Mediagazer: Met ‘grades journalists by favourable coverage’ (Andrew Pugh/Press Gazette)

9:45 AM ET, March 15, 2012

Top News:

Andrew Pugh / Press Gazette:

Met ‘grades journalists by favourable coverage’ — The Sun's crime correspondent Mike Sullivan claims the Metropolitan Police grades journalists on how favourable their coverage is. — Sullivan told the Leveson Inquiry the force has analysts who scan newspapers looking for potential leaks …

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

Scotsman:

Evidence from former top auditor at Scotland Yard is delayed after force complaint — SCOTLAND Yard's former head auditor has had his Leveson Inquiry appearance postponed after the force complained he was being allowed to air “very serious” allegations about top officers in public.

Discussion: London Evening Standard and Telegraph

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

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

Discussion: Guardian, Guardian and Telegraph

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

Discussion: @fleetstreetfox, Journalism.co.uk and Press Gazette

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Newspaper advertising was down 7.3 percent, almost $2 billion, in 2011 — The Newspaper Association of America has posted its final tally of newspaper advertising statistics for 2011, and as expected, it is not a pretty picture. — Total advertising revenue was down 7.3 percent, a percentage point worse than in 2010.

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Newspaper sales slid to 1984 level in 2011 — In the poorest showing since 1984, advertising revenues at newspapers last year fell 7.3% to $23.9 billion, according to figures quietly published Wednesday by the Newspaper Association of America. — Here are a few factoids to help put the industry's long-running slump in perspective:

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

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: eMedia Vitals, NetNewsCheck Latest, Pocket-lint, ZDNet and Softpedia News

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: Free Press, CNN, Digital Spy, Guardian, Washington Post, Culture, WebProNews and Media Decoder

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

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

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

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Cisco Wants To Buy News Corp's TV Software Maker NDS For $5 Billion — Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) says it wants to buy News Corp.'s TV set-top box software maker NDS Group for $5 billion to improve its own offering and grow its profile in China and India. — Both companies' boards have approved the deal.

Discussion: Cisco and ZDNet

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

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

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.

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

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

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Ben Popper / VentureBeat:

As legal battle with TV networks escalates, Aereo launches in New York. We tested the service. It rocks — I'm sitting in my office (by which I mean my kitchen) watching Rachel Ray on my iPad and Kathy Lee on my laptop. These aren't clips or day or old episodes.

Discussion: paidContent, SlashGear, Multichannel and Broadcasting & Cable