Mediagazer: Amazon Prime licenses ‘West Wing,’ other Warner Bros. shows (Greg Sandoval/CNET)

1:20 PM ET, July 20, 2012

Top News:

Dylan Byers / Politico:

ABC News apologizes for ‘incorrect’ Tea party report — ABC News and Brian Ross are apologizing for an “incorrect” report that James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado theater shooting, may have had connections to the Tea Party. “An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes …

Discussion: TVNewser, Hit & Run, The Huffington Post, Poynter, Politico, ABCNEWS, Deadline.com, BREITBART.COM, Gawker, Hot Air, The Daily Caller, Business Insider, Mediaite and BREITBART.COM

Julie Moos / Poynter:

How news spread of the “Dark Knight Rises” shooting — An overnight shooting has left 14 people in Colorado dead, and dozens more injured. Here's how the news spread, including eyewitness reports from people at the theatre to see Batman sequel “The Dark Knight Rises” to the media who arrived to cover the shooting's aftermath:

Rebecca Leffler / Hollywood Reporter:

‘Dark Knight Rises’ Paris Premiere Cancelled Due to Colorado Shootings — Christopher Nolan and cast members Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway and Morgan Freeman also scrapped press interviews after learning of the Denver movie theater attack. — Plans for The Dark Knight Rises have fallen through …

Discussion: Mediaite, Media Decoder, Gawker, Guardian, entertainment.time.com, Mashable!, newsfeed.time.com, Deadline.com, Hot Air, Softpedia News and The Huffington Post

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Reddit covers the Colorado movie theater shooting — In the early morning hours Friday, “Peener13″ started a thread on Reddit called “Someone came into our theater at the midnight release of Dark Knight Rises and began opening fire. Who here on Reddit can help me calm my nerves?

Discussion: GigaOM, TechCrunch, Denver Post, Gawker and Forbes

Erik Wemple:

Aurora shootings: The Denver TV station everyone is watching — Skim today's coverage of the shooting rampage in Aurora, Colo., and you'll find a lot of big news operations scrambling to piece together a story. Not a lot of outlets field full-time reporting teams in Denver …

Discussion: USA Today, New York Times and Hit & Run

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Jessica Ghawi, ‘aspiring sportscaster,’ dies in Aurora shooting

Discussion: Mediaite, Gawker, Guardian, The Latest Word, Sporting News, @jbenton, BustedCoverage, @ebertchicago, FishbowlLA and The Newspaper Guild

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

“Yes, Keep Moving”: Marissa Mayer's First Memo to Yahoos (Natch!) — While I might abandon my internal memo-quest at Yahoo at some point soon, I wanted to make sure to post the very first one from newly installed — and extraordinarily well-paid — CEO Marissa Mayer.

Discussion: Forbes Real Time, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, PC Magazine, CNET, San Francisco Chronicle, Business Insider and WebProNews

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Mayer to Get Close to $60 Million (And Maybe More) in Overall Compensation for Yahoo's Top Job

Discussion: Forbes Real Time, Wall Street Journal, NetNewsCheck Latest, the Econsultancy blog, AllThingsD, Betabeat, Fortune, Globe and Mail, Bits, ZDNet, MediaPost, GeekWire, paidContent and Reuters

Bloomberg:

Viacom Is Said To Get Over $600 Million A Year From DirecTV — Viacom Inc. (VIAB) will get more than $600 million a year from DirecTV (DTV) in programming fees under their new seven-year agreement, up at least 20 percent from the previous terms, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Discussion: Multichannel News, VentureBeat, Media Decoder, Network World, The Verge, Reuters, Hollywood Reporter, CNNMoney.com, Wall Street Journal, Multichannel, directvpromise.com, Deadline.com, Broadcasting & Cable and Adweek

Associated Press:
Viacom, DirecTV Dispute Settled: Customers Can Welcome Sponge Bob Back

Discussion: Bloomberg

The Daily:

Sorkin cleaning the “Newsroom” — Aaron Sorkin has been doing press all week defending his critically-panned HBO show, “The Newsroom,” but behind the scenes he's cleaning house. Most of the writers on the cable drama about a Keith Olbermann-type television news demagogue have been fired …

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Business Insider, ArtsBeat and Salon

Tim Burrowes / mUmBRELLA:

Why paywall journalism is changing how journalists write — The introduction of online paywalls is changing the way journalists write and this means an audience adjustment says Tim Burrowes. — I was taught that the perfect length for an intro was 24 words - anything between 18 and 32 was acceptable, but 24 the ideal.

William Launder / Wall Street Journal:

WSJ Plans Friday Real Estate — The Wall Street Journal will introduce a weekly real-estate section targeting high-end buyers, one of several investments that the newspaper is considering, at a time when its parent company, News Corp., is preparing to spin off the paper along with other publishing assets.

Discussion: Capital New York, FishbowlNY and Talking Biz News

Justin Jouvenal / Washington Post:

Killing of Fauquier reporter remains a mystery — UPPERVILLE, VA. — Before she went to bed two Sundays ago, Sarah Libbey Greenhalgh popped a final message up on her Facebook page. She said she was going to sleep with her windows open and would rest peacefully as long as “crazy boy left me alone.”

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

Economist:

The music business: Universal's gamble — UK Only Article: standard article Issue: Towards the endgame Fly Title: The music business Rubric: A musical merger could create a new model, or a dozy mammoth Main image: Hard times force singers to wear old sweet wrappers A WISE gamble involves knowing …

Billboard:
Updated: Universal Music Offers to Sell More Assets to Salvage EMI Deal

Discussion: Media Decoder, Billboard.Biz and Guardian

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

What the Instagram backlash says about the future of media — For a simple service that lets people share their photos with others from a mobile device, Instagram gets a lot of criticism, bordering on hate. And it's not just because the tiny startup is being acquired by Facebook recently for $1 billion …

Discussion: MHALLVILLE, The Atlantic Wire, Guardian, Telegraph, eMedia Vitals and TUAW

Rethink Digg:

v1 — As betaworks and Digg both announced on their blogs, we are taking over Digg and turning it back into a startup. What they didn't mention is that we're rebuilding it from scratch. In six weeks. — On August 1, after an adrenaline and caffeine-fueled six weeks, we're rolling out a new v1.

Discussion: @digg

Mona Zhang / 10,000 Words:

Digital First Announces Curation Team — Digital First Media announced today that it is creating a national curation team as part of its centralized news operation. That operation, called Thunderdome, will be produced by Digital First's MediaNews Group and Journal Register Company.

Discussion: The Buttry Diary, The Awl, Street Fight, eMedia Vitals, Digital First Media and Zombie Journalism

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:

Apple Expands iTunes Movies in the Cloud to Over 35 New Countries [Updated] — In addition to today's iTunes Match expansion to Hungary and Poland, Apple has also undertaken a significant expansion of its iTunes in the Cloud feature, adding movies to the list of eligible items in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Discussion: CNET, Softpedia News, The Verge, 9to5Mac, TUAW and The Next Web