Mediagazer: TMZ denies it is seeking a drone (Dylan Byers/Politico)

4:50 PM ET, November 27, 2012

Top News:

Jill Abramson's dream epitaph: She kept The New York Times ‘straight’ — With a team of New York Times reporters aggressively investigating the BBC scandal in which their parent company's brand new C.E.O., ex-BBC chief Mark Thompson, has been implicated, you'd think there might be some awkwardness between Thompson and the newsroom.

Discussion: Capital New York, Bloomberg, The Wrap, Business Insider, NetNewsCheck Latest, @ryanchittum and @will_bunch

Alex Weprin / FishbowlNY:
The New York Times Wants To Keep Nate Silver, ‘Expand On What He Does’

Discussion: mediabistro.com and AdAge

Megan Rose Dickey / Business Insider:
New York Times Executive Editor Still Betting On Print

Discussion: Reuters

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

Alan Cowell / New York Times:
Top BBC Figures Acknowledge ‘Errors’ in Reporting Scandals

Discussion: Media Decoder

Josh Halliday / Guardian: George Entwistle demanded larger payoff from BBC, Lord Patten reveals

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

Discussion: Telegraph, ITV News and PressGazette

Dylan Byers / Politico:

NPR affiliate launches drone program — Missouri NPR affiliate KBIA has launched a “Drone Program” in the hopes of building drones to collect media, the station tells POLITICO. — “A lot of people are predicting that drone technology is going to really big when commercial and security applications are available.

Discussion: PAPERMAG

Dylan Byers / Politico:

TMZ denies it is seeking a drone — TMZ, the Hollywood gossip site, is denying a report that it is seeking a drone from the Federal Aviation Administration in order to track celebrities. — The San Francisco Chronicle reported this weekend that the FAA “has been flooded with applications …

Discussion: Politico, Forbes, Mediaite, TMZ.com, Gawker, @stefanjbecket, @michaelroston, @graubart and The Huffington Post

Paul Bond / Hollywood Reporter:

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: TVNewser, The Huffington Post, mediabistro.com, New York Magazine, The Wrap, Chickaboomer, Mediaite, Politico, The Raw Story, Slate, Pressing Issues and Media Decoder

Mackenzie Weinger / Politico:
Tom Ricks: Fox News ‘is making it up’

Discussion: New York Magazine

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 …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

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, @timothys, @ari_shapiro, The Week, Fast Company and The FJP

Guardian:
China's People's Daily falls for Kim Jong-un ‘sexiest man alive’ spoof

Discussion: Poynter and 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.

Discussion: Poynter, eMedia Vitals, NetNewsCheck Latest and GigaOM

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

Discussion: Poynter, Reflections of a Newsosaur and ReadWrite

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, Guardian, Telegraph, Reuters, Fox Business, Talking Biz News and DealBook

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: CNET, Amazon.com, Home Media Magazine, ZDNet, PublishersWeekly.com, Fast Company, The Next Web and VatorNews

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

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

“Post-Industrial Journalism”: A new Columbia report examines the disrupted news universe — There's a big new report out from Columbia Journalism School this morning, entitled “Post-Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present.” Its authors are a sort of Justice League of New York journalism schools …

Discussion: CJR and Columbia University …

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

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

Discussion: Reuters and CNET

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.

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 …