Mediagazer: Leveson inquiry obsessed with print, claims Mail Online publisher (Lisa O'Carroll/Guardian)

2:10 PM ET, May 9, 2012

Top News:

Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:

Sources Say AOL Seeking Buyers for Engadget and TechCrunch, Arrington “Not In The Least Bit Interested” — We weren't sure about this one at first, but now we have two independent sources confirming that AOL is exploring the sale of its cornerstone technology sites Engadget and TechCrunch.

Discussion: @joshhalliday, paidContent, AllThingsD, Bloomberg, Reuters, Gawker, TechCrunch, New York Magazine, Forbes, FishbowlNY, The New Yorker Blog, Business Insider, WebProNews, Poynter, Betabeat, VentureBeat and Tech Trader Daily

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Tim Armstrong Says AOL Plans to Invest in TechCrunch and Engadget, Not Sell Them — Domestic Display Advertising Falls as Activist Investor Seeks Shakeup — AOL reported a 4% drop in average monthly visitors to AOL owned-and-operated properties, when it reported first-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

Discussion: Business Insider

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

AOL earnings reports tell history of Patch since 2009 — Praise for Patch played a modest part in AOL's first-quarter earnings report released today, but for journalists interested in the growing network of hyperlocal news sites, it was an important part. Among the trends noted by the report …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Ustream Says Russian Citizen Journalist Is The Focus Of Today's DDoS Attack — Developing story: Ustream has sent out some details on the DDoS attack that is currently attacking its system — which was reported on earlier by GigaOm, along with another DDoS attack on Bambuser.

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

DDOS attack: Ustream down, Bambuser under heavy load — Updated. Ustream has been unavailable this morning, and Bambuser has been under a heavy load of unusual traffic due to what looks like a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack against both live streaming providers.

Discussion: Business Insider and CNET

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Leveson inquiry obsessed with print, claims Mail Online publisher — The publisher of Mail Online has urged the Leveson inquiry to stop “obsessing” with the “last war” over print media and to concentrate on the real “elephant in the room” - the battle for internet readers.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Media Week and Guardian

David Leigh / Guardian:

Milly Dowler: truth about deletion of messages may never be known — The full truth about the extent of hacking into Milly Dowler's phone may never be known, police have admitted. Their report to the Leveson inquiry followed an investigation lasting five months into the hacking of the murdered teenager's phone.

Roy Greenslade / Guardian: News International misses another accounting deadline

Bill Dedman / msnbc.com:

Conservative author Jonah Goldberg drops claim of two Pulitzer nominations — On the dust jacket of his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,” best-selling conservative author and commentator Jonah Goldberg is described as having “twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.”

Discussion: Gawker, FishbowlDC, mediabistro.com, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Mother Jones

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Amazon snags another book industry vet: Sara Nelson, former Publishers Weekly EIC — Just about a year after it hired publishing industry vet Larry Kirshbaum to launch a New York-based imprint and office, Amazon is announcing a new high-profile hire: Sara Nelson, the former books editor for Oprah's …

Discussion: Publishers Weekly

Keach Hagey / Digits:

LA Times Developer Begins Archiving Newspaper Websites — Newspaper front pages are considered such an important mirror of American culture that they get their own rotating daily museum exhibit at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. — But there has never been an equivalent archive for the more ephemeral …

Discussion: Capital New York and Poynter

Voice of America:

Chinese Official Questioned About Al Jazeera Reporter's Expulsion — Al Jazeera English announced Tuesday that its Beijing correspondent Melissa Chan did not have her visa renewed. That is in effect, an expulsion from China. The following is a transcript of some of the questions and answers …

Discussion: Guardian, Reuters, Journalism.co.uk, Global Voices, Committee to Protect …, FP Passport, China Digital Times, IHT Rendezvous, The New Yorker Blog and Globe and Mail

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

The making of a brand-new iPad magazine that's already sick of the Internet — Jim Windolf, a contributing editor and writer for Vanity Fair, was sitting in a large, multi-desk cubicle in a warren of similar cubicles in a 10th floor office on West 27th Street on a rainy afternoon, explaining his new project.

Reuters:

Romeo Langlois: Colombia Won't Negotiate With FARC Rebels Over Kidnapped French Reporter — Colombia on Tuesday rejected a call by FARC rebels to debate freedom of information and news media bias as a condition for the release of a French reporter they hold hostage.

Discussion: BBC

Elyssa Pachico / Christian Science Monitor:
Is French journalist kidnapped in Colombia a prisoner of war?

Discussion: Colombia Reports

Patrick Wintour / Guardian:

David Cameron texted Rebekah Brooks before she quit NI, claims biography — Prime minister texted Brooks in the week she quit over the phone-hacking scandal to tell her to keep her head up — David Cameron texted Rebekah Brooks in the week she quit as News International's chief executive …