amazon looks like a real competitor to Netflix

Discussion: Amazon and paidContent, more at Techmeme »

Martin Beckford / Telegraph:

News International scandal: police paid £100,000 under false names — Police officers were paid more than £100,000 by News International journalists who hid their true identities in company records, it is claimed. — Contacts are alleged to have been paid under £1,000 …

Brian Farmer / The Independent:

More phone-hacking claims settled — More high-profile figures have settled their phone-hacking damages claims, the High Court heard today. Ex-footballer Paul Gascoigne, comedian Steve Coogan, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes and football agent Sky Andrew are among …

Stephen Hull / The Huffington Post - UK: Dominic Mohan, Sun Editor, Says Page 3 Girls Are ‘Healthy Role Models’

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Nice Guy, Finishing Last: How Don Graham Fumbled the Washington Post Co. — In the next few months Facebook will go public at a rumored valuation of up to $100 billion, one of the most keenly anticipated business events ever. The instant that trading opens, Mark Zuckerberg and a handful …

Discussion: Poynter, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Politico, FishbowlNY and NetNewsCheck Latest

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:
Washington Post Will Further Reduce Staff

Discussion: Forbes

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Sky News clamps down on Twitter use — Reporters banned from reposting non-company tweets and told to check with the news desk before breaking news stories — Sky News has told its journalists not to repost information from any Twitter users who are not an employee of the broadcaster.

Ben Fenton / blogs.ft.com: Sky's the limit on retweets

Fleet Street Blues:
Sky News opts for old-fashioned content creation over curation with Twitter clampdown

Discussion: The Wall Blog and The Next Web

Peter Lauria / Reuters:

AOL hires chief content officer for troubled Patch — (Reuters) - AOL Inc, which has been investing heavily in content to make up for declining revenue from dial-up Internet access, has hired an executive for the newly created position of chief content officer at its struggling Patch hyperlocal news network.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Future of Journalism and Business Insider

John Koblin / WWD:

BuzzFeed Taps Amy Odell — CUT TO THE BUZZ: BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith has poached Amy Odell from New York Magazine's The Cut blog. — Odell will start at BuzzFeed at the end of the month and run a vertical geared toward women. Smith, Odell and BuzzFeed executive editor Doree Shafrir …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Greg Kelly ‘thankful’ to be cleared of rape charges, will return to ‘Good Day’ soon — Fox 5 anchor Greg Kelly issued a statement through his publicist Tuesday night following news reports that the Manhattan D.A. will not charge him with rape. — “I am thankful that the investigation established …

Discussion: NY Daily News, rbr.com, Capital New York, New York Magazine and FishbowlNY

Daily Mail:
BREAKING NEWS: TV anchor Greg Kelly ‘will NOT be charged with rape’

Discussion: New York Times and Gawker

Peter Lewis / The Bay Citizen:

Bay Citizen, Center for Investigative Reporting Announce Intent to Merge — The Bay Citizen and the Center for Investigative Reporting have signed a formal letter of intent to merge the two award-winning Bay Area nonprofit news organizations, the directors of both companies announced Tuesday afternoon.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and California Watch

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Le Huffington Post Québec Launches — Le Huffington Post Quebec, the second French language version of HuffPost, is live. HuffPost France launched in late January, with Anne Sinclair editing. Since you already know what to expect out of the 15,457th HuffPost vertical, we'll just tell you the nuts and bolts of the launch.

Discussion: The New York Observer

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Spokesman Mark Block says he asked Philly.com to remove sale story from website — A Philadelphia Daily News reporter's blog post about a potential buyer for his paper was removed from the company's news site Tuesday because it was misleading, according to the spokesman who requested it be taken down.

Discussion: Philly.com, @davidfolkenflik, CBS Philly, Off Mic and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Mail Online Income Quickening After U.S. Expansion — Mail Online's annual revenue growth rate has accelerated to a high of 70 percent following its big push in to the U.S., its publisher DMGT reported in Wednesday's interim disclosure for its October-to-January earnings.

Discussion: Press Gazette, production.investis.com and Guardian

Kevin Lincoln / Business Insider:

New York Observer Publisher Jared Kushner Might Buy The Dodgers — Jared Kushner — owner and publisher of the New York Observer, son-in-law of Donald Trump — is in the running to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Times reports. — If his bid went through, he would become the youngest owner in the MLB.

Discussion: Forbes, Los Angeles Times, LAist, FishbowlLA, New York Post, FishbowlNY and New York Magazine

Elizabeth Spiers / spiers.tumblr.com:
The New York Observer, One Year In

Discussion: Felix Salmon

Patrick Thornton / Poynter:

How Siri, if opened up to third-party apps, could enhance news consumption — Apple's Siri voice technology is one of the must-have features of the iPhone 4S, and has become one of the phone's biggest selling points. — Voice technology is not new. What makes Siri and similar technologies different …

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

2.1 Million Streamed the Super Bowl, NBC Says — More than 2.1 million people turned on the live Internet stream of Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday night, NBC said on Tuesday, citing data from two measurement firms, Omniture and mDialog. — NBC said in a news release that the live stream represented the …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, TVWeek.com, WebProNews, Media Buyer Planner, Multichannel, Forbes and SlashGear, more at Techmeme »

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

Cable TV and Movie Divisions Help Lift Time Warner Revenue — An uptick in advertising revenue at its cable television networks and a solid performance at the box office for its Warner Brothers movie studio contributed to a 5 percent increase in quarterly revenue at Time Warner.

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

GOP Primary Show: Non-Stop News And Noise In The Age Of Twitter — Last week, Jon Ralston, a veteran Las Vegas Sun columnist, dared reporters to ignore Donald Trump's unveiling of his presidential endorsement — with low expectations about how that might play out.

Discussion: Poynter