Mediagazer: Rebekah Brooks Formally Charged (Jack Mirkinson/The Huffington Post)

9:20 PM ET, August 2, 2012

Top News:

Changes at the New York Observer — The Observer Media Group announced today that editor-in-chief and editorial director Elizabeth Spiers is leaving her post at the end of August to launch a new company. — “I'm incredibly proud of what we've built to date and will miss the fun of putting …

Discussion: Man About Town, @reidpillifant, Media Decoder, Media & Entertainment, The Wrap, Adweek, @pfro, @reidpillifant, @pkafka, New York Magazine, FishbowlNY, WWD Media Headlines, Politico, Gawker and Spiersblr

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:
‘New York Observer’ heads of business and editorial are leaving

Discussion: Observer

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Rebekah Brooks Formally Charged — Rebekah Brooks was formally charged on Thursday with conspiring to hack into phones, including that of murdered teenager Milly Dowler. The former News of the World editor and News International chief appeared at a London police station Thursday night and was charged with three counts.

BNO News:

Police statement: Rebekah Brooks charged by Operation Weeting — [As released by Scotland Yard] Further to last week's announcement by the CPS in connection with Operation Weeting, the MPS investigation into the hacking of voice mailboxes, Rebekah Brooks [H] answered bail at Lewisham police station …

Discussion: Poynter, The Daily Beast, Guardian, Deadline.com, Politico, The Wrap, Hollywood Reporter, ABCNEWS and ITV

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Huffington makes her tablet magazine free, after five issues — When The Huffington Post launched its weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, a month and a half ago, executive editor Tim O'Brien explained why they had decided to make it a paid product at 99 cents an issue, $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year.

Discussion: Mashable, Folio, New York Magazine, FishbowlNY and Canadian Magazines

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
HuffPo, The Daily and the flawed iPad content model

Thanks:@mathewi

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

NBC Says Live Online + Tape Delayed Olympics Are a Ginormous Success — OK, people who are furious about NBC's Olympics coverage. The network has thrown you a bone: On a press call today NBC sports head Mark Lazarus said the company is watching the criticism it's getting on Twitter and Facebook.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Media Decoder, Guardian, Poynter, paidContent, Reuters, Broadcasting & Cable, NetNewsCheck Latest and Beet.TV

Associated Press: NBC tape delay: Research finds people who know Olympic results more likely to watch tape-delayed coverage

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Investigative news channel ‘The I Files’ launches on YouTube — The Center for Investigative Reporting has launched a new investigative news channel on YouTube, The I Files, with the aim of acting as a “showcase for the best investigative news videos from around the world”.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Just Before Olympics, ‘Good Morning America’ Takes Crown Away From ‘Today’ — The last shred of morning television dominance owned by NBC's “Today” show came crashing down last week as ABC's “Good Morning America” won the ratings across the board, even among the group of viewers most prized by news advertisers.

Discussion: Mediaite, Broadcasting & Cable, The Huffington Post and TVNewser

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Palestinian Remarks Furor: Romney Campaign Hits AP as ‘Irresponsible’ — A top Romney strategist tells Howard Kurtz the Associated Press ‘manufactured’ a controversy over the candidate's statements in Jerusalem on Palestinian culture. Howard Kurtz examines the campaign's complaint.

Discussion: New York Times, Politico, The Huffington Post, ABCNEWS and The Hill

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Desktop, laptop use of New York Times' website drops over two years — People using computers at home and work spent less time on nytimes.com in April and May of 2012 than they did during the same months in 2010, according to Nielsen figures released to Poynter.

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Lehrer's publisher runs ads telling bookstores to send back “Imagine” for a refund — Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is running digital ads telling booksellers to send back copies of Jonah Lehrer's Imagine for a full refund. — Earlier this week, Tablet magazine's Michael Moynihan reported …

Discussion: Poynter, Reuters, Forbes and FishbowlNY

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
Writer dares to defend Jonah Lehrer

Discussion: Poynter, GalleyCat and VICE

Mark Gongloff / The Huffington Post:

TV News Is Not Aware Of This Libor Scandal Of Which You Speak … TV news , Financial Crisis , Banks , Libor Rate-Rigging Scandal , Cable Tv , Evening News , Financial News , LIBOR , Libor Rate-Rigging Scandal , Media , Slideexpand , Business News — Maybe instead of asking why Americans …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Simon Rabinovitch / Financial Times:

China keeps up block on Bloomberg website — (Financial Times) — Bloomberg's news website remains blocked by China's state censors a full month after it detailed the riches amassed by the family of Xi Jinping, the man who is expected to be the country's next president.

Erik Wemple:

Van Susteren's ‘Gretawire’ works for free — A year ago, the techies at Fox News were sprucing up Gretawire, the blog platform for the host of “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” The goal was to polish the graphics presentation and upgrade the video interface for Van Susteren's YouTube channel …