Mediagazer: Gold below the fold: new metrics promise end of unseen ads (Jeff John Roberts/paidContent)

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: @kevin_maguire

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

Starmer: Charging advice ‘likely’ for more journalist cases — Director of public prosecutions says he expects more cases relating to arrested journalists to be referred to the CPS, following first batch this week — Keir Starmer: ‘These are simply the first batch of cases’

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Reuters:

UK parliament aims to publish hacking report on May 1 — (Reuters) - British legislators said on Thursday they hoped to publish on May 1 a long-awaited report into a phone hacking scandal centered on News Corp's now-closed News of the World tabloid. — Parliament's culture committee …

Telegraph:

Sun royal editor Duncan Larcombe held in ‘illegal payment’ raids — The Sun's royal editor Duncan Larcombe was today arrested by detectives investigating alleged illegal payments to public officials by journalists. — The Sun's royal editor Duncan Larcombe

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

Discussion: Press Gazette

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, LA Observed and Los Angeles Times

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

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

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: Inside Cable News, TVNewser, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

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

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: Marketing Pilgrim, GigaOM, Mashable!, Betabeat, @choire and New York Magazine

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, Mediaite, Broadcasting & Cable, FishbowlLA and New York Magazine

Lewis DVorkin / Forbes:

Inside Forbes: Love 'em or Hate 'em, Comments Are Critical to Media Success in a Social World — Arthur Miller, the American playwright and one-time college reporter and night editor, said a good newspaper was like “a nation talking to itself.” Back then, it was editors and reporters who had all the say.

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

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘Out’ lays off its entire editorial staff, but editor Aaron Hicklin wants to hire ‘most’ back into his new startup — The editorial staff of the influential gay lifestyle magazine Out is being laid off with one month's severance as of Friday, Capital has learned.

Discussion: The Wrap, AdAge, New York Magazine and The Awl

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Digital ecosystems: an in-depth comparison — PUTTING THE SIX BIGGEST DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS TO THE TEST TO FIND OUT WHO EXCELS WHERE — There was once a time when the business of consumer technology was conducted with tangible goods. You bought a thing, whether it was a Sony VCR or a Sega console …

Jay Jones / CJR:

Q&A: Dennis Myers, news editor of Reno News & Review — NEVADA—Dennis Myers, news editor of the weekly Reno News & Review, probably wouldn't mind being called “old school.” A veteran of both broadcast and print journalism in the Silver State, Myers has written critically over the years of political reporting.

Bruce Weber / New York Times:

Dick Clark, TV Host and Icon of New Year's Eve, Is Dead at 82 — Dick Clark, the perpetually youthful-looking television host whose long-running daytime song-and-dance fest, “American Bandstand,” did as much as anyone or anything to advance the influence of teenagers and rock ‘n’ roll on American culture …

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