Mediagazer: How Amazon is changing the rules for books and movies (Jay Greene/CNET)

12:00 PM ET, May 23, 2012

Top News:

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Andy Coulson voicemails allegedly hacked — Voicemails left by Andy Coulson for the aide to former Labour home secretary Charles Clarke are believed to be among those allegedly hacked while he was editor of the News of the World. Coulson is one of a number of journalists whose messages …

Discussion: Huffington Post UK

David Allen Green / New Statesman:

What did Piers Morgan tell Jeremy Paxman about phone hacking? — The Leveson Inquiry hears of an interesting conversation. — Today at the Leveson Inquiry, Jeremy Paxman revealed he was present at a lunch in September 2002 when the then Mirror editor Piers Morgan allegedly explained …

Discussion: The Independent, Guardian and @piersmorgan

Media Monkey / Guardian:

Michel expected to hold nerve at Leveson — Frédéric Michel, the sophisticate brought in to professionalise lobbying at News Corporation, is coolly preparing to give evidence to the Leveson inquiry on Thursday. Those who have seen him this week say he shows surprisingly few signs of nerves …

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Leveson inquiry: Hunt's permanent secretary to appear on Friday — Jeremy Hunt's most senior civil servant, Jonathan Stephens, is to give evidence to the Leveson inquiry on Friday about the culture secretary's handling of News Corporation's £8bn bid for BSkyB.

Jay Greene / CNET:

How Amazon is changing the rules for books and movies — Amazon Studios is crowdsourcing movie-making, creating test movies, that fans can review, with storyboard art in the place of video, like this image from a possible upcoming release called “Touching Blue.”

Discussion: TechCrunch and Home Media Magazine

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Amazon Prime acquires access to Paramount films — When it comes to offering popular movies over the Internet, Amazon continues to close the gap with Netflix. — Follow @sandoCNET — Thanks to a new agreement with Paramount Pictures, subscribers of Amazon's Prime service will now get access to …

Discussion: Home Media Magazine

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Huffington Post Gets Its First Publisher Amid Broader AOL Changes — Janet Balis Takes Post While AOL Chief Revenue Officer Ned Brody Also Gets New Role — In his company's most recent earnings call, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said he wanted to restructure the company in a way that made …

Discussion: The Wrap, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, MediaPost and AllThingsD

Michael Wolff / Technology Review:

The Facebook Fallacy: For all its valuation, the social network is just another ad-supported site. Without an earth-changing idea, it will collapse and take down the Web. — For all its valuation, the social network is just another ad-supported site. Without an earth-changing idea, it will collapse and take down the Web.

Discussion: Guardian, @ckrewson, @jayrosen_nyu, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog and New York Magazine

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

If Video Sites Could Act Like Cable Companies — BOSTON — Most consumers have no idea what an M.V.P.D. is, but they mail a check to one every month. What they call Comcast or Time Warner Cable or DirecTV, the government calls a “multichannel video programming distributor,” or M.V.P.D. for short.

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Several people reportedly stabbed at Topeka TV station — Staffers at WIBW in Topeka, Kan., subdued a “disgruntled man” this morning at the TV station. Morning news co-anchor Amanda Lanum tweeted events as they unfolded, as did other staffers. Their tweets say the man had a knife and stabbed …

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

Pentagon, CIA, White House opened up to Hollywood on bin Laden raid — Just weeks after Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency officials warned publicly of the dangers posed by leaks about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, top officials at both agencies and at the White House granted …

Jim Romenesko:

McClatchy to begin ‘robust test’ of pay model — McClatchy vice president of news Anders Gyllenhaal tells employees that “after more than a year of experiments and analysis on pay models, McClatchy newspapers will begin a robust test of a pay plan that looks like the right balance for our websites.”

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL's Patch Gets a Haircut in Push For Profitability — The days of AOL treating Patch like a garbage disposal for money are officially over. — The network of local news sites for suburban towns laid off around 20 employees in a reorganization meant to eliminate an inefficient layer of management.

Discussion: Deadline.com and Street Fight