Mediagazer: Financial Times imposes recruitment freeze (Mark Sweney/Guardian)

2:05 PM ET, October 30, 2012

Top News:

Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:

Could Sandy be Instagram's big citizen journalism moment? — Facebook's $750 million purchase of Instagram was clearly good for its founder. But it's hard to argue that being owned by Facebook hasn't been good for Instagram the company as well. — After the announcement of the deal …

Julie Moos / Poynter:

CNN, Weather Channel inaccurately report that New York Stock Exchange is under 3 feet of water — During Monday night's coverage of damage due to storm system Sandy, both CNN and the Weather Channel inaccurately reported that the New York Stock Exchange was under three feet of water.

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:

Twitter Is A Truth Machine — There was no shark in Brigantine, and certainly no beached seal in Manhattan. The NYSE trading floor did not flood, and the 10 or more Con Edison workers trapped at a damaged plant turned out not to exist. These rumors were briefly and embarrassingly juxtaposed …

Discussion: Poynter, AllThingsD, New York Magazine, Poynter, GigaOM, FishbowlNY, GigaOM, The Awl, BuzzFeed, Guardian, Reuters and Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

David Carr / Media Decoder:

As Sandy Takes Its Time, TV News Is an Endless Loop of Anticipation — One of the blessings of Hurricane Sandy, if there are any, is its status as a very slow moving weather event. — The lead time has given people in the affected area — a broad swath of the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic …

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Erik Wemple, CJR, SocialTimes, Guardian, Softpedia News, msnbc.com and Metropolis

Jack Stuef / BuzzFeed:

Shashank Tripathi, Last Night's Twitter Villain @ComfortablySmug — During the storm last night, user @comfortablysmug was the source of a load of frightening but false information about conditions in New York City that spread wildly on Twitter and onto news broadcasts before ConEd, the MTA …

Discussion: Poynter

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:
Instagram users are posting 10 Hurricane Sandy pictures every second

Julie Moos / Poynter:

New York Times circulation up 40% as newspaper numbers generally flat — The latest report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations finds that daily circulation for the nation's newspapers was down 0.2 percent compared to the same period last year. Sunday circulation was up 0.6 percent.

Discussion: Gannett Blog, AdAge, Audit Bureau of Circulations, The Wrap, NetNewsCheck Latest, FishbowlNY, Bloomberg and Agence France Presse

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Washington Post Sunday circulation drop bad, but not quite as bad as it looks — The Washington Post's average Sunday circulation dropped 20.2 percent over 2011, according to the most recent Audit Bureau of Circulations report. But just like in the May report, the September report didn't count …

Joe Nocera / New York Times:

The Right Man for the Job? — The position of chief executive of The New York Times Company is not the easiest to fill. — There are, to start with, the obvious business challenges: like all newspaper companies, the Times Company has struggled financially as the Internet has eroded its traditional revenue sources.

Discussion: The Wrap, Guardian, The Raw Story and @dansabbagh

Jim Romenesko: NYT publisher to NYT columnist: No comment on Mark Thompson

Gabriele Parussini / Wall Street Journal:

France Calls On Google to Settle Rift With Publishers — PARIS—France will consider adopting legislation that would force Google Inc. to pay for the right to cite news articles online if the U.S. search giant fails to settle a long-running dispute with French news publishers …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Google News wars are here again: Schmidt vs France on ‘news tax’

Discussion: The Register

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

What Tumblr can tell us about the future of media — If there was any doubt left that Tumblr is trying to become more of a mainstream media entity, albeit with its own odd twist, it was removed recently when the service hired bloggers to cover the Republican and Democratic national conventions …

Discussion: WebProNews, Thanks:@sanchezjla

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Financial Times imposes recruitment freeze — The Financial Times has imposed a recruitment freeze and a ban on all but the most essential travel, to control costs in a tough advertising market. John Ridding, the Financial Times chief executive, outlined the measures in an internal email …

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Leveson report delayed until late November — Lord Justice Leveson's report on the regulation of newspapers following his inquiry into the culture and practices of the press has been delayed until the end of November. Leveson's conclusions and recommendations on the future of press regulation …

BBC:

Bolivian journalist Fernando Vidal set alight on air — A Bolivian radio journalist has been attacked by unidentified assailants while he was conducting a radio show in the southern city of Yacuiba. — Staff at Radio Popular said four masked men broke into the studio and poured petrol …