Mediagazer: Deadline owner Penske likely to buy Variety (Ben Fritz/Los Angeles Times)

9:40 AM ET, September 25, 2012

Top News:

Exclusive: Twitter Eyeing Media Bigs, Including Hollywood Mogul Peter Chernin, for Board Seats — Twitter is now interviewing a series of well-known media players for its board, as the San Francisco online social communications service seeks to increase its ties to the entertainment industry …

Discussion: Betabeat, Fast Company, Mashable! and NetNewsCheck Latest

BuzzFeed:

Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To “F**k Off” And “Have A Nice Life” — On Sunday morning, BuzzFeed correspondent Michael Hastings emailed Philippe Reines, Hillary Clinton's longtime aide and personal spokesman at the State Department, asking a series of pointed questions about State's handling …

Discussion: Daily Download, Felix, Poynter, Election 2012, Politico, Politicker, New York Magazine, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, The Daily Beast, @johnjcook, Capital New York, nation.foxnews.com and Guardian

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:
Amid Criticism, CNN Defends Reporting on Ambassador's Journal

Discussion: TVNewser

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
Libya Consulate Not Secured Days After Attack, Journalists Say

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Willie Geist to Co-Host Third Hour of ‘Today’ — Willie Geist, a co-host of the rollicking MSNBC morning show “Morning Joe,” is moving over to NBC's flagship “Today” show as a co-host of the franchise's 9 a.m. hour. — The promotion is expected to be announced by NBC this week …

Discussion: FishbowlDC, New York Magazine, Broadcasting & Cable, TVNewser, Deadline.com, Mediaite, Inside Cable News and The Huffington Post

Chris Selley / National Post:

On Margaret Wente, plagiarism, and the Globe's public editor-cum-union rep — It's tough to pick the most discreditable aspect of Globe and Mail Public Editor Sylvia Stead's train wreck response to serious allegations of journalistic malpractice against columnist Margaret Wente. There are so many contenders.

Discussion: Poynter, Globe and Mail, Macleans.ca and John Gordon Miller's Blog

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:
Canadian columnist accused of plagiarism

Discussion: Globe and Mail, Macleans.ca, Canada's online magazine and Plagiarism Today

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Funded By $22M From Publishers, Wanderful Media Reinvents The Newspaper Circular — A startup called Wanderful Media wants to find a place for circulars (those printed flyers full of the latest deals and coupons) in the digital world. — Circulars have long been a staple of printed newspapers …

Discussion: Street Fight

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:

Print Sex Ads Will Remain at Newly-Formed Voice Media Group — Backpage.com may be gone, but sex ads are here to stay at the alt weeklies formerly owned by Village Voice Media. Over the weekend, Village Voice Media announced it had reshuffled and separated its 13 newspapers from Backpage.com …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Capital New York, New York Magazine, New York Post, TechCrunch and paidContent

Michael Wolff / Guardian:
The Village Voice's synthetic solution to a synthetic sex ad scandal

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Gawker and The Raw Story

Ben Fritz / Los Angeles Times:

Deadline owner Penske likely to buy Variety — Daily Variety will soon be acquired by Penske Media, the owner of Deadline.com. (Variety website / September 24, 2012) — Hollywood's 107-year-old industry trade publication Variety and 6-year-old online competitor Deadline …

Discussion: Media Decoder

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Nola Media Group announces digital initiative one week before Times-Picayune reduces print days — Nola Media Group announced it will fund a half-million dollars worth of initiatives to increase access to digital media in New Orleans. The company publishes the Times-Picayune …

Discussion: WWL-TV and New Orleans Times-Picayune

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone hacking: judge reveals relative is among claimants — The high court judge presiding over 155 civil damages claims for alleged phone hacking being brought against News of the World's publisher has disclosed that one of his relatives is among the fresh cases.

Liana B. Baker / Reuters:

Broadcasters get unlikely support from Cablevision in Aereo case — Cablevision has thrown its support behind major U.S. broadcast networks in their bid to stop Aereo Inc, an online television start-up backed by billionaire Barry Diller, from broadcasting TV programming over the Internet.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD: Cablevision Tells Aereo to Get Off Its Team

Guardian:

BBC apologises to Queen for revealing private conversation about Abu Hamza — The BBC has apologised to the Queen after its security correspondent recounted a private conversation in which the monarch told him she had lobbied a home secretary to secure the arrest of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical Islamist cleric.

Discussion: BBC, PressGazette, @benfenton, @theroyaleditor and @dansabbagh

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

YouTube Expands Translation Tools For Video Captions To 300+ Languages — YouTube just announced that it is now making it easier for video creators to translate their video captions to more than 300 languages by integrating the YouTube Video Manager with the Google Translator Toolkit.

Discussion: CNET, NetNewsCheck Latest, Engadget and YouTube Creator Blog

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Twitter's new Lifeline feature in Japan helps people find relevant accounts quickly during emergencies — Twitter just launched a very cool feature in Japan called Lifeline. It allows Japanese users of Twitter to use their postal code to find and follow local accounts that are important in emergencies.

Discussion: WebProNews and PC Magazine

Cynthia Cotts / The New York Observer:

The New York Times Union Contemplates a Collective Chant in the Lobby — or a Public Demo — Just before noon today, a stream of about 200 New York Times staffers left the company's headquarters at 620 Eighth Avenue, heading for the local hotel workers union a few blocks north.