Mediagazer: Shashank Tripathi, Last Night's Twitter Villain @ComfortablySmug (Jack Stuef/BuzzFeed)

7:40 PM ET, October 30, 2012

Top News:

Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm LTD — An investor conference call will take place at approximately 4:30 p.m. EDT / 1:30 p.m. PDT today, October 30, 2012. Details for the call are listed in the release. — Global leader in high-quality family entertainment agrees to acquire world-renowned Lucasfilm Ltd …

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Disney purchases Lucasfilm, including Star Wars for $4.05B in cash and stock, Star Wars VII in 2015

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Techdirt, @billcox, @edyong209, @gruber, @3fecta and parislemon

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 Raw Story, Guardian and @dansabbagh

Michael Wolff / Guardian:

The Jimmy Savile scandal, Mark Thompson and the New York Times — Savile is unknown in the US. The real issue is Arthur Sulzberger Jr's judgment in embracing the BBC's former director general — Among the major institutions in the world most inclined to self-scrutiny and self-criticism are the BBC and the New York Times.

Discussion: London Review of Books, @emilybell, Poynter and New York Times

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

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: CNET, Nieman Storyboard, Capital New York, Bloomberg, PandoDaily, Gawker.com, The Verge, @carr2n, BuzzFeed, The New Republic, Poynter, The Raw Story, BuzzFeed FWD and BuzzFeed Andrew Kaczynski …

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

Tweeting fake news in a crisis — illegal or just immoral? — When Hurricane Sandy battered their city on Monday night, New Yorkers looked after each with courage and generosity. Unfortunately, a few people behaved badly and one person was downright despicable.

Discussion: Forbes, Business Week and BuzzFeed Politics

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: The Boston Globe, Bloomberg, Audit Bureau of Circulations, Media Decoder, Agence France Presse, NetNewsCheck Latest, Gannett Blog, FishbowlNY and The Wrap

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 …

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

Vimeo launches tips jar for content creators. More of this, please, media industry — Vimeo has just launched a tip jar to help content creators earn money from their videos. A “pay to view” option is coming soon. These are the first steps in what could become a widespread micropayments ecosystem on the video-sharing site.

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 …

Shara Tibken / CNET:

Barnes & Noble inks video deals in time for Nook HD, HD+ release — 20th Century Fox and NBCUniversal programs will be available as the new tablets launch this week. — Barnes & Noble is expanding its Nook video content to include NBCUniversal and 20th Century Fox programs as it also begins shipping its HD and HD+ tablets this week.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine and Softpedia News

NBC Chicago: First Lawsuit Filed in Barnes & Noble Hacked PIN Pad Case

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

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Google News wars are here again: Schmidt vs France on ‘news tax’ — France has set Google a year's-end deadline for agreeing to voluntarily pay news publishers — or it may legislate that it must pay a levy for the privilege. — Google chairman Eric Schmidt met French president François Hollande …

Discussion: The Register and Mashable!