Mediagazer: Nobody Seems to Understand What Jeff Bezos is Doing. Does He? (Farhad Manjoo/PandoDaily)

5:15 AM ET, May 9, 2012

Top News:

Rupert Murdoch's big backer sounds News Corp warning — Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the second-biggest shareholder in Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, has revealed his frustration with the fallout from the News of the World phone-hacking scandal and admitted that it is harming the reputation …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Media Matters for America and Hillicon Valley

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

Discussion: The Times

Amy Chozick / New York Times:
Steering Murdoch in Scandal, Klein Put School Goals Aside

Discussion: Capital New York

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Phone-hacking scandal: Glenn Mulcaire denies protecting News International

Discussion: BBC

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Phone hacking: Andy Coulson wins leave to appeal over ruling on legal fees

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk and Press Gazette

Free Press: 70,000 Petition Congress to Hold Hearings on News Corp. Corruption

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

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: Betabeat

Betsy Rothstein / FishbowlDC:

An Editor's Dangerous Mea Culpa — In a most unusual editor's note on the Chronicle of Higher Education website last night, Editor Liz McMillen apologizes profusely for what turned out to be a controversial post written by now fired “Brainstorm” blogger, former WSJ editor and Harvard graduate Naomi Schaefer Riley.

Discussion: GalleyCat

Craig Silverman / Poynter:
Writer fired by Chronicle of Higher Ed: ‘The vitriolic reaction is kind of surprising’

Discussion: Hit & Run, Brainstorm, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Mother Jones and Wall Street Journal

Jim Romenesko: Chronicle of Higher Education ousts blogger over black studies post

Christopher Shea / Wall St Journal:
Chronicle of an Academic-Media Firestorm

Discussion: msnbc.com, ArtsBeat and MetaFilter

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

Dan Mitchell / SF Weekly:

Desperate Newspapers Pin Hopes on Annoyed Readers — News publishers have always treated readers like commodities — because that's what readers are. The real customers for publishers aren't readers, but advertisers. Readers are the product. It's not quite that simple, of course …

Discussion: Mashable!, The FJP and Zombie Journalism

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The Guardian: Yep, it was “major changes” by Facebook that caused drop in social reader traffic

Discussion: Digits, TheMediaBriefing and Poynter

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: Poynter

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Ongo, an attempt at a pan-media paywalled aggregator, is closing — Less than a year and a half after launch, the subscription aggregation startup Ongo — a newspaper-industry effort to create a pan-media subscription system — is shutting down. It'll close its doors by month's end …

Discussion: AllThingsD, paidContent and @rafat

Andy Greenberg / The Firewall:

Twitter Fights Prosecutors Seeking Occupy Protester's Data Without Warrant — Malcolm Harris, the Occupy Wall Street protestor whose private data Twitter is fighting to protect from prosecutors. — Twitter is stepping up its legal battle for users' privacy: First it fought …

Discussion: GigaOM, ACLU, Techdirt, Gawker, WebProNews, AllThingsD, @jcstearns, CNET and Betabeat

Brooks Barnes / Media Decoder:

ESPN and Theme Parks Drive Disney Profits — LOS ANGELES — Climbing ad sales and subscription fees at ESPN and cable channels like ABC Family helped the Walt Disney Company increase its quarterly profit by 21 percent from a year earlier, to $1.14 billion. — Disney's financial results …

Discussion: The Wrap, paidContent, Multichannel, Company Town, Home Media Magazine, Forbes and LA Biz Observed

Farhad Manjoo / PandoDaily:

Nobody Seems to Understand What Jeff Bezos is Doing. Does He? — A couple months ago, realizing it would be futile to hold out any longer against the tsunami of pop cultural peer pressure, I decided to go ahead and read The Hunger Games. I jumped over to Amazon, searched for the Kindle edition …

Discussion: GeekWire and Business Insider

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

New York Times takes next step to increase digital subscribers by launching a new ad campaign — Since The New York Times launched its metered paywall last March, about 472,000 people have become digital subscribers. The Times saw a 73 percent gain in circulation over the past six months …

Discussion: Daggle

Gail Shister / The Philly Post:

Wendy Ruderman Talks About Why She's Leaving the Daily News — How bad are things at the Daily News? New York Times-bound Wendy Ruderman, a 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner, is urging her colleagues to jump ship. “I hate to say it, but if people at the Daily News aren't looking, they should be …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Jennifer Saba / Reuters:

Demand Media raises outlook on first-quarter revenue beat — (Reuters) - Demand Media Inc (DMD.N) reported better-than-expected first-quarter revenue and raised its 2012 outlook, suggesting it is finally moving past changes that Google made to its search engine that hobbled the company last year.