Mediagazer: Gannett's poor 1st quarter results bode ill for newspapers in 2012 (Rick Edmonds/Poynter)

10:20 AM ET, April 19, 2012

Top News:

New York Times Co. Reports Gain in Net Income — The New York Times Company reported on Thursday a large gain in first-quarter net income, driven largely by the sale of its regional newspapers, the sale of part of its stake in a New England sports group and an increase in circulation revenue at its flagship newspaper.

Discussion: New York Magazine, Poynter and FishbowlNY

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

New York Times Sees Digital Ads Droop — The New York Times says its digital paywall strategy is a success with consumers. But its digital advertising business stumbled last quarter, and dropped by 2 percent. — Times CEO Arthur Sulzberger Jr. blamed “uneven U.S. economic environment …

Discussion: Business Wire

Guardian:

Watson: News Corp was like ‘shadow state’ — Labour MP who led campaign against phone hacking also says News of the World aimed to investigate MPs' provate lives — News Corporation is a “toxic institution” that operated like a “shadow state” in British society, according to a Labour MP …

Discussion: Deadline.com, @kevin_maguire, Guardian and @dansabbagh

Reuters: UK parliament aims to publish hacking report on May 1

Telegraph: Sun royal editor Duncan Larcombe held in ‘illegal payment’ raids

The Independent:
Brooks and Thurlbeck at risk as prosecutors get first hacking files

Discussion: Press Gazette

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:
Starmer: Charging advice ‘likely’ for more journalist cases

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Pentagon Asked Newspaper Not to Publish Photos — The grisly photographs of American soldiers posing with the body parts of Afghan insurgents during a 2010 deployment in Afghanistan were the source of a dispute between The Los Angeles Times and the Pentagon lasting weeks.

Discussion: CNN, Boing Boing and LA Observed

Steve Myers / Poynter:
LA Times delayed publication of Afghan corpse photos at Pentagon's request

Discussion: BAGnewsNotes, Readers' Representative …, The Week and Poynter

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Final Numbers Make It Official: ‘GMA’ Beat Today' Last Week — The final score is in for last week's ratings race between NBC's “Today” show and ABC's “Good Morning America,” and the winner is ABC. — ABC's morning program surpassed NBC's by 31,000 total viewers for the week, marking its first full-week victory over NBC since 1995.

Discussion: @howardkurtz

Grant McCool / Reuters:

Apple wants trial on e-book price-fixing: lawyer — (Reuters) - Apple Inc wants to go to trial to defend itself against U.S. government allegations that it conspired with publishers to raise prices of electronic books, a lawyer for the Silicon Valley giant said in court on Wednesday.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, The Verge, Macworld Australia, 9to5Mac, CNET and MacRumors

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

All 50 states may join e-book refund settlement — The lawsuits over price-fixing in the e-book market took a new twist today after a HarperCollins lawyer predicted that three publishers could reach a settlement with all 50 state governments in the next two months.

Discussion: TeleRead

BBC:

President Obama leads tributes to TV host Dick Clark — Tributes have been pouring in following the death of American veteran TV presenter Dick Clark, with President Barack Obama saying he “reshaped the television landscape forever”. Clark, who was 82, died following a heart attack on Wednesday.

Bruce Weber / New York Times:
TV Emperor of Rock ‘n’ Roll and New Year's Eve Dies At 82

Discussion: Media Decoder, Gawker, Salt Lake Tribune and The New York Observer

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

Bill O'Reilly & Sean Hannity Closing New Deals With Fox News Channel — EXCLUSIVE: I've learned that Fox News Channel is finalizing new deals with its two biggest stars, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. The new multi-year, multi-million dollar agreements, which are expected to be completed …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, TVNewser, Inside Cable News, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

Guardian:

Julian Assange's lawyer ‘prevented from boarding flight at Heathrow’ — A lawyer for the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has said she was stopped at Heathrow airport and told she was on a watch list requiring official approval before she could return to her native Australia.

Discussion: NEWS.com.au

Laura Stampler / Business Insider:

FINALLY! Tumblr Will Start Selling Ad Units On May 2 — In a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Tumblr CEO and founder David Karp said, “We're pretty opposed to advertising. It really turns our stomachs.” — How times have changed. Karp announced at Ad Age's Digital Conference that on May 2 …

Discussion: Betabeat, the Econsultancy blog, Bigmouthmedia Search …, GigaOM, Marketing Pilgrim, Mashable!, @choire and New York Magazine

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Gold below the fold: new metrics promise end of unseen ads — According to estimates, 30 percent of online ads are seen by no one at all. This happens when ads are stuffed on part of a Web page that no one sees or when an ad doesn't finish loading until after a reader has scrolled past it.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Who watches the watchmen? The Guardian crowdsources its investigation into online tracking — As Guardian journalists were preparing to launch their new investigative project on cookies and other online tools that track you around the web, they realized they had to figure out just what kind of trackers exist on their own website.

Discussion: Guardian

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Current TV to Hire Gavin Newsom, California's Lieutenant Governor — Updated Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, is getting a second job: as a talk show host on Current TV, the progressive cable television upstart. — “The Gavin Newsom Show” will be shown weekly starting in May, the channel announced on Wednesday.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, TVNewser, Broadcasting & Cable, Mediaite, FishbowlLA and New York Magazine