Mediagazer: MEDIA: U-T San Diego in ‘final talks’ to buy Orange County Register (Eric Wolff/North County Times)

9:30 AM ET, May 10, 2012

Top News:

Leveson inquiry: Andy Coulson, Viscount Rothermere - live — Full coverage as the former No 10 spin doctor and Daily Mail proprietor give evidence — 9.41am: Andy Coulson is to give evidence this afternoon, reports the Guardian's Dan Sabbagh. … 9.38am: David Cameron's own constituents believe …

Discussion: Press Gazette, Journalism.co.uk, @michaelwolffnyc, @dansabbagh, @benfenton, @arusbridger and @benfenton

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

News Corp.'s hacking tab so far this year: $167 Million — It may be years before anyone can figure out the real cost to News Corp. and its shareholders of the UK hacking scandal that has dominated the headlines for months. For now, whatever the reputation cost for Rupert and James Murdoch …

Discussion: Media Week, NetNewsCheck Latest, Journalism.co.uk, Press Gazette, MediaPost, Forbes and Media News

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

IoS editor defends publishing Andy Coulson shares story — The editor of the Independent on Sunday has defended his decision to publish a story about former Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson's shareholdings in News Corp, which was published after the paper saw Coulson's …

Discussion: @dansabbagh, @michaelwolffnyc and @michaelwolffnyc

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: Media Decoder, The New Yorker Blog, Guardian, Media Money … and The Wrap

Robert Booth / Guardian: Andy Coulson is likely to have attended sensitive meetings, No 10 admits

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

Discussion: Reuters, Company Town, Agence France Presse, Associated Press, @edgecliffe, Wall Street Journal, @pkafka, @edgecliffe, @edgecliffe and @edgecliffe

TechCrunch:

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, @nero, @eldon, @jayrosen_nyu, Gawker, NYConvergence.com, Forbes, paidContent, FishbowlNY, Poynter, PandoDaily, Talking Biz News and Business Insider

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Why Doesn't AOL Just Sell The Huffington Post?

Discussion: Guardian, paidContent, VentureBeat and New York Magazine

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:
Tim Armstrong Says AOL Plans to Invest in TechCrunch and Engadget, Not Sell Them

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, PandoDaily, FishbowlNY, Talking Biz News, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, Business Insider, PC Magazine and WebProNews

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

It's Official: Digg Engineers Are Joining Washington Post's SocialCode — Another bit of closure for Digg as the company continues to look for a buyer of its technology and its site: its engineering team is joining SocialCode, the social media advertising and analytics subsidiary of the Washington Post Company.

Discussion: AllThingsD

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

It's official: Digg's tech team going to Washington Post Co.'s SocialCode — The Washington Post Co.'s SocialCode advertising agency is hiring 15 members of Digg's engineering staff, the company announced today. Digg is not closing, writes Hayley Tsukayama:

Discussion: Washington Post and NetNewsCheck Latest

Binyamin Appelbaum / New York Times:

Joe Weisenthal vs. the 24-Hour News Cycle — Joe Weisenthal wakes up around 4 a.m. most weekdays, afraid that in the five or six hours he has been sleeping, something happened that could move financial markets. His alarm is his cellphone, and after he silences it so that his wife can sleep …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

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

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: Washington Examiner, Mediaite, @brianstelter and @producermatthew

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

Discussion: The Huffington Post, ABCNEWS, The Latest Word and Politico

Erik Wemple:

Goldberg should know not to associate with Pulitzer — Today's publicity plume over Jonah Goldberg's claim to be a Pulitzer “nominee” feeds on terminology. Goldberg, a much-published columnist and author of a new book titled “The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas …

Bill Dedman / msnbc.com:
Conservative author Jonah Goldberg drops claim of two Pulitzer nominations

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

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Colin Myler's ‘Daily News’ is working on a new national site, ‘Daily News America’ — Daily News editor Colin Myler recently hinted that the paper's “online operation” would soon be expanding its national footprint under the direction of incoming web editor Ted Young.

Discussion: 10,000 Words and NetNewsCheck Latest

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

Why ‘The Atlantic’ No Longer Cares About SEO — The number of online news consumers has grown consistently over the past half-decade, yet not every publication has gotten the same lift as The Atlantic, whose web audience has catapulted from approximately 500,000 to 13.4 million monthly visitors since taking …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals