Mediagazer: IRE, ASNE announce winners as awards season approaches Pulitzers (Andrew Beaujon/Poynter)

9:40 AM ET, April 3, 2012

Top News:

Kamal Ahmed / Telegraph:

James Murdoch quits as BSkyB chairman — James Murdoch is to resign as chairman of BSkyB with immediate effect. — He took the decision after speaking to close colleagues at BSkyB and News Corporation last week and over the weekend. — Mr Murdoch decided to quit now ahead of what is likely …

Discussion: Guardian, Telegraph and @davidfolkenflik

Guardian:

James Murdoch to step down as BSkyB chairman - live — 1.14pm: The Guardian's media commentator Roy Greenslade has given his reaction to the news of Murdoch's resignation in an interview with Sky News. He says it was somewhat “inevitable” and adds: “I don't think it's a massive surprise even though the timing may be surprising.

Discussion: Sky News and @mediaguardian

Ross Kerber / Reuters:

News Corp faces proxy call for independent chairman — (Reuters) - News Corp faces a call to appoint an independent board chairman on concerns Rupert Murdoch's media company needs to pursue more reforms following a phone-hacking scandal last summer. — The proxy proposal …

Discussion: @skynewsbreak

Katherine Rushton / Telegraph:
It has finally dawned on the Murdochs that James' days at BSkyB are numbered

Discussion: Deadline.com

Eric Deggans / Tampa Bay Times:

Sarah Palin knocks lamestream media while getting two hours free publicity on NBC's Today — Now I know why Sarah Palin calls it the lamestream media. Halfway through the first two hours of Palin's “guest hosting” stint on NBC's Today show this morning, I was still waiting …

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Sarah Palin Co-Hosts ‘Today’ — Perhaps “Today” host Savannah Guthrie put it best: “irony alert.” It was truly an ironic moment on the show when Sarah Palin began decrying the “lamestream media” in an interview with Matt Lauer. Her interrogator quickly noted that she was about to become …

Discussion: TVNewser and Chickaboomer

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Robert Redford to Produce a Documentary About Watergate — Rarely does reality intersect with role playing the way it did two Sundays ago in Bob Woodward's living room. — Meeting him there were Carl Bernstein, his writing partner at The Washington Post during the Watergate scandal in the 1970s …

Discussion: BBC

Rupal Parekh / AdAge:

Many Magazines Racing to Capitalize on Pinterest — Publishers Exploring Platform, Watching Rivals' Moves — Last month, digital executives from Hearst's 20 or so titles were summoned for an important meeting at the company's Manhattan headquarters. — The pressing subject was Pinterest …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Thanks:@matt_creamer

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:
MPA Levels Playing Field for Publishers' Tablet Data

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, New York Times, MinOnline, Folio, paidContent, BtoB Magazine and eMedia Vitals

Tim Carmody / Wired:

How Licensing and Hardware Bottlenecks Confound Magazine Text on the iPad — For the most part, text on the new Retina Display iPad looks amazing. Load a PDF with proper vector-based text onto it, and your document doesn't just look like paper; it looks like perfect paper.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and NetNewsCheck Latest

Matt Chaban / The New York Observer:

T-Squared Off: With Paul Goldberger Leaving for Vanity Fair, Is This the End of Architecture Criticism at The New Yorker? — There are two great thrones in American architectural criticism, that of The New Yorker and The New York Times. It was at these two journalistic institutions …

Discussion: UnBeige, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Capital New York, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY and LA Observed

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Tabloid Tangle: Jim Dolan Accuses Mort Zuckerman of Extortion — Publishing a tabloid newspaper in New York is not for the timid, but the accusation Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan just leveled against New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman is strong stuff even by those standards.

Discussion: Forbes, Newsday, New York Post, BuzzFeed, The Big Lead and Runnin' Scared

Paul Smalera / Reuters:

The recession killed journalism - and saved it — Over the last few years, thanks to the global economic crisis - encapsulating everything from the 2008 housing crash to today's ongoing euro zone sovereign-debt debacle - much ink has been spilled about the reshaping of the world's economy, especially about the domestic job market.

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Philly papers sold at 10% of 2006 value — After changing hands three times in six troubled years, Philadelphia's legendary newspapers were sold Monday for a tenth of the half-billion dollar price they fetched as recently as 2006. — The stunning plunge in the value of the Philadelphia Inquirer …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Mike Armstrong / Philly.com:
Local investors buy Inquirer, Daily News, website

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Top Dollar, Associated Press, Media Decoder, Politico, Poynter, @wendywarren, @wendywarren, JIMROMENESKO.COM, The Wrap and The Newspaper Guild

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

IRE, ASNE announce winners as awards season approaches Pulitzers — When the American Society of News Editors awards were announced this evening (full list below), they bolstered the pack of awards-winners heading toward the Pulitzer Prizes, which will be announced April 16.

Discussion: asne.org and California Watch