Mediagazer: What is the purpose of a newspaper? — Reuters blogger Felix … (Mathew Ingram/GigaOM)

5:35 PM ET, April 30, 2012

Top News:

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Woodward rejects new Watergate claims — Bob Woodward is strongly disputing a new report in which it is revealed that his mentor, legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, once expressed “fear in my soul” that Woodward had embellished for dramatic effect certain key details of his reporting on the Watergate scandal.

Discussion: Guardian, New York Magazine and Washington Post

Jeff Himmelman / New York Magazine:

The Red Flag in the Flowerpot — Four decades after Watergate, there's something that still nags at Ben Bradlee about Deep Throat. — One day in early 2007, Bob Woodward poked his head into my office. He and his wife, Elsa, had been out for dinner the night before with Ben Bradlee and his wife, Sally Quinn.

Discussion: Jack Shafer, Politico, Washington Post, Daily Mail, ABCNEWS, @benfenton, Poynter and The New York Observer

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Himmelman, NY Mag defend Woodward-Watergate story — Reporter Jeff Himmelman and the editors at New York Magazine are standing by a new article that casts doubts on some aspects of Bob Woodward's Watergate reporting, despite the deliberate omission of a 2010 interview that — Woodward says — undermines the entire premise of the piece.

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Mike Allen / Politico: Ben Bradlee, Sally Quinn defend Bob Woodward

Lucy Manning / ITV News:

Exclusive: Three former News International executives misled Parliament — The long-awaited and potentially explosive report on phone hacking from the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is due tomorrow morning. MPs had their last meeting this morning to sign off the report and ITV News can reveal some of the findings.

Amy Chozick / New York Times:

Scandal and Scrutiny Hem In Murdoch's Empire — In the months after a phone-hacking scandal erupted in Britain last summer, Rupert Murdoch told people within News Corporation that he wanted to revisit his media company's discontinued $12 billion bid for the pay television service British Sky Broadcasting.

Discussion: Capital New York, Media Decoder, Free Press and Reuters

John Plunkett / Guardian: News Corp's Sky stake a ‘problem’ for broadcaster, says shadow minister

David Carr / New York Times:

Byliner Takes Bissinger E-book off Amazon — Last Tuesday, Buzz Bissinger hopped the Amtrak train to Philadelphia from New York, where he had done a bit of publicity for “After Friday Night Lights,” a 12,000-word e-book that had been performing nicely since its release.

Discussion: DealBook, GalleyCat, The Verge, paidContent, Fortune, Digital Book World, Media Decoder, Poynter and Melville House Books

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Microsoft Makes $300M Investment In New Barnes & Noble Subsidiary To Battle With Amazon And Apple In E-books — Barnes & Noble has found a new, major partner in its fight to get an edge over Amazon and Apple in the heating up market for e-books and the devices being used to consume them …

Om Malik / GigaOM:
At $1.7 billion, Nook is worth more than Barnes & Noble itself

Discussion: DealBook and paidContent

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Hulu, networks to change model of free streaming — Viewers who stream network TV shows may soon discover the free ride is not so free. Hulu, which attracted 31 million unique users in March under a free-for-all model, is taking its first steps to change to a model where viewers …

Discussion: Betabeat, Hollywood Reporter, GigaOM, @andrewkirell, The Next Web, Change of Subject, WebProNews, Techdirt, MarketingVox News & Trends and Free Press

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

‘The American Prospect’ Magazine May Close In May — The American Prospect, an influential liberal politics and policy magazine, could shut its doors at the end of May unless the nonprofit publication raises a half million dollars to fill a current funding gap.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and FishbowlDC

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Columbia to distribute $2 million in grant money to find ‘best practices’ in digital media — Three months after receiving an unprecedented $18 million endowment from Helen Gurley Brown to create a “media innovation” institute, Columbia's journalism school is celebrating yet another significant cash infusion.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Poynter, CyberJournalist.net and Columbia University …

John Del Signore / Gothamist:

City Official Got TIME To Yank Photo Of Councilmember's OWS Arrest, Lawsuit Alleges — Four New York City Councilmembers and a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters announced the filing of a big federal civil rights lawsuit (read it in full below) against the NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg.

Discussion: Capital New York

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Lawyer: Student likely owns falling bear photo, not newspaper — On Saturday the Associated Press issued a “photo elimination” of Andy Duann's falling bear pictures, advising its members to “eliminate from your systems and archives” AP's “Campus bear” photos shot by Andy Duann and credited …