Mediagazer: The San Francisco Examiner Closes in on Purchase of San Francisco Bay Guardian (Rachel Swan/East Bay Express)

12:15 PM ET, April 20, 2012

Top News:

Gregory Korte / USA Today:

Misinformation campaign targets USA TODAY reporter, editor — WASHINGTON - A USA TODAY reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites. — Sponsored Links

Discussion: New York Magazine, Media Decoder, The New York Observer, @jayrosen_nyu, Gannett Blog, The Atlantic Wire and The Raw Story

Erik Wemple:

USA Today alleges harassment scheme — USA Today Washington Enterprise Editor Ray Locker says that the worst thing they said about him was that he “was in bed with the Taliban.” — Who would say that about Locker? He doesn't know. But what he does know is a timeline …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Daily Dot, The Huffington Post and Business Insider

Rachel Swan / East Bay Express:

The San Francisco Examiner Closes in on Purchase of San Francisco Bay Guardian — The owners of the San Francisco Examiner are on the cusp of buying the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Bay Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond told the Express this afternoon that he's “optimistic” the deal will be signed soon.

Discussion: The Snitch, SFist and San Francisco Peninsula …

Business Week:

The DOJ's Publishing Lawsuit May Doom Digital Rights Management — In the days following the announcement of the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against publishers accused of colluding with Apple (AAPL) to raise e-book prices, much of the U.S. publishing industry decamped to the U.K. for the annual London Book Fair.

Steven Rosenbaum / Fast Company:

Content Curators Are The New Superheros Of The Web — Yesterday, the ever-churning machine that is the Internet pumped out more unfiltered digital data. — Yesterday, 250 million photos were uploaded to Facebook, 864,000 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube, and 294 BILLION emails were sent.

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone hacking: News International faces nearly 50 new claims — Civil claimants now include Sir John Major's former daughter-in-law, Lord Blencathra and former union leader Andy Gilchrist — The number of new civil claims for damages over alleged News of the World phone hacking faced …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Guardian, Deadline.com, Company Town and Wall Street Journal

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:
Murdoch's News Corp facing growing legal threat in US

Discussion: Capital New York, Thomson Reuters News …, Digital Spy, Crikey, The Huffington Post, Journalism.co.uk, @edpilkington, @mlcalderone, Deadline.com, @mlcalderone, @edmundlee, Guardian and @jeffbercovici

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Hulu Announces Four More Original Series, Bringing Total Lineup To Seven — Hulu has been having a busy week. On Tuesday, the company announced a new deal for advertisers, which now charges them only for ad completions, and today at Hulu's upfronts, the company announced the arrival of even more original shows.

Discussion: Hillicon Valley, PC Magazine, AdAge, Guardian, Bloomberg, The Wrap, The Verge, CNET, VentureBeat and Adweek

Michelle Quinn / Politico:

California: Bloggers should disclose political pay — SAN FRANCISCO — In a new twist on political disclosure, California may soon require bloggers to report financing from campaigns. — The proposal, by the state's Fair Political Practices Commission, is believed by state election officials …

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Nick Denton wants to turn the online media world upside down — Over the past couple of months, Gawker Media founder Nick Denton has made it clear that he doesn't like blog comments very much, and that includes the ones on his own sites such as Gizmodo and Jezebel.

Thanks:@mathewi

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

How Mitt Romney Beats the Press, Avoiding Most National Interviews — The candidate is carefully avoiding most national interviews outside of Fox. Howard Kurtz on why Mitt resents the media—and what his isolation is costing him. — It wouldn't be fair to say that Mitt Romney is hiding from the national media, exactly.

Discussion: Slate

Dawn:

Senior Dawn journalist Murtaza Razvi found dead — Dawn's Senior Assistant Editor and Magazines Editor Murtaza Razvi was murdered in Karachi. — KARACHI: Murtaza Razvi, a senior assistant editor and head of magazines at Dawn, was murdered in the early hours of Thursday, in Karachi.

Discussion: Online NewsHour, Times of India and Committee to Protect …

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

Online News Startups Struggle to Break Even in Western Europe — A viable business model remains as elusive overseas as it is in the U.S. — Last year, in a research project titled “The Business of Digital Journalism,” the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism set …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Big News Network.com and Reuters Institute …

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Business troubles show signs of deepening despite strong 1st quarter at New York Times Company — The New York Times Co. deserves to pat itself on the back, as executives did today in announcing first quarter results, for the first anniversary of its well-planned and superbly executed digital pay plan.

Discussion: paidContent, Associated Press, FishbowlNY and New York Times