Mediagazer: When History Is Rewritten — Bonnie Ford, a senior writer … (Amy Rosewater/American Journalism Review)

4:25 AM ET, December 8, 2012

Top News:

Pay Wall Push: Why Newspapers Are Hopping Over the Picket Fence — When The Wall Street Journal broke the news that The Washington Post was likely to start charging for online content sometime next year, it should not have come as a surprise, but it did. — The shock had something …

Discussion: CJR, Poynter, The Atlantic Wire, Daily Download and Guardian

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

Online Paywalls and the Future of Media: A Few Hard Truths — Yesterday, both The Daily Beast (or, more accurately, whatever Tina Brown can toss together after they've absorbed the corpse of Newsweek and laid a bunch of people off) and the Washington Post announced that they may be instituting …

Discussion: New York Magazine, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Deadline.com, The Wrap, The Daily Beast, The Verge and Media Decoder

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
Washington Post, Daily Beast Jumping On The Paywall Bandwagon. Too Late?

Discussion: CJR, Capital New York, DCist, Noted, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and NetNewsCheck Latest

Caity Weaver / Gawker:

DJs Behind the Royal Hospital Hoax Have Deleted Their Twitter Accounts; There's Speculation They've Been Fired (UPDATE) — The two DJs behind the Kate Middleton hospital prank, now being blamed as a contributing factor to her nurse's suicide, have either deleted their verified Twitter accounts, or had them removed.

Discussion: Daily Mail, National Post, Media Decoder, TMZ.com, mUmBRELLA, Mirror.co.uk, Yahoo! News, Guardian, KNXV, Daily Mail, National Updates, International Business Times, @thematthewkeys, The Huffington Post and The Atlantic Wire

Guardian: 2Day FM: Australia's shock-jock station with history of backfiring stunts

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Incoming Tribune CEO Peter Liguori plans WGN facelift — Tribune Co. CEO-in-waiting Peter Liguori will focus on a makeover of the company's WGN America cable station as soon as the media giant emerges from reorganization, The Post has learned. — The national cable network …

Discussion: TVWeek.com

Angela Watercutter / Wired:

Google Grants $1.2M to Help Analyze Female Roles in TV, Film — Much like Madonna teamed up with Geena Davis in A League of Their Own, Google is joining forces with the movie star — and her nonprofit organization devoted to improving the images of women that young people see in films and TV shows.

Discussion: Co.Exist and The Verge

Amy Rosewater / American Journalism Review:

When History Is Rewritten — Bonnie Ford, a senior writer for ESPN.com, remembers looking at the U.S. Figure Skating record book and seeing a name she found strange as the winner of the women's national championship title in 1994. Rather than seeing names such as Michelle Kwan or Nancy Kerrigan, one word was listed instead: Vacant.

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Trends Publishers Will Pass Up In 2013 — 'Tis the season for prognostications across the digital landscape. Digiday is continuing its series of anti-prediction by asking publishers what hot trend they plan on passing up in 2013. — Publishers are bearish on some trends for the new year …

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Some Second Thoughts and Reader Feedback About the Middle East and Social Media — When I wrote last Wednesday about The Times's Jerusalem bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, and criticism of her social media use, many readers - and some of those quoted in the blog post - responded.

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

News Corp's publishing arm to focus on losses at Times and Sunday Times — More integration of titles difficult under terms that Rupert Murdoch agreed for Times Newspapers in 1981 — Slashing losses at the Times and Sunday Times, running at an estimated £1m a week …

Bloomberg: News Corp.'s The Daily Shutdown Affects 126 Employees

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Vevo's YouTube Deal Expires in Three Days. But the “Hulu for Music Videos” Site Won't Go Dark. — Vevo, the digital music video service, and Google, which powers Vevo.com and distributes Vevo's videos on its YouTube site, have a distribution deal that expires on Sunday.

Discussion: WebProNews

Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:

The Tweet-Like News Flash That Announced Pearl Harbor — On this day 71 years ago, the United States experienced a day that would live in infamy. In the news flash above, the Associated Press made its first, terse announcement of the Pearl Harbor attacks to the nation.

Discussion: Poynter

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Why didn't NBC News apologize to George Zimmerman? — There are lots of damning allegations against NBC News in the “reckless defamation” lawsuit filed yesterday by lawyers for George Zimmerman. It charges NBC News with an effort to “create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain” …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Radio & Television … and Poynter

Foster Kamer:

The Worst People in New York City, No. 92: Ryan Holiday — Okay, so, The New York Observer for some reason thought it'd be a good idea to put this Ryan Holiday assclown's pieces on their site. Maybe Gell was like: Hey, let's troll everyone while we decide whether or not to keep the media desk …

Discussion: ZDNet

Joe Schneider / Bloomberg:

U.K. Judge Who Probed News Says Internet Can Be Tamed — U.K. Justice Brian Leveson, who called for an independent regulator following a probe of News Corp. (NWSA)'s phone-hacking scandal, said legal remedies are powerful enough, over time, to rein in Internet privacy breaches.