Mediagazer: George Lucas Will Use Disney $4 Billion to Fund Education (Alex Ben Block/Hollywood Reporter)

12:25 PM ET, November 2, 2012

Top News:

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Under Attack, Nate Silver Picks the Wrong Defense — “Anybody that thinks that this race is anything but a tossup right now is such an ideologue, they should be kept away from typewriters, computers, laptops and microphones for the next 10 days, because they're jokes.”

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

Sorry, Margaret, You Need to Get Out More — Times public editor Margaret Sullivan has a post up taking Nate Silver to task for daring Joe Scarborough to a bet over who would win the election. Basically, she says making a bet like this diminishes the Times and he shouldn't have done it.

Discussion: Poynter, The Awl, Brad DeLong, @felixsalmon and @moorehn

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

Foxy Nate Silver and why old-media hedgehogs could soon be old news — Nate Silver - statistician, analyst, blogger, author, and Xanax for liberals - is a one-man startup, and his brand is on the line. Aside from the candidates themselves, perhaps no man stands to lose more from this election.

Discussion: Salon, HBR.org, The Awl and The New Republic

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

TV earnings up, print earnings down at Washington Post — Third quarter revenue at the Washington Post Company overall was flat compared to the same period last year, as broadcast television and cable businesses rose, but circulation and ad revenue fell at its newspapers.

Steven Mufson / Washington Post:

The Washington Post Co. reports higher earnings — The Washington Post Co. reported sharply higher earnings in the third quarter of this year, bolstered by cable television profits, political and summer Olympic Game advertising on its local television broadcast stations, and a one-time accounting benefit.

Discussion: Politico

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Pew: ‘MSNBC was more negative in its treatment of Romney than Fox was of Obama’ — Between the last week of August and the third week of October, 38 percent of campaign coverage studied by Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism was “what is typically called horserace coverage …

Discussion: Journalism.org and Mashable!

Mark Walsh / MediaPost:

Social Media Harsh On Presidential Candidates — Social media isn't getting behind either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. In fact, it's downright negative about both presidential candidates, according to a study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Discussion: Forbes and Journalism.org

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Why Time Magazine Used Instagram To Cover Hurricane Sandy — If there was still any debate about whether serious photojournalism can take place in the context of camera phones and cutesy retro filters, it's over now. — To document the effects of Hurricane Sandy on the northeast …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Verge, NetNewsCheck Latest, Folio and Poynter

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Quartz Exceeds First-Month Expectations — Atlantic Media Company launched the business news site Quartz in late September, aimed at the world's financial elite with a mobile-first approach. The content designed in an app-like setting ideally performs well enough on smartphone and tablet platforms …

Alex Ben Block / Hollywood Reporter:

George Lucas Will Use Disney $4 Billion to Fund Education — Spokesperson for Lucasfilm tells THR the majority of the sale price will go toward educational philanthropy. — By the end of the year, the $4.05 billion sale of Lucasfilm to Disney should be finalized.

Discussion: Top Digital Journal News, Forbes, /Film, Geekologie, Vanity Fair, Mashable!, Digital Spy and Softpedia News

PressGazette:

Nick Davies: Leveson is being bullied by ‘spoilt’ Fleet Street — Guardian journalist Nick Davies believes Fleet Street is trying to “bully” Lord Justice Leveson and predicts a “dogfight” between the press and Government when his report is published later this month.

Discussion: Hacking inquiry

John Cook / Gawker:

Roger Ailes Offered Bush Administration “Off the Record Help” in Private Note — Fat a**hole and Fox News president Roger Ailes just re-upped to run his network through the 2016 election, and he continues to maintain the grotesque fiction that he operates an independent news outlet …

Discussion: The Wrap, Mediaite and The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post: Fox News Focuses On Benghazi Attack While Largely Ignoring Hurricane Sandy

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

BitTorrent Pirate Ordered to Pay $1.5 Million Damages For Sharing 10 Movies — Since early 2010, hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. have been sued for downloading and sharing copyrighted content on BitTorrent. — Nearly all of these cases end up dismissed or settled …

Discussion: Forbes, Pocket-lint and CNET

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

HuffPost Live's new iPad app could be a second screen breakthrough — The Huffington Post launched an iPad app Thursday that may one day pave the way for tablets to dethrone TV as king of our living rooms. The app, called HuffPost Live, offers a strong mix of entertainment and social interaction and …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and NetNewsCheck Latest

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Journalist Attempts To Silence Criticism Of Her Ethics By Brandishing The Club Of UK Defamation Laws — Defamation is only supposed to apply to cases where there's a factually false statement made about someone. It shouldn't apply to cases where the facts are accurate, or the statements are opinions.

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

State Farm Sponsors Gawker's Backup Tumblr, But Nick Denton Laments Lost Week of Comments — Gawker Was One of Many Sites Shut Down During Hurricane Sandy — As Hurricane Sandy whipped New York into devastation on Monday, Gawker Media was one of the media companies that saw its websites shut down by a flooded data center.

Discussion: @pkafka

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Back on the grid, with the Daily News, Time, Businessweek and Ali Velshi — After spending the past three days with no power, no cell phone service, and no means of transportation into Manhattan, I'm back on the grid today, catching up on some of the news I missed in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, NetNewsCheck Latest, FishbowlNY and The Huffington Post

Betabeat:

Less Looting, More Trolling: Daily Mail, Drudge Get Pwnd By Twitter Pranksters #SandyLootCrew — Original image (left), fake tweet from #SandyLootCrew (right) (Photo: Sydney Morning Herald) — The media hasn't been as roughed up by Sandy as, say, the transportation industry.

Discussion: The Daily Beast and Gawker.com