Mediagazer: Fox Closes In on New Baseball Deal (Richard Sandomir/New York Times)

Kate Holton / Reuters:

UK regulator clears BSkyB of links to hacking scandal — (Reuters) - Britain's media regulator gave pay-TV firm BSkyB a clean bill of health on Thursday, saying there was no evidence it was linked to a phone hacking scandal which has engulfed Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, its largest shareholder.

Discussion: Bloomberg, AllThingsD, New York Times, The Independent, BBC, Wall Street Journal and Guardian

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:
Sky might be ‘fit and proper’, but Ofcom has harsh words for James Murdoch

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter: BSkyB CEO Touts Original Content Push, Says Won't Need to Acquire Production Firm

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:
News Corp shareholders in US want to sue over phone hacking scandal

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Fast Company, The Huffington Post and New York Magazine

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Mediafed Snaps Up News Aggregation App Taptu — It's tough being a news reader app. You've got competition on every side while you fight for distribution, not to mention staving off media company lawsuits, all the while trying to figure out how to monetize.

Discussion: paidContent

Victoria Thieberger / Reuters:

Australia's old media outstripped as online boosts ad share — (Reuters) - A pack of new media specialists in Australia has surpassed many of the country's newspapers and television networks in size after diverting away the precious advertising dollars that have sustained the old guard for decades.

PressGazette:

Mail Online surges past 100m browsers in August — Mail Online reported more than 100m unique monthly browsers for the first time in August, according to the latest online traffic figures from ABC. — During the month that saw both the Olympic and Paralympic Games held in London …

Discussion: Guardian and Journalism.co.uk

Jim Romenesko:

Circulation up at the ‘new’ Orange County Register — Some highlights from a memo that Orange County Register publisher Aaron Kushner sent to his staff on Wednesday: — * In the first full month of new ownership, the Register had a 3.4% increase in daily home delivery and 3.9% Sunday increase over the previous year.

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Mitt Says Dave Hates Him. Not So, Says Dave, Who Invites Him to Appear. — Does David Letterman hate Mitt Romney? — Mr. Romney said so on the surreptitiously recorded tape of his comments at a fund-raiser in May, which have stirred a firestorm of reaction in the news media this week.

Discussion: Mediaite, Speakeasy, TheBlaze.com, Pressing Issues, ABCNEWS and The Caucus

Eddie Scarry / FishbowlDC:

Attribution Problem: AP Swipes Story From The Hill — It takes a certain amount of clumsiness to break something that's already broken. — The Hill's Alexandra Jaffe broke the news yesterday that Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was distancing himself from remarks made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Discussion: Associated Press and Boston Herald

Discussion: The Daily Caller and Vanity Fair

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:

Google News introduces hidden keyword metatag — Publishers will be able to add up to 10 keywords or short phrases to tell the Google crawler what a news article is about — Google has announced a new metatag called “news_keywords” to allow digital journalists to add up to 10 keywords or phrases …

Richard Sandomir / New York Times:

Fox Closes In on New Baseball Deal — Fox Sports is close to a deal with Major League Baseball that will let it add more playoff and regular-season games, justifying its plan to create a new cable sports network, said three people with knowledge of the negotiations. By contrast, TBS will get fewer games in its pending deal.

Discussion: B&C and New York Post

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Journal Register likely to reduce print to three days a week at some papers — The new slimmed-down Journal Register company, being pieced together in a bankruptcy proceeding, is likely to reduce print frequency at several of its 20 dailies. — “I would consider and am considering a reduction …

Lauren Goode / AllThingsD:

Roku to Launch Streaming Stick in October — And Then Wait for Consumers to Catch Up to New TV Standard — If there's one thing that can be said about Roku devices — set-top boxes that stream Internet video to TV sets — it's that they're easy to use. — Which is why it's surprising …

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, TechCrunch, GigaOM, Softpedia News, CNET and Cable Television News

Alan D. Mutter / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Is there a tomorrow for USA Today? — USA Today celebrated its 30th anniversary last week with a plump commemorative edition and a meh facelift, but can it survive another 30 years? As a digital brand, potentially. As a print publication, probably not. — The third-largest newspaper …

Discussion: Gannett Blog

Jim Romenesko:

Talent exchange at the Washington Post — Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli today announced “a talent exchange with our cousins at WaPo Labs” that “should accelerate the pace of digital innovation in the Newsroom and add editorial weight to the team at Labs.”

James Temple / The Technology Chronicles:

Social media moguls take hit on Forbes 400 list — The rapidly shifting fortunes of social media companies has hit the wallets of the industry's leaders, according to the Forbes 400 list published today, the magazine's annual envy list. — As the Associated Press pointed out …

Discussion: Forbes and Time

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

How Mother Jones got the Romney ‘47 percent’ story — Big scoops come in small increments. It takes some luck and some connections, some phone calls and e-mails, and the time to build a relationship. Just ask David Corn. Corn, the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine …

Discussion: Slate, Politico, Election 2012, Forbes, Capital New York, New York Times and The Fix