Mediagazer: Rockefeller Asks For News Corp. Scandal Details (Josh Smith/Tech Daily Dose)

7:40 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: Media Decoder, Capital New York, New York Times and Guardian

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

Discussion: Jon Slattery, London Evening Standard and Journalism.co.uk

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
News Corp. Says It Has ‘Full Confidence’ In Rupert Murdoch

Discussion: Guardian, Reuters, @jwpetersnyt and Media Decoder

Josh Smith / Tech Daily Dose:
Rockefeller Asks For News Corp. Scandal Details

Discussion: Adweek, The Huffington Post and National Updates

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

Discussion: The Wrap, Hillicon Valley, Multichannel, Guardian, Media Matters for America, Media Week, Media & Entertainment, The Huffington Post, Tech Daily Dose, Forbes, Media Decoder, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Guardian and Press Gazette

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: Sky News and Beet.TV

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

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

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

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 …

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: VentureBeat, Business Insider, Fast Company, Mashable!, ReadWriteWeb and The Next Web

Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:

CNN Feels Heat on Ratings Weakness — The last time there was a presidential election, CNN made television history by beating every other network in the ratings on election night. — It is shaping up to be a different story this year. CNN's two main rivals Fox News and MSNBC have gained viewers …

Discussion: New York Times, The Huffington Post, @jayrosen_nyu, Show Tracker, TVNewser, Deadline.com and All Things CNN

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: Broadcasting & Cable, MediaPost, CNET, TechCrunch, Fortune, VentureBeat, mediabistro.com, NetNewsCheck Latest, GalleyCat and Home Media Magazine

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Big Win For Bloomberg TV: FCC Rules In Its Favor In Comcast Dispute — Breaking: Comcast subscribers should expect to see Bloomberg TV next to Fox News, CNN and CNBC in the coming weeks. — The FCC has found in Bloomberg's favor in its long-running complaint with Comcast.

Discussion: The Wrap, Media Decoder, Company Town and TVSpy

Erik Wemple:

Politico defends ‘New York girlfriend’ post — Above is a screen-shot of DrudgeReport.com earlier today, linking to a story about President Obama's past. Pretty exciting stuff: “Obama Admits Fabricating Girlfriend in Memoir.” — Those who jumped on that link reached a Politico story with this headline …

Discussion: GalleyCat, Politico, Speakeasy and American Journalism Review

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 …

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Hipstamatic to release ‘Ben Lowy lens’ with minimal image processing — Conflict photographer Ben Lowy has championed the use of image-filtering smartphone apps such as Hipstamatic and Instagram, and now the company plans to release a new lens under his name.

Discussion: Lens