Mediagazer: Meanwhile, in the land of the free... (Dan Gillmor/CJR)

4:55 AM ET, May 10, 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, @nero, @eldon, @jayrosen_nyu, Gawker, NYConvergence.com, Forbes, Poynter, FishbowlNY, VentureBeat, New York Magazine, Talking Biz News, Business Insider, PandoDaily and Betabeat

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, PandoDaily, VentureBeat, Business Insider, PC Magazine and WebProNews

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

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: Journalism.co.uk, MediaPost and Forbes

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

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

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: PC Magazine, Business Insider, CNET and VentureBeat

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Ustream Says Russian Citizen Journalist Is The Focus Of Today's DDoS Attack

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

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

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, Guardian and Politico

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

Guardian:

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 …

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 …

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.

Dan Gillmor / CJR:

Meanwhile, in the land of the free... In the US, you can still say almost anything, but someone just may be listening in — In December 2010, the major payment systems used to buy goods and services online decided that Wikileaks was no longer an acceptable customer.

Discussion: Talking To Strangers

Charlie Warzel / Adweek:

The 140-Character-or-Less Campaign — For those seeking an example of the breakneck pace of the mounting political “call and response” attack cycle, 84 minutes may very well be a new benchmark. — It took a mere one hour and 24 minutes for Mitt Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom to mount …

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, Guardian and Guardian