Mediagazer: News Corp.'s Chase Carey defends boss Rupert Murdoch, as price tag on phone-hack scandal reaches nearly $170 M. (Joe Pompeo/Capital New York)

6:45 PM ET, May 9, 2012

Top News:

Status Update — So first thing's first: We're not being sold! Instead, we've just hired a bunch of brilliant writers and a new COO. Also, we've seen a resurgence of community support (with over a thousand people attending our NYC meetup last night, for example), are back around 12% …

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, @jayrosen_nyu, @eldon, @nero, PandoDaily and Talking Biz News

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: Media & Entertainment, FishbowlNY, Business Insider and VentureBeat

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.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Why Doesn't AOL Just Sell The Huffington Post? — (Image credit: Getty Images for AOL via @daylife) — There's not much of AOL that's not in play these days, one way or another. In response to a report that the company is looking to sell TechCrunch and Engadget, chairman Tim Armstrong …

Discussion: paidContent

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

News Corp.'s Chase Carey defends boss Rupert Murdoch, as price tag on phone-hack scandal reaches nearly $170 M. — News Corp. president and chief operating officer Chase Carey offered an impassioned defense of his boss, Rupert Murdoch, on Wednesday afternoon.

Discussion: Guardian, Media Decoder, Media Money … and The Wrap

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent: News Corp.'s hacking tab so far this year: $167 Million

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:
News Corp. Tops Profit Estimates, Boosts Buyback to $10 Billion

Discussion: Agence France Presse, Associated Press, Reuters, @edgecliffe, @pkafka, @edgecliffe, @edgecliffe and @edgecliffe

Patrick Wintour / Guardian: David Cameron texted Rebekah Brooks before she quit NI, claims biography

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: VentureBeat, CNET and Business Insider

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 / @jank0: New update: Ustream now says its up and running again http://gigaom.com/...

Charlie Warzel / Adweek:

ABC Bungles Obama Gay Marriage Scoop — President Obama's announcement of his support for same-sex marriages this afternoon was touted as a major win for network TV, getting the scoop over cable and the noisy clamor of the Internet. Yet, what looked to be an airtight scoop for the network appears …

Discussion: @brianstelter, @producermatthew and Washington Examiner

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:
Robin Roberts interview with Obama a coup for ‘Good Morning America’

Discussion: Erik Wemple and Capital New York

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, Guardian and Media Week

David Leigh / Guardian:
Milly Dowler: truth about deletion of messages may never be known

Discussion: Guardian

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:
News International misses another accounting deadline

Discussion: Press Association

Lynne Marek / Chicago Business:

Sun-Times parent to buy Chicago Reader for $3 million — (Crain's) — Wrapports LLC, the parent of the Chicago Sun-Times, is poised to purchase the Chicago Reader as soon as next week for about $3 million, according to sources familiar with the transaction.

Discussion: Change of Subject, @jcstearns, @sethlavin and @milesraymer

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: Erik Wemple, The New York Observer, Gawker, FishbowlDC, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, mediabistro.com, 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: GalleyCat and Publishers Weekly

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 …