Mediagazer: Layoff season is under way as Newsweek begins notifying staff (Jeff Sonderman/Poynter)

5:00 AM ET, December 7, 2012

Top News:

Washington Post Considers a Paywall — The Washington Post, one of the last holdouts against the trend of charging readers for online access to newspaper articles, is likely to reverse that decision in 2013, according to people familiar with the matter. — While details are being finished …

Discussion: CJR, PandoDaily, CNET, @michaelroston, @thematthewkeys, City Desk, @clinthendler, The Huffington Post, Talking Biz News and Boing Boing

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Layoff season is under way as Newsweek begins notifying staff — Newsweek is about to begin laying off staff, a move expected since the publisher scheduled its print magazine to shutter at the end of the year. — A memo from Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown and CEO Baba Shetty informs staff …

Discussion: WWD Media Headlines, MediaNama, Adweek, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wrap, Business Insider, SPJ and New York Magazine

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

Daily Beast Considers Charging for Website — Newsweek/Daily Beast Co., the media company founded by Tina Brown and backed by billionaire Barry Diller, is considering charging readers for access to its Daily Beast website for the first time. — The New York-based company …

Discussion: Capital New York, Thanks:@jaredbkeller

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

As Newsbeast layoffs begin, some are quitting on their own — Earlier this morning, Tina Brown announced the names of three editors who will top the masthead of the Newsweek-Daily Beast company after it replaces Newsweek's print edition with the digital-only title Newsweek Global in another few weeks.

Discussion: The New York Observer, Capital New York, @katedailey and The Huffington Post

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer: How Newsweek Predicted Its Own Demise

John Robinson / Media, disrupted: Erecting a paywall? Make sure everything behind it is better than before

Mackenzie Weinger / Politico: Tina Brown promotes three at Newsweek Daily Beast Company

Julie Moos / Poynter:

George Zimmerman sues NBC over editing of 911 tape after Trayvon Martin shooting — Lawyers for George Zimmerman, who has been charged in the murder of Trayvon Martin, announced Thursday that he has sued NBC for its editing of a 911 call that was made after the shooting.

Discussion: Media Decoder, CNN, Mediaite, Washington Post, Chickaboomer, TVNewser, The Wrap and The Daily Caller

TMZ.com:
Trayvon Martin Shooter George Zimmerman Sues NBC Over 911 Tape

Discussion: gzvnbc.com, The Huffington Post, Business Insider and @brianstelter

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Spotify pays out more than $500m in royalties since its 2008 launch — Sean Parker and Lars Ulrich settle differences, with Metallica agreeing to put their whole back catalogue on streaming service — Streaming music service Spotify has now paid out more than $500m (£311m) …

Discussion: TechCrunch, paidContent, Rolling Stone and AdAge

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:
Spotify Event Tries to Bury the Old Feuds Between Artists and Napster

Discussion: paidContent

Leslie Kaufman / Media Decoder:

At Random House, Employees Will Enjoy 5,000 Shades of Green — Random House had its corporate Christmas party on Wednesday night in New York, and word is that Santa likes bondage. A lot. — Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Random House, promised employees — from top editors to warehouse workers …

Discussion: PAPERMAG, The New York Observer, Gawker and bookforum.com

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Netflix Being Investigated By The SEC For CEO Reed Hastings' Public Facebook Posts — As if Netflix didn't have enough problems: The company announced today that it is being investigated by the SEC for a post that CEO Reed Hastings had made on his public Facebook page in June.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Cable Television News, VentureBeat, Forbes and Home Media Magazine

Jim Romenesko:

The National staffers launch Facebook campaign to oust their editor — Some journalists at The National in Abu Dhabi have launched a Facebook campaign to force the resignation of editor-in-chief Hassan Fattah, who they contend has “led the paper into oblivion” and “forced a near wholesale turnover of the staff.”

Chris Amico / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Opened Captions: Turning the spoken words on TV screens into streams of hackable data — A few weeks before the first presidential debate, Dan Schultz and his colleagues on The Boston Globe's interactive team were trying to figure out what they could build that would make the newspaper's coverage stand out.

Azam Ahmed / New York Times:

Unlike Blasphemy in Video, a YouTube Ban Is Shrugged Off — KABUL, Afghanistan — When it comes to YouTube, the government of Afghanistan intends to keep its hand on the switch for now. — More than two months after the Afghan government banned YouTube to prevent the spread of an anti-Islamic video …

Andrew Pugh / Press Gazette:

Met bans blogger from using Twitter over whistleblowing book — New Scotland Yard. Picture: Reuters — A Met officer has been banned from blogging and using Twitter after using the internet to blow the whistle on funding cuts at the force. — The move has been seen in some quarters …

Michael Moynihan / The Daily Beast:

Why Did The Daily Die? The View From Inside the Collapse — The Daily is no more, but six former staffers tell Michael Moynihan that the cause of death is more complicated than News Corp. wants you to believe. — As staffers of the scuppered iPad “newspaper” The Daily emptied their desks …

Discussion: Poynter

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Jimmy Savile scandal: Pollard inquiry to report in week of 17 December — Former Sky boss Nick Pollard has investigated the BBC's handling of its aborted Newsnight documentary — The Pollard inquiry into BBC executives' handling of the axed BBC Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile is to be published in the week of 17 December.