Mediagazer: Times and Sunday Times digital sales power ahead (Dominic Ponsford/Press Gazette)

8:50 PM ET, February 15, 2012

Top News:

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Met probes claims that Sun paid some public officials more than £10k a year — Source familiar with News Corp internal inquiry says it has found ‘serious suspected criminality over a sustained period’ — The Scotland Yard investigation into alleged illegal payments by Sun journalists …

Discussion: ProPublica

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

U.S. litigation against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. may not be imminent; but it's still all bad news for him — News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch is all lawyered up and bound for London tomorrow on a crisis management mission. — And with the trip, a fresh wave of speculation has gripped …

Discussion: Reuters, CJR, Globe and Mail, The Lede, Save the News, Financial Times and Forbes

Robert Hutton / Bloomberg:
News Corp. Hacking Report Delayed by Debate

Discussion: Guardian

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Sun staff line up human rights challenge to News Corp inquiry team

Discussion: CJR, Press Gazette, The Huffington Post, Free Press and themediablog.typepad.com

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Sun journalists must fight for their rights - Geoffrey Robertson

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and The Huffington Post

Katherine Rushton / Telegraph: James Murdoch name tied to News Corp scandal

BBC: Glenn Mulcaire granted evidence appeal

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Philly papers to lose 37 positions through buyouts, layoffs — Philadelphia Media Network executives announced at a meeting with Guild leaders today that they will reduce the newsrooms of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com by 37 positions. The company will offer buyouts first, and then begin layoffs if necessary.

Discussion: New York Times and @chanders

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Sale of Philly papers will test whether local owners can stay out of the newsroom — Five and a half years ago, when Brian Tierney fronted a local group that bought the Philadelphia papers from McClatchy (which bought them temporarily from Knight Ridder), media watchers worried …

Discussion: The Philly Post and Philly.com

Erik Wemple:

Inquirer's top editor speaks — Those who value a strong and independent media in and around Philadelphia have been walking around in a funk in recent weeks. That's because the journalism of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News appears to be under siege. — The culprit?

Discussion: Capital New York and Poynter

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

Fact from fiction: PolitiFact draws ire for checking ‘Glee’ — Has the Great Fact Checking Explosion reached a new level of strangeness so soon into the election year? — Or to put it the way some did Tuesday: Has PolitFact jumped the shark? — These questions are cropping up thanks …

Discussion: American Journalism Review, Saint Petersblog, PolitiFact, Riptide 2.0 and Mediaite

Dylan Byers / Politico:

PolitiFact responds to Rachel Maddow — Rachel Maddow made yet another stinging attack on PolitiFact last night, calling the Tampa Bay Times' fact-checking project “a disaster” (see video). — Via email, PolitiFact editor and Tampa Bay Times Washington bureau chief Bill Adair responds to the criticism:

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, The Huffington Post, @politifact, Saint Petersblog and Mediaite

Joe Flint / Company Town:

CNN officially severs ties with Larry King — CNN and Larry King are going their separate ways. — Though King gave up his daily prime-time talk show on CNN in December 2010, he still had a deal for several specials. The last of those — “A Larry King Special: Dinner With the Kings” — aired in December.

Discussion: TVNewser, The Huffington Post and Media Decoder

David Sarno / Los Angeles Times:

Twitter stores full iPhone contact list for 18 months, after scan — Twitter Inc. has acknowledged that after mobile users tap the “Find friends” feature on its smartphone app, the company downloads users' entire address book, including names, email addresses and phone numbers, and keeps the data on its servers for 18 months.

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

Comcast's Net Income Increases, Lifted by Internet Subscriptions — A slowing decline in the number of customers cancelling their cable service coupled with a boost in high-speed Internet subscriptions contributed to a 26.4 percent increase in net income at Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider.

Discussion: MediaPost, AdAge, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, AllThingsD, Businessweek, paidContent, ZDNet and Multichannel

Meg James / Company Town:
Comcast fourth-quarter profit jumps 26%; NBC and film lag

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, rbr.com and Home Media Magazine

Will Rahn / The Daily Caller:

Media Matters tax-exempt status may face new scrutiny from Congress — Congressional Republicans are now interested in examining the Media Matters For America's tax-exempt status, The Daily Caller has learned. Doing so would cause the GOP to wade into the complex world of tax laws that govern …

Discussion: Mediaite, topics.dailycaller.com, Jack Shafer and Capital New York

Matthew Fleischer / FishbowlLA:
James Rainey, Brian Stelter Get the Bill O'Reilly Treatment

Discussion: The Daily Caller and FishbowlDC

Erik Wemple:
Fox News and the art of media-timing

Discussion: Poynter, TVNewser, Mediaite, Capital New York, The Daily Caller and Gawker

Lucas Shaw / The Wrap:

CBS 4Q Profits Soar Despite Revenue Dip — Profits at CBS surged 17 percent to $384 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, capping off a year in which its net income nearly doubled, according to its earnings report on Wednesday. — The strong earnings report, which included a new corporate record …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, The Wrap, Associated Press, PR Newswire, Stocks To Watch Today, @edgecliffe and Fox Business

McKay Coppins / Buzz Feed:

Atlantic Media Execs Headed To To St. Bart's — The owner of The Atlantic Media is paying to send 20 senior executives and editors to St. Bart's, a posh French Caribbean destination. Atlantic owner David Bradley, who is building a home on the resort island, rented villas for editors …

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Is Politico Looking to Revive Politico TV? — Way back in 2008, the political newspaper and website Politico announced that it was getting into the TV news business with Politico TV. — As our sister blog FishbowlDC noted at the time, the idea was to re-brand an existing program on WJLA …

Discussion: FishbowlDC

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Bleacher Report Launches Hyper-Specialized YouTube Channels — Bleacher Report appears determined to prove that love of minutia-based sports fare has no bounds. Today, the upstart sports site announced the launch of new YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) channels. — One of Bleacher Report's …

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Wrap and Online Video News