Mediagazer: News Corp. Could Face 500 Phone-Hacking Claims (Paul Sonne/Wall Street Journal)

11:40 AM ET, June 1, 2012

Top News:

News Corp. Could Face 500 Phone-Hacking Claims — LONDON—Lawyers for both News Corp. and phone-hacking victims on Friday estimated in court that the media company will ultimately face about 500 civil claims related to illegal voice-mail interception by the now-closed News of the World tabloid.

Discussion: Guardian

Jon Lafayette / Broadcasting & Cable:

Turner's Kent ‘Very Unhappy’ With Ratings Dive at CNN — Backs Cooper, Morgan, Burnett, but other shows may be replaced — Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent admitted to being “very unhappy” with CNN's primetime ratings, but said it won't resort to tricks to increase viewership.

Discussion: B&C, Mediaite, Inside Cable News and The Huffington Post

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

New York Times, Washington Post Defend Against Politico's Media Bias Claims — NEW YORK — Politico's executive editor, Jim VandeHei, and chief White House correspondent, Mike Allen, suggested Thursday that The New York Times and Washington Post are biased in favor of President Barack Obama …

Discussion: @mlcalderone, Erik Wemple and NewsBusters.org blogs

Oliver Burkeman / Guardian:
Perhaps I'm biased, but can we please stop talking about ‘media bias’?

Discussion: Mediaite, @antderosa, Mother Jones, Capital New York, Poynter and @jayrosen_nyu

Devin Gordon / GQ:
Five Points About Politico's Hatchet Job On NYT and WaPo

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Slate, The Atlantic Online, The Huffington Post, Erik Wemple, Gawker, Weekly Standard, Poynter, The New York Observer, Politico and Politico

Daniel Bentley / Journalism.co.uk:

CoveritLive switches to paid-only service — Popular liveblogging platform CoverItLive has announced the end of its free usage tier, becoming an entirely paid for subscription service. — In an email to current subscribers the company wrote: … CoveritLive's ‘Starter’ subscription costs $9.99 per month …

Discussion: Examiner and 10,000 Words

Katy Bachman / Adweek:

Microsoft's Do Not Track Browser Angers Online Ad Industry — Microsoft's new Do Not Track default browser may win the company points with Washington, but it pissed off the online ad industry. — Buried in yesterday's release of Windows 8 was a revelation that took the industry by surprise …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Broadcasting & Cable, TechNet Blogs, Wired, CNNMoney.com, Digits, AdPulp, ZDNet and Engadget

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Kickstarting a Soccer Magazine: An Old Medium Finds A New Way Of Funding — To launch a print magazine in 2012, you almost by definition have to be something of a nostalgist. But when it came time for George Quraishi and Mark Kirby to raise money for Howler, their new magazine for American soccer fans …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

What the Forbes model of contributed content means for journalism — Two years ago, Forbes.com was a news website like most others. — Today, it is less website, more operating system — an underlying layer of technology that hundreds of contributors use to publish independently.

Discussion: Forbes and NetNewsCheck Latest

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Producer of Obama Video on Fox News Loses CNN Job Offer — The Fox News producer behind a provocative four-minute anti-Obama video that aired Wednesday and caused the network considerable embarrassment has found his career on ice. — The producer, Chris White, had been offered a job by CNN before the video was broadcast.

Discussion: Gawker, Deadline.com, TVWeek.com, Mediaite, TVNewser, New York Magazine, Inside Cable News, AintItCool, entertainment.time.com and AdAge

Tim J. McGuire / McGuire on Media:

This I believe about journalism, newspapers and the future of media — I believe it's important to pause every now and then to write down my values and thoughts. That's especially true in the ever-fluid media world where nothing is standing still. This missive will attempt to take stock …

Discussion: The Buttry Diary, @stevebuttry, @stevebuttry and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why we need to blow the article up in order to save it — Many media outlets — and not just traditional players like newspapers or magazines, but even some newer and more digital-savvy ones — still think of the article or the story as the bedrock foundation of news and journalism.

Reuters:

French reporter back home after FARC captivity — (Reuters) - The French reporter held hostage by Colombia's FARC rebels said he could not complain of his treatment during the month-long jungle captivity, as he returned to France on Friday where he was to be welcomed by President Francois Hollande.

Discussion: Associated Press, Telegraph, Business Week and BBC

Jack Shafer:

Drug panics, bath salts, and face-eating zombies — Last Saturday afternoon, a naked man gnawed off most of the face of a half-naked man on a Miami causeway. He continued chewing even after police shot him and did not stop until they shot him dead. — Things like that don't happen everyday …

Discussion: Erik Wemple, The Week, Guardian and NY Daily News

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

How important are all those ugly Tweet Buttons to news sites? — News sites today are pockmarked with sharing buttons, those little “tweet this” or “like that” rectangles attached to seemingly every story these days. — In some ways, it's not as bad as it used to be …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Luigi Montanez, Poynter and Information Architects

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

Pew: 8% Of U.S. Online Adults Now Use Twitter Daily — According to the latest data from the Pew Internet & American Life project, 15% of online adults in the U.S. now say that they have used Twitter in the past and 8% told Pew that they do so on a typical day.