Mediagazer: Murdoch owns too many papers, says Harman (Ben Dowell/Guardian)

7:05 AM ET, March 7, 2012

Top News:

Exclusive: Netflix in talks for cable partnership — (Reuters) - Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings has quietly met with some of the largest U.S. cable companies in recent weeks to discuss adding the online movie streaming service to their cable offerings, according to sources familiar with matter.

Discussion: Engadget, Forbes, TechCrunch, VatorNews, CNET, VentureBeat, Electronista, The Verge, The Next Web, ZDNet, Home Media Magazine, Online Video News, Gizmodo and Shelly Palmer Digital Living

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Here's The Woman Rush Limbaugh Is Attacking Today; ‘Totally Bizarre,’ She Says — Tracie McMillan. Photo via traciemcmillan.com — Say you're a conservative radio host who's losing advertisers left and right for saying some deeply misinformed and misogynistic things about the lifestyle …

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, TIME Ideas, Rush Limbaugh, Mother Jones, Forbes, BtoB Magazine and St. Petersburg Times

Judd Legum / ThinkProgress:
Five More Advertisers Drop Rush Limbaugh, Bringing Total To 20

Discussion: Reuters, Mother Jones, ANIMAL, The Huffington Post and The Daily Dish

Wall Street Journal:
Limbaugh Syndicator Defends Host

Discussion: Gawker, Washington Wire, Raleigh News & Observer, Bloomberg, Speakeasy, Poynter and Erik Wemple

Los Angeles Times:

Google launches digital media destination Google Play — Google is ready to play. It's creating a single destination for digital media called Google Play, putting books, music, movies and games all in one spot. It's a bid to build a powerful entertainment hub on par with Apple, Amazon.com and Microsoft.

Discussion: The Official Google Blog, Company Town, VentureBeat and TechCrunch

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Godin to authors: You have no right to make money any more — Thanks to the rise self-publishing tools, from Amazon's Kindle platform to Apple's iAuthor software, anyone who wants to write a book can do so and theoretically reach an audience of millions — as self-publishing superstars such as Amanda Hocking and John Locke have shown.

Discussion: TeleRead, Thanks:@mathewi

London Evening Standard:

Two Murdoch reporters feared to be in suicide bids — Two senior journalists at News International have apparently attempted to commit suicide as pressure mounts inside the Murdoch media empire. The reporters appeared to try to take their own lives after the company turned over 300 million emails …

Discussion: One Man & His Blog, Editor's Blog, Journalism.co.uk, The Age, Business Insider and Guardian

Ben Dowell / Guardian: Murdoch owns too many papers, says Harman

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:
News Corp dropped top US anti-bribery lawyer from its legal team

Discussion: Deadline.com and Law Blog

Sandra Laville / Guardian: Phone hacking has made police scared of the press, Stevens tells Leveson

Neville Thurlbeck / @nthurlbeck: I'm afraid there was a very serious suicide attempt by an NoTW staffer before Christmas taking the number to 3, thanks to the MSC.

Ki Mae Heussner / Adweek:

Can the BuzzFeed Formula Work for Real News? — BuzzFeed, the meme-centric social news site known for its reserves of offbeat content and silly cat photos, is stockpiling journalists—serious ones. — Last week, it announced the hire of award-winning Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings …

Dwight Garner / New York Times:

Kindle Singles, Genre Between Magazine Articles and Books — The Kindle Single is not a promising name. It sounds like a new kind of prefabricated fire log, or a type of person you might meet on the dating service eHarmony, or perhaps a lonely independent bookstore owner put out of business by Amazon.com.

McKay Coppins / BuzzFeed:

Breitbart 2.0 — Days after Breitbart's sudden death, his right-wing new media empire has been revamped, redesigned, and relaunched with the goal of competing as a serious news outlet—and moving away from the aggregation and activist blogging that have been his sites' bread and butter until now.

Rajeev Syal / Guardian:

‘BBC commercial plans are unambitious’ — Broadcaster told to boost income at a time of budget cuts, and to reveal how those cuts will affect services and quality — The BBC lacks ambition in its plans to boost commercial revenue, at a time when it is being forced to make substantial budget cuts, a committee of MPs say today.

Discussion: Beet.TV

Erin Siegal / CJR:

Few Female Bylines in Major Magazines — It's appropriate that the red, the color of passion and anger, represents the female slice of the pie in latest set of charts created by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. The infographics reveal an ugly, unchanging truth: in 2011, the number …

Discussion: JAWS

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

Young Sulzberger Is Coming Home to the Big City — A.G. “Baller of a New Generation” Sulzberger—son of NYT publisher Pinch Sulzberger, heir to the throne of the Times empire, and natural wisenheimer—has completed his exile in Middle America, where he helmed the Kansas City desk and was forced …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, WWD and @koblin

Danny Whatmough / The Huffington Post:

New Media and Tech Winning the Viral News War — Some new research sheds light on how social media is currently being used to share news articles from traditional publishers. Newswhip has looked at the number of news stories during January 2012 that received more than 100 mentions on Twitter …

Steven Church / Bloomberg:

Zell Company Seeks Part of Any Future Lawsuit Winnings Over Tribune Buyout — Billionaire Sam Zell is demanding a share of any money retirees and other creditors may win in lawsuits or legal settlements over the 2007 leveraged buyout he engineered of newspaper publisher Tribune Co. (TRB)