Mediagazer: BBC boss confirms TV download pay service (John Plunkett/Guardian)

8:35 AM ET, March 15, 2012

Top News:

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Blog post prompted Thurlbeck ‘witness intimidation’ arrest — Former News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck was arrested yesterday and questioned for six hours after a posting on his blog which revealed News Corp general manager Will Lewis's home address.

Discussion: Neville Thurlbeck and Press Gazette

London Evening Standard: Murdoch and son get ready to face Leveson

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
James Murdoch writes to MPs expressing regret over phone hacking

Discussion: Financial Times, Guardian, @edmundlee, @lisaocarroll, The Huffington Post, Erik Wemple, Media Decoder, @fleetstreetfox, @hughes_mark, @skymartinbrunt, Poynter and Capital New York

Press Gazette:
Guardian crime reporter warns of police ‘over-reaction’

Discussion: Guardian and Telegraph

Reuters:
Murdoch UK paper editor “told me to bribe police”

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk and Press Gazette

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Trinity Mirror suffers 40% fall in profits — Newspaper publisher to cut pension fund payments as profits fall to £74m — Trinity Mirror has reported a 40% fall in pre-tax profits to £74m for 2011, and agreed to cut pension fund payments by almost £70m as the publisher's pension deficit ballooned by almost half.

Discussion: Press Gazette

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Trinity Mirror invests £10m in daily deals website — Trinity Mirror, which reported a 40% profits fall today, is moving into the online daily deals sector. — It is launching an online daily deals business called “happli”, which enables people who register with its website to buy discounted goods.

Discussion: Press Gazette

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Encyclopedias are like journalism: It's better when they are open — Anyone who grew up with the Encyclopedia Britannica could be forgiven for getting a little misty-eyed about the legendary publication doing away with its printed version after more than two centuries, even if the move seems unsurprising (and more than a little late).

Discussion: CNN, Digital Spy, Guardian, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Jacket Copy, ZDNet and Los Angeles Times

Britannica Blog:
Change: It's Okay. Really.

Discussion: PandoDaily, Wired, Los Angeles Times, Techland, Softpedia News, Media Decoder, Bigmouthmedia Search …, paidContent:UK, GalleyCat, Business Insider, Daggle, Mashable!, the Econsultancy blog, TechCrunch, TeleRead and CNNMoney.com

Jim Romenesko:
A former Britannica editor on the print edition's demise

Discussion: New York Times, Washington Post, WebProNews, Chicago Tribune, Culture, ReadWriteWeb, Poynter and Media Decoder

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Charlie Rose and the Truth About Unpaid Media Interns — A lawsuit filed today against PBS host Charlie Rose and his production company hinges on a few simple questions: Are college-age interns in publishing and broadcasting unpaid employees or students? Are they rendering valuable services …

Steven Greenhouse / Media Decoder:
Former Intern at ‘Charlie Rose’ Sues, Alleging Wage Law Violations

Discussion: Deadline.com and The Huffington Post

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

The Daily Has an Angry Birds App — And the Start of a Custom Publishing Business — Hey! You like Angry Birds, right? Of course you do. So you'll enjoy reading about Angry Birds, via a new, free iOS app about the newest iteration of the game, produced by The Daily. (An Android version is in the works.)

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Pocket-lint, ZDNet and Softpedia News

Jim Hopkins / Gannett Blog:

Memo: Gannett establishing national news desk — USA Today Executive Editor Susan Weiss forwarded the following memo to staff yesterday. It came a day before many U.S. journalists were to participate in a Web conference on the future of wire news. My question: Does this spell the beginning …

Discussion: @romenesko and @mattderienzo

Dylan Byers / Politico:

NBC pulls Ron Paul's last embed — A couple weeks back I noted that Ron Paul, the lonely delegate hunter, had only one full-time, embedded reporter on his trail: Anthony Terrell of NBC News. Other reporters have provided some coverage of the candidate, but for the last few weeks Terrell was the only proverbial boy on the bus.

Discussion: Hit & Run, Runnin' Scared and Mediaite

Steve Smith / minonline.com:

Will The New iPad Display Put Digital Mags On A Crash Diet? — For magazine publishers the next-gen iPad's “Retina Display” raises an interesting math problem. The doubling of resolution and pixel density opens up worlds of opportunity for crafting even more luscious visual experiences.

Discussion: The Verge, MinOnline and Nxtblog

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Magazines' Newsstand Slide Smaller in Canada — But That May Be Good News for U.S. Publishers — Magazines have long blamed their continuing newsstand declines on everything from gas prices to store layouts — everything but demand for magazines themselves.

John Plunkett / Guardian:

BBC boss confirms TV download pay service — Mark Thompson says Project Barcelona will allow viewers to purchase programmes permanently just after they are broadcast — BBC director general Mark Thompson has confirmed plans for an iTunes-style download service that will allow viewers …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, NetNewsCheck Latest, Pocket-lint, The Next Web, BBC, The Wall Blog and Engadget

Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:

Sports Illustrated App Hits iPhone, Celebrates With Augmented Reality Magazine Cover — I'm no athlete, but I've found that a passing knowledge of sports comes in handy when conversations take a turn for the awkward. The question then is where do sports fans (and wannabes like me) go to get the skinny?

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and mediabistro.com

Jeffrey Goldfarb / Reuters:

New York Times pay structure isn't fit to print — The New York Times Co's pay structure isn't fit to print. The venerable U.S. newspaper group revealed a bonus structure that rewards bosses with 175 percent of their target payouts for achieving a mere 2.5 percent return on invested capital.

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York: ‘New York Times’ names SmartMoney.com founder Marc Frons its chief information officer

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Web TV service Aereo lives—no injunctions in sight — The streaming service that delivers over-the-air TV broadcasts went live today, though ABC, CBS, NBC, and other networks sued to try to stop the launch. — One of Aereo's tiny antennas. — New Yorkers can watch live broadcast TV via the Web, starting today.

Discussion: Media Money …, Wired and Shelly Palmer Digital Living