Mediagazer: News Corp. Offers $2 Billion to Boost Australian Pay TV Stake (Gavin Lower/Wall Street Journal)

3:01 AM ET, June 20, 2012

Top News:

New Yorker Writer Jonah Lehrer Plagiarizes Himself Repeatedly [Update] — Did you ever pull that old college trick where you wrote the same paper for two classes? It's frowned upon, but hard to get caught. Not so on the Internet: New Yorker staffer Jonah Lehrer, who just moved over from Wired …

Discussion: Poynter

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Jonah Lehrer, self-borrowing and the problem with “big ideas” — Newly appointed New Yorker staff writer Jonah Lehrer — author of the bestselling books “Imagine,” “How We Decide” and “Proust Was a Neuroscientist” and a former editor at Wired — has been recycling a bunch of his own content in pieces for various publishers.

Discussion: Slate

Jim Romenesko:
Jonah Lehrer's NewYorker.com ‘Smart People’ post borrows from earlier WSJ piece

Discussion: Gawker, Politico and Poynter

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Tor Project helps journalists and whistleblowers go online without leaving a trace — Originally built in a U.S. Naval laboratory as a way to protect government communications, Tor has grown into a wide-reaching project that helps individuals stay anonymous online.

Discussion: The Next Web

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Knight Foundation diversifies its journalism investments again with its new Prototype Fund — The Knight Foundation is broadening its funding mechanisms again with the addition of the Knight Prototype Fund. Announced yesterday at the MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference, the prototype fund will be a smaller …

Discussion: Knight Foundation, Ryan Sholin, MediaShift Idea Lab and Drone Journalism Lab

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
The future of news: Mobile, video, data — and crowdsourced

Discussion: Knight Foundation, Nieman Journalism Lab, MIT Center for Civic Media and Journalism.co.uk

Reuters:

Ecuador says WikiLeaks' Assange seeks asylum — (Reuters) - WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange has asked for political asylum in Ecuador and officials in the South American nation are considering his request, its foreign minister said on Tuesday. — “Ecuador is studying and analyzing the request …

Discussion: @noelapdc, Betabeat, The Atlantic Online, The Firewall, AJE, Bloomberg, ReadWriteWeb, Yahoo! News, New York Magazine, @ggreenwald, Telegraph, This Just In, @davidclinchnews, @producermatthew, Guardian, Mediaite, Guardian and Gawker

Embassy of Ecuador in London:
Statement on Julian Assange

Discussion: Daily Dot

Glenn Peoples / Billboard.Biz:

What's Going on With Vevo's Numbers? — Music video network Vevo has helped revolutionize online video, has been the subject of IPO rumors and is reported to be wooing investments from Google and Facebook. — But exactly what investors would get is a bit fuzzy to outsiders.

Discussion: Digital Music News, fierceonlinevideo.com, SocialTimes, Mashable! and paidContent

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Publishers gain ground on music-video payday — Music videos are making a comeback with help from Vevo and YouTube. Indie music publishers want their fair share. — Follow @sandoCNET — Songwriters and music publishers don't want to get left out of the online music-video boom.

Discussion: paidContent and MediaPost

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

New York Post Pivots On iPad Strategy, Dropping Paywall — This person might have chosen to read the New York Post with his coffee, if it were free on the iPad, and in Swedish. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) — The “most egregious paywall yet” is how one tech writer described the system introduced …

Discussion: NY Convergence

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:

NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs, Almost None Paid For — When it comes to digital music, can the audience be shamed into doing the right thing? That is, even if we all agreed that it was the “right thing” for musicians to be paid each time someone listened to their music, would it make any difference?

Discussion: TeleRead, The Huffington Post, www.wnyc.org, Techdirt and The Trichordist

Larry McShane / NY Daily News:

Alec Baldwin punches Daily News photographer after obtaining marriage license in New York — For his second upcoming wedding, perennial hothead Alec Baldwin tried to make a Daily News photographer black and blue. The volatile “30 Rock” star punched lensman Marcus Santos outside …

Discussion: mediabistro.com, PAPERMAG, NPPA Advocacy Committee, FishbowlNY, FishbowlDC, The Wrap, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, Gothamist, BuzzFeed, ABCNEWS, TMZ.com, The Daily Caller, Digital Spy and Mediaite

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

MPAA / RIAA Ponder Suing Persistent BitTorrent Pirates — Later this year, the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) will start to track down ‘pirates’ as part of an agreement all major U.S. Internet providers struck with the MPAA and RIAA. — The parties agreed on a system through …

Discussion: Plagiarism Today

Merrill Knox / TVNewser:

Caleb Silver Named CNN's Director of U.S. Business News — After three years as executive producer for CNNMoney.com, Caleb Silver is joining CNN's New York bureau as the director of U.S. business news. — In his new role, Silver will oversee the network's business newsgathering and production …

Discussion: All Things CNN

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

Microsoft's live-action press release — Yesterday, Microsoft got a bunch of tech journalists to go to Hollywood for what it promised would be a major announcement: The company was launching its own tablet PC. And what a launch it was—at least for the flacks and marketers at Microsoft …

Discussion: Forbes

Tom Harper / London Evening Standard:

Exclusive: Leveson questioned David Cameron's support for his inquiry — Lord Justice Leveson questioned David Cameron's support for his inquiry into the press, police and politics in a phone call to Britain's top civil servant, the Standard can reveal. The judge leading the probe …

Discussion: New York Times