Mediagazer: Pearson CFO Freestone Doesn't Rule Out Sale of Financial Times (Bloomberg)

3:00 PM ET, November 14, 2012

Top News:

Stray penises and politicos — I can remember the specific moment when I swore off the sex lives of the famous as journalistic currency. It was the case of a national sportscaster — I won't name him, but, alas, most of those old enough will remember the name, which is regrettable — whose sex life had suddenly become the media chow.

Discussion: Poynter, Tampa Bay Times and The Huffington Post

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:

The Quandary for Biographers: Get Up Close, but How Personal? — When Doris Kearns Goodwin was still young and unknown and writing her biography of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, she stayed at his Texas ranch. Sometimes, she said in the book's prologue, when he could not sleep …

Discussion: Guardian, Business Insider and The Daily Beast

Chuck Klosterman / Grantland:
I Lived a CIA Conspiracy Theory

Discussion: Washington Post, Poynter, The Public Editor's Journal, USA Today, Gawker, Business Week, The Week, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, New York Magazine, FishbowlNY, Pressing Issues and Washington Post

Patrick Radden Keefe / The New Yorker Blog:
The Surveillance State Takes Friendly Fire

Discussion: Forbes, Yahoo! News, Mediaite, Telegraph, The Daily Beast and Poynter

Rupal Parekh / AdAge:
Whoops: Petraeus Given Starring Role in Newest ‘Call of Duty’

Discussion: Forbes, Softpedia News, CNET and Associated Press

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Kickstarter-backed journalism startup Matter publishes its first story — Matter, the science and technology journalism startup that raised over $140,000 from 2,566 backers on Kickstarter, is launching with its first article Wednesday. GigaOM readers are already quite familiar …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk and kottke.org

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

New longform science journalism site ‘Matter’ launches today — Matter, a site that publishes longform stories about science and technology, launched today. The site, which will publish one story per month, is open to people who sign up as members. For 99 cents, they'll get access to monthly stories …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Spotify Closes $3 Billion Funding Round — Spotify has closed its latest funding round, which values the company at around $3 billion, according to a person familiar with the transaction. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that Goldman Sachs would lead a group …

Discussion: TechCrunch and The Next Web

Media Decoder:

Spotify Attracts Investments From Coca-Cola and Fidelity — Coca-Cola is becoming a minority investor in Spotify, as part of a new round of financing that will bring in $100 million and value the streaming music service at about $3 billion. — Spotify has completed the financing round …

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

News companies see a financial future in brand-sponsored digital content — More and more media organizations are declaring that content sponsored or produced by brands (the new buzzword is “native advertising") is a major part of their future digital business models.

Discussion: CJR, Noted, eMedia Vitals, AdAge and Marketing Pilgrim

Jack Marshall / Digiday:
The Mobile Banner: A Dog That Won't Hunt

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Nxtblog

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes: Ads That Get More Love Than the Stories Around Them? Pulse Has Them

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Google TV update adds voice control, taps into Knowledge Graph — Google announced the next big update for Google TV Wednesday, bringing advanced voice control, a new programming guide app and all kinds of smarts derived from Google's Knowledge Graph to the platform.

Discussion: The Official Google TV Blog, Forbes, TechCrunch, Fast Company, CNET and AllThingsD

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
After Flipboard and Tumblr, Chernin bets on YouTube video boom

Discussion: Business Wire and Media Week

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Katharine Weymouth: Stepping down was Brauchli's decision — Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said the paper named a new executive editor Tuesday “because Marcus decided to step down at the end of the year.” I asked her, during a brisk and efficient phone call, if the decision was Brauchli's.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Washington Post, Jack Shafer, The Daily Beast, Media Decoder and Washington Post

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Marty Baron stories dwell on cuts at The Washington Post

Discussion: Washington Post and Memex 1.1

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
Washington Post Hires New Top Editor; Here Are The Memos

Discussion: City Desk

Bloomberg:

Pearson CFO Freestone Doesn't Rule Out Sale of Financial Times — Pearson Plc (PSON) said today it wouldn't rule out a sale of the Financial Times as Chief Financial Officer Robin Freestone told investors that the company may eventually re-examine its ownership of the newspaper.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

McKay Coppins / BuzzFeed:

A Mormon Reporter On The Romney Bus — On the night of the South Carolina Republican primary in January, I sat near the front of a dark campaign press bus, and listened to reporters talk about Mitt Romney's underwear. — Earlier in the day, one of them had happened upon the candidate …

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Time to go for Huey — Editor-in-chief likely to step down for Nelson — John Huey, who was relaxing at the Time magazine Person of the Year luncheon yesterday, is expected to step down as editor-in-chief of the Time Inc. empire by the end of the year, Media Ink has learned.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Capital New York

Daniel Miller / Hollywood Reporter:

Nate Silver on His Hollywood Future and 'Moneyball'-ing Box Office — The FiveThirtyEight blogger tells THR he's been approached by agents and producers, already has done work for a studio and isn't sure he wants to write a book about the election: “I prefer to go broader.”

Discussion: The Corsair and Los Angeles Times

Richard Sandomir / New York Times:

Producer Leaves ‘Today’ Show to Direct Olympics for NBC Universal — When Jim Bell was in charge of production of the London Olympics for NBC Universal, he was still the executive producer of the “Today” show. — His double duty officially ended on Tuesday when he left “Today,” …