Mediagazer: Twitter Co-founders Hire ‘Publishing Prodigy’ Kate Lee To Help Your (Good) Stories Get Read (Alyson Shontell/Business Insider)

11:45 AM ET, November 20, 2012

Top News:

Former Murdoch Aides to Be Charged With Bribery — LONDON — In a dramatic new turn in the scandals swirling around Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper outpost, prosecutors said on Tuesday that two former top executives — Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks — will be charged with making corrupt payments …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, ProPublica, Chickaboomer and Vanity Fair

Kate Holton / Reuters:
Ex-Cameron aide charged over royal family details

Discussion: BBC, Guardian, AllThingsD, New Statesman, Metro.co.uk, Telegraph, Sky News, The Independent and Channel 4

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian: Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson charges set new context for Leveson

Amy Chozick / @amychozick:

News Corp confirms it's acquiring a 49% stake in the YES network.

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:
BSkyB Raises $800 Million, Analysts See Potential for Acquisitions

Discussion: Fox Business

Amy Chozick / New York Times:
Emerging From Scandal, News Corporation Looks at Potential Acquisitions

Discussion: Media Decoder, Bloomberg, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, Poynter and CNN

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Yahoo Is Among Those Mulling a TVGuide.com Bid for About $20 Million — According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo is among the companies taking a serious gander at TVGuide.com, the online entertainment listings, video and news site and mobile app. — Earlier today …

Discussion: Betabeat and Business Insider

David Lieberman / Deadline.com:

Lionsgate In Advanced Negotiations To Sell TVGuide.com — EXCLUSIVE. The online TV navigation site could go for about $20M — possibly as much as $25M I'm told — and would enable Lionsgate to cash in on a property that's considered peripheral to its main production and TV networks businesses.

Discussion: C21Media

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Pot calls kettle black in New York Times piece on Washington Post business troubles — I am a huge David Carr fan. Great writer, great eye for news-about-news, a shoe-leather reporter when he needs to be (as when driving the frat boys from the Tribune Co. executive suite).

Discussion: Media Decoder

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Tolkien estate sues Warner Brothers over Lord of the Rings digital rights — J.R.R. Tolkien's estate and publisher HarperCollins are suing Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema and the Saul Zaentz Company for infringing copyright on Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Hollywood Reporter, Guardian, BBC and Polygon

Greg Mitchell / The Nation:

MSNBC's Disgrace: In Five Hours of Primetime, Fifteen Minutes on Israel-Gaza — Early yesterday, I made this prediction: Based on past performance, none of MSNBC's five primetime, liberal, hosts last night or their guests would utter a single word critical of Israel in the current conflict with Gaza.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, New York Times, The New Yorker Blog and Pressing Issues

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Twitter Co-founders Hire ‘Publishing Prodigy’ Kate Lee To Help Your (Good) Stories Get Read — A few months ago, Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams created Obvious Corporation and launched a new blogging platform called Medium. — Medium is currently in closed beta …

Discussion: Medium, CNET and TechCrunch

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

Twitter Restores @NYTOnIt Parody Account … Twitter has restored popular New York Times parody account @NYTOnIt after it was taken offline for about 12 hours beginning Tuesday night. The account was suspended after The Times filed a trademark complaint against its owner — who is …

Discussion: @juliemmoos, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Betabeat, @bkabak, The Huffington Post and Gothamist

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Here comes Vdio: Janus Friis' video service launches private beta in UK and US — Vdio, the online video service founded by Skype co-founder Janus Friis, is finally emerging from stealth mode. The company just launched a new homepage, which touts a private beta test, and comes with a few surprises …

Discussion: C21Media

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Can a big bet on tech help USA Today escape its paper past? — Is there a future for a media brand best known for dropping free newspapers at America's hotels? The brass at USA Today seems to think so and today launched a “next generation” iPad app to carry the brand into the digital future.

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

iTunes-like Disney Movies Online service shuttered because there weren't enough users — Disney has shut down its Disney Movies Online service that streamed movies for purchase and rental, reports Deadline. The service allowed users to rent or purchase movies on its site and watch those via streaming.

Discussion: Deadline.com