Mediagazer: Why is the U.S. State Department paying Amazon $16.5 million for Kindles? (Laura Hazard Owen/paidContent)

12:10 AM ET, June 12, 2012

Top News:

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Here's why Apple didn't open up Apple TV — There were plenty of rumors ahead of today's WWDC keynote that Apple would announce some kind of update to its Apple TV platform. And while pundits have long been speculating about the launch of a full-blown TV set, the latest round of rumors …

Discussion: Forbes, BGR, Shiny Objects and TechCrunch

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Looking for the Apple TV? Look in Front of You. — Nope, still no Apple TV. — Apple's WWDC presentation took nearly two hours, and none of that time was devoted to the product lots of smart people insist is going to show up one day, someday. — Still, look a little closer …

Discussion: Forbes

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Why is the U.S. State Department paying Amazon $16.5 million for Kindles? — Update, 10:32 PM: NextGov has backtracked on its original post to say that the State Department is “considering” this program and that it “could include as many as 35,000 Kindle e-Readers” over a 5-year, $16.5 million contract.

Discussion: Nextgov, VentureBeat, CNET, TeleRead, GeekWire and Washington Free Beacon

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Orange County Register sold to Aaron Kushner group — The Orange County Register has been sold to 2100 Trust LLC. The newspaper had been owned by Freedom Communications, which announced the sale of its newspapers in Texas and in the Midwest last month and of its newspapers in North Carolina and in Florida on June 1.

Discussion: Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, MediaPost, Media Decoder, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Free Press

Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:

Why the World's Most Perfect News Tweet Is Kind of Boring — Researchers have found a way to predict a tweet's popularity — with an astounding 84 percent accuracy. — Here, per one algorithm, is the Platonic version of the news tweet: … If that seems a little dull for Twitter Perfection ... well, that's the point.

Discussion: PC Magazine, Mashable, Neatorama, Personanondata and Poynter

Jack Shafer:

What happens to Tribune after bankruptcy? — Choking softly on the wad of debt “rescuer” Sam Zell fed it, Tribune Co checked into a Wilmington, Delaware, bankruptcy court at the end of 2008. Now newly slimmed, especially after the payment of $410 million in legal and other professional fees …

Discussion: LA Observed

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

A Sports Aggregator Finds a Home: Gannett Buys Quickish — The folks at Gannett, the newspaper publisher best known as the people who bring you USA Today, also want to be known for online sports. Here's another move in that direction: The company's USA Today Sports Media Group has acquired Quickish …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Adweek, Nodes - Quickish and Gannett Blog

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Joy Behar Is Reviving Her Talk Show, This Time for Current TV — The comedian and political commentator Joy Behar, whose HLN talk show was canceled late last year, is reprising her act for Current TV, the network announced on Monday. — Ms. Behar's hourlong talk show …

Discussion: Radio & Television …, Politico, The Wrap and Adweek

The Huffington Post:

AP Scores Court Victory — BOISE, Idaho — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that witnesses should have full viewing access to Idaho's upcoming execution, siding with The Associated Press and 16 other news organizations. — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the decision …

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What makes something go viral? The Internet according to Gawker's Neetzan Zimmerman — In March, I wrote about Gawker's new quantity-over-quality experiment. Each day, one Gawker staffer was tasked with pageview-chasing duty, a quest to post enough cat videos, Miley Cyrus pics …

Discussion: Gawker

New York Times:

Syrian Conflict Cracks Carefully Polished Image of Assad — For some journalists, Syria has been one of the least hospitable countries in the Middle East, a place where reporters — if they can get in — are routinely harassed and threatened as they try to uncover the repression that has propped up the Assad government for decades.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Media Decoder, Erik Wemple, Washington Free Beacon, New York Magazine, The Daily Beast and Newsweek

Will Sommer / Washington City Paper:

TBD Loses Its Last Employee — Allbritton's long-ailing TBD experiment is even closer to meeting its demise. Since May, TBD's staff has consisted of transportation blogger John Hendel, down from 35 editorial employees at its height in 2010. Now Hendel, who writes the TBD On Foot blog …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Patching up? Tim Armstrong's hyperlocal-news baby has numbers to brandish against hostile shareholders — AOL's Patch has been taking a beating lately thanks to Starboard Capital, an investor group that thinks the costly community-journalism venture should be shut down.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Poynter and Wall Street Journal

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Phone hacking: Met refers files on five journalists to CPS — Scotland Yard has referred files relating to five journalists arrested on suspicion of phone hacking to prosecutors, the Crown Prosecution Service has announced. The journalists' cases are the first to be referred to the CPS …

Discussion: Reuters