Mediagazer: BSkyB launches Sky News Arabia (Martin Chulov/Guardian)

9:25 AM ET, May 8, 2012

Top News:

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Decline Of Reader Apps Likely Due To News Feed Changes, Shows Facebook Controls The Traffic Faucet — No, Facebook news reader apps aren't declining because users suddenly got fed up with auto-sharing. The user loss is likely due to the transition to “trending articles” …

John Herrman / Buzzfeed:

Facebook Social Readers Are All Collapsing — The Washington Post was the first publication to experiment with a “frictionless” social reader app, which launched last year. If you use Facebook you've probably come across it: it manifests as a clustered list of stories that are almost …

Discussion: The Wall Blog, The Atlantic Wire, ReadWriteWeb, the Econsultancy blog, Inside Facebook, CNET, JIMROMENESKO.COM, The Verge and @bydanielvictor

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
The Washington Post Is In Even Worse Shape Than You Think

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlDC, Politico, Broadcasting & Cable, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Business Insider, Mediaite, New York Magazine and The Huffington Post

Michael Wines / New York Times:

China Expels Al Jazeera Channel — BEIJING — Al Jazeera, the satellite broadcasting network, was forced by the Chinese authorities to close its China news operations of its English-language channel on Monday, the first such action in almost 14 years and the strongest sign yet …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Poynter, Washington Post, AJE, The New Yorker Blog, Guardian, @mlcalderone, Globe and Mail, China Real Time Report and The Next Web

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

The Atlantic Names Its New Business News Site: ‘Quartz.’ Quartz? Yep. Quartz. — Naming a new website in the year 2012 requires a fair amount of creativity and compromise. All the obvious good domains have been taken, and plenty of the bad ones, too. — Atlantic Media went heavy …

Discussion: @mlcalderone

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Phone hacking: Andy Coulson wins leave to appeal over ruling on legal fees — Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson has won permission to appeal against a high court ruling that News International is not liable to pay his potential legal fees over the phone-hacking scandal.

Discussion: Press Gazette

The Independent: IoS exclusive: Coulson owned News Corp shares while at No 10

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Journalism: Dying by a thousand cuts, or being reinvented? — There are plenty of warning signs about the ongoing disruption in the media industry, and everyone is looking for someone to blame. But when it comes to their journalistic competition, many traditional outlets still seem …

Discussion: Poynter

Richard Blackden / Telegraph:

Warren Buffett tells Omaha gathering he may buy more newspapers — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said that he may buy more newspapers even though the profits they make will be “nothing like the old days.” — Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, eats a Dairy Queen ice cream bar …

Discussion: Garcia Media, Big News Network.com and FishbowlNY

Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

The Pernicious Myth That Slideshows Drive ‘Traffic’ — Readers aren't stupid. They know when your product is cheap. — For a time, people measured site ‘traffic’ by the number of page views on that site. So, any time someone opened a page on that publication, it counted as one.

Discussion: CJR, State of the Fourth Estate, The Atlantic Wire, parislemon, FrontBurner and Gawker

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Key Strategic — and Digitally Inclined — CBS Exec Lurie Departs — Zander Lurie — CBS's SVP of strategic development, who worked on a number of its key digital initiatives — is leaving the media giant. — Lurie has been involved in everything from the company's acquisition of Clicker …

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Leveson inquiry urged to reverse ruling on witness statements — The Leveson inquiry has been asked to urgently reverse a ruling that special advisers to David Cameron and seven cabinet ministers get advance access to witness testimony including that of former number No 10 spin doctor Andy Coulson.

Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:

A Closer Look At Chorus, The Next-Generation Publishing Platform That Runs Vox Media — The modern online newsroom is a 24/7 operation. It needs power tools to work efficiently, like modern carpenters need electric drills to build houses. The problem is that most content management systems …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Vox Product, Thanks:@ry_hudson

Jim Romenesko:

Milwaukee Police Department website corrects media errors — The Milwaukee Police Department says its The Source website “provides the whole story — the one that television, radio and newspapers don't have space or time to provide their audiences.” Also, “we'll correct the news stories …

Discussion: @niemanreports and @producermatthew

Eduardo Garcia / Reuters:

Colombia rebels want media debate for Frenchman's release — Colombia's leftist FARC rebels demanded a debate on freedom of information Monday as a first step toward the release of a French reporter kidnapped nine days ago, as they accused the government of manipulating journalists.