Mediagazer: Lots of views on paywalls, digital ads and the business of news (Steve Buttry/The Buttry Diary)

11:45 AM ET, November 27, 2012

Top News:

Fox News Exec VP: Guest Who Slammed Network Apologized - But Not Publicly — UPDATED: Author Tom Ricks accused the network of “hyped” Benghazi coverage; Fox News' Michael Clemente says Ricks apologized but “doesn't have the strength of character to do that publicly.” Ricks disputes.

Discussion: Politico, The Huffington Post, TVNewser, The Wrap, mediabistro.com, Mediaite, Politico and The Raw Story

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:
Guest on Fox News to Discuss Benghazi Attack Is Given a Quick Exit

Discussion: Politico, The Week, Gawker, Chickaboomer, New York Magazine, Slate, Softpedia News, TVNewser, Mediaite, The Huffington Post and Pressing Issues

Zeke Miller / BuzzFeed:

Chinese Website Congratulates Kim Jong Un On Being Named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive — China's Communist Party newspaper, People's Daily, congratulates the North Korean leader on being named the sexiest man alive by the the satirical American publication. Seriously.

Discussion: People's Daily Online, Gawker, Fast Company, The Week, @ari_shapiro and @timothys

Guardian:

China's People's Daily falls for Kim Jong-un ‘sexiest man alive’ spoof — Site welcomes report by The Onion, which says 'Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true' — The online version of China's Communist party newspaper has hailed a report by The Onion naming North Korean dictator …

Discussion: Mediaite

Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:

Old media's problems are the costs not the lack of paywalls — GigaOm's Mathew Ingram is one of my favorite bloggers (who doesn't work at PandoDaily), so I'm delighted that this time, I actually agree with him on something. — Go read his post on why paywalls are not the answer to dying newspapers right now.

Steve Buttry / The Buttry Diary:
Lots of views on paywalls, digital ads and the business of news

Discussion: Poynter, ReadWrite and Reflections of a Newsosaur

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Why pushing for a paywall at the Washington Post completely misses the point

Discussion: Poynter, CJR and NetNewsCheck Latest

Charlie Warzel / Adweek:

Old Media, New Tricks — “You'll notice we've got lots of electronics around—most of which we've taken apart,” says New York Times R&D Lab creative technologist Alexis Lloyd, casually sidestepping two turquoise exercise balls. Walking toward Lloyd's desk, where she's working …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Amazon's Kindle Family: Weekend Sales More Than Double On Last Year, Cyber Monday Biggest Of All — Amazon has released some detail on Kindle sales over Thanksgiving Weekend: as usual, it's giving no hard numbers but instead providing general buying trends.

Discussion: Amazon.com, Fast Company, PublishersWeekly.com, CNET, The Next Web and Engadget

Jessica Wohl / Reuters: Amazon says big weekend Kindle sales more than double 2011 level

Reuters:

Card firms' block on WikiLeaks did not break rules: EU — (Reuters) - A block on processing donations for WikiLeaks by Visa Europe and other credit card companies is unlikely to have violated EU anti-trust rules, the European Commission said on Tuesday. — DataCell, a company …

Guardian: Julian Assange expresses surprise over EU WikiLeaks decision

Leslie Kaufman / Media Decoder:

Simon & Schuster Introduces Self-Publishing Service — Simon & Schuster announced Tuesday that it would become the first of the big six publishing houses to dive deeply into the booming self-publishing market. — Self-publishing is a rapidly growing and lucrative sector of the publishing world …

Discussion: PublishersWeekly.com, paidContent, Associated Press, USA Today and Wall Street Journal

Steven Mufson / Washington Post:

Post Co. Chairman Donald Graham sells some Facebook shares — Donald E. Graham, the Washington Post Co.'s chairman and chief executive, sold $6.7 million worth of Facebook shares that he received as a director of the social media company, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Alan Cowell / New York Times:

Top BBC Figures Acknowledge ‘Errors’ in Reporting Scandals — Two of the most senior figures at the British Broadcasting Corporation said on Tuesday that there had been “basic” and “elementary” failures of the organization's journalism when it wrongly implicated a former Conservative Party politician …

Discussion: Media Decoder

Nigel Morris / The Independent:
Lord Patten: Licence fee payer will foot the bill for Jimmy Savile sex abuse investigation

Discussion: PressGazette, Telegraph and ITV News

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

Head of Financial Times Group to Step Down — Rona Fairhead, chief executive of Pearson's Financial Times Group and a member of the board of directors of the London-based media conglomerate, will step down in April, Pearson said Tuesday. It will be the company's second high-level executive departure in recent months.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Telegraph, Reuters, Fox Business and Talking Biz News

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:

Bradley Manning to speak for first time since arrest in pre-trial testimony — Soldier allegedly behind WikiLeaks documents leak to be called as a witness Tuesday in first public statement since 2010 — Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of being behind the largest leak of state secrets in US history …

Associated Press:
GI returns to Fort Meade for pretrial hearing in WikiLeaks case; seeks dismissal of charges

Discussion: Baltimore Sun, NPR and PRI's The World

Andrew Pugh / Press Gazette:

Lord Patten: BBC needs ‘sufficient heft’ to take on Google and Apple — The BBC needs “sufficient heft to be able to argue its corner” with global corporations likes Apple and Google, BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten said last night. The peer also accused the press of trashing the reputation …

Discussion: Guardian

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

With ‘Defiance,’ Comcast's Syfy Bets $100M On Convergence Of TV And Videogames — On a sprawling soundstage on the outskirts of Toronto, Kevin Murphy is giving a tour of the alien world he's helping bring to life. As silver-eyed humanoids stroll silently past, Murphy …

Alison Flood / Guardian:

Former OED editor covertly deleted thousand of words, book claims — Efforts to rewrite the dictionary in the 70s and 80s to omit entries with foreign origins described as ‘really shocking’ by author — An eminent former editor of the Oxford English Dictionary covertly deleted thousands …

Discussion: Telegraph, Melville House Books, The Verge, Gawker and bookforum.com

Manuel Roig-Franzia / Washington Post:

Pulitzer wanted for reporter who broke story on Nazi Germany's surrender — In headier days, Ed Kennedy personified the hard-drinking, hard-charging war correspondent of another era. The first time his future wife saw him, he was sidled up to a hotel bar in Paris with none other than Ernest Hemingway …

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Guardian and BBC battle for traffic in the Big Apple — The Guardian is making a song and dance about its web traffic having surpassed that of BBC News in the U.S. (via release). — That is a significant milestone for the UK publisher in the battle to win American hearts, minds, eyeballs — and advertisers.