Mediagazer: News Corp faces proxy call for independent chairman (Ross Kerber/Reuters)

7:55 AM ET, April 3, 2012

Top News:

Media Guardian / @mediaguardian:

James Murdoch to step down as BSkyB chairman. More details soon ...

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 — BSkyB, knowing the game is up, is staging a dignified exit for James Murdoch, writes Katherine Rushton. — James Murdoch's best defence over the phone hacking scandal went from being ‘none of my staff told me’ to 'my staff told me but I didn't notice'

Discussion: Deadline.com

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

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 group to buy Phila. Media Network for $55 million

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

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

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

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 …

Thanks:@matt_creamer

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

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

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.

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

Elspeth Reeve / The Atlantic Wire:

In Defense of the Media's Coverage of Trayvon Martin — The headline on New York Times media critic David Carr's column on media coverage of Trayvon Martin in only five words, “A Shooting, and Instant Polarization,” but it really contains two arguments, neither of which bear up to facts.

Discussion: CJR, Slate, Mediaite, Politico and New York Times

Sonia Paul / Mashable:

iPhone Documentary Takes on Syria: Is This the Future of Journalism? — An anonymous undercover reporter for Al Jazeera has captured the Syrian uprising in a first-of-its-kind-documentary — recorded on an iPhone. — The 25 minute documentary, “Syria: Songs of Defiance,” aired on Al Jazeera's show People & Power earlier this month.

Ilaina Jonas / Reuters:

Goldman fund to exit company owning sex traffic site — A private equity fund run by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) has agreed to sell its stake in the media company that runs a sex trafficking forum back to company's management, a spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Discussion: CNBC and business.time.com