Mediagazer: The coverup culture of News Corp. (Ryan Chittum/CJR)

4:30 PM ET, May 2, 2012

Top News:

Tom Watson Fires Back at Criticism of Murdoch Report — MP Tom Watson has taken flak for a ‘partisan’ report calling Murdoch unfit to run News Corp. Now, Murdoch's ‘tormentor-in-chief’ tells Mike Giglio that it's not about politics. — Tom Watson, the hard-charging Labour MP …

Discussion: Guardian and Guardian

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

The coverup culture of News Corp. — A damning report from Parliament and Rupert Murdoch's revealing response to it — When a committee of Parliament condemned Rupert Murdoch today as “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company,” it was a statement as obvious as it was astonishing.

Discussion: Capital New York, Media Decoder and Company Town

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

News Corp. Says It Has ‘Full Confidence’ In Rupert Murdoch — News Corp. backed its embattled leader Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday, issuing a unanimous statement of support after a British parliamentary report dubbed him “not a fit person” to lead a major international company.

Discussion: Guardian, Reuters, @jwpetersnyt and Media Decoder

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Leveson: second inquiry may not happen

Discussion: London Evening Standard and Journalism.co.uk

Guardian:
Rupert Murdoch's Fox broadcast licences targeted by US ethics group

Discussion: Guardian, Broadcasting & Cable, The Huffington Post, CREW and Tech Daily Dose

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
Barry Diller Backs Rupert Murdoch as ‘Honorable,’ ‘Morally Fit’

Discussion: The Wrap, Media Matters for America, Media Week, Media & Entertainment, Media Decoder, Guardian, Hillicon Valley, Company Town, Company Town, The Huffington Post, Guardian, Press Gazette, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Guardian

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

BSkyB buys Acetrax to be its connected TV Trojan Horse — While pundits prefer to focus on phone hacking, News Corp's part-owned UK pay-TV operator BSkyB is buying further in to internet TV. — Last Wednesday, the operator quietly acquired Acetrax, a service that offers on-demand paid movie rental …

Discussion: Pocket-lint and Guardian

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
BSkyB posts profit of almost £1bn

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:
Sky News is available from today in the US & Canada for the first time, via Livestation

Discussion: Beet.TV

Kate Holton / Reuters:
BSkyB uses record results to defend role in Britain

Discussion: Sky News, New York Times and Media Decoder

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Time Inc. Shrinking Again — Not a good sign for the magazine business: A rough quarter for Time Inc., the world's biggest magazine publisher. — Revenues dropped 3 percent for the first three months of the year, while operating income shrank by 38 percent.

Discussion: Multichannel, Capital New York, FishbowlNY and Media Money …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘Daily News’ hires Ted Young, former editor of Mail Online, to edit its website — The Daily News has named a new web editor about a week after the resignation of its outgoing digital chief, Scott Cohen. And News editor-in-chief Colin Myler has dipped into the British tabloid talent pool …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

‘Fox Mole’ Joe Muto Shops Memoir — Can't say no one saw this coming: Gawker's Fox News informant, Joe Muto, is taking meetings with publishers this week for a proposed book about his eight years inside the cable news network, tentatively titled An Atheist in the Foxhole.

Discussion: TVNewser, Mediaite and FishbowlNY

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Amazon Gets Into the Sitcom Business — Amazon has been stocking up its Web-video offering with lots of old TV shows. Now it's going to start making some of its own. — The company is pulling back the covers (a bit) on its plans to produce kids' shows and sitcoms via its “Amazon Studios” …

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Forbes, mediabistro.com, The Wrap, NetNewsCheck Latest, GalleyCat, CNET, Fortune and Home Media Magazine

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Tumblr Finally Wants To Make Some Money, Launches Its First Ads — Tumblr, the immensely popular but profitless blogging platform, just turned on its first set of paid “sponsor products” (Tumblr doesn't like to call them “ads"). Even though the company resisted running ads on its network for a long time …

Discussion: Fast Company, Business Insider, Betabeat, WebProNews and The Next Web

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Judge stays e-book class action case against two publishers — Publishers Hachette and HarperCollins slipped further away from the class action lawyer who wants them to pay over an alleged e-book price-fixing conspiracy. — In an order signed yesterday in New York federal court …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Washington Post's Sunday circulation drop not as steep as it appears — At first glance, The Washington Post's numbers reported Tuesday morning in the Audit Bureau of Circulations' March report look grisly: Of all the Top 25 papers in the report, The Post has the steepest drop in average Sunday circulation, down 15.66 percent.

Discussion: Reflections of a Newsosaur, NPR, Tampa Bay Times, Poynter and BtoB Magazine

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen / MediaFile:

The irrational imitation of the online news industry — All across Europe, journalistic online startups are launching, aiming to produce and disseminate news in new ways. In our brave new world, the nimble startups of tomorrow were supposed to be overtaking the lumbering dinosaurs of yesterday online.

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Next-Generation Publishing Platform Hyperink Wants To Transform Blogs Into Books — YC company Hyperink, a next-generation digital book publishing platform, is debuting a new service which helps bloggers create short books from their existing content. — As we've reported in the past …

Discussion: Forbes, PandoDaily and VatorNews