Mediagazer: Simon & Schuster signs new ebook retailer contracts post-DOJ settlement (Laura Hazard Owen/paidContent)

9:20 AM ET, December 10, 2012

Top News:

Bloomberg Weighs Making Bid for The Financial Times — Not long ago, The Financial Times would have been the crown jewel of any media company, instantly conferring prestige and influence on its owner. Now, given the likely bidders, one of the world's most respected and distinctive financial newspapers …

Discussion: Poynter, paidContent, Business Insider, @dansabbagh, Talking Biz News, Reuters, Telegraph, The Daily Beast, @megan, @mikiebarb, @zhongnanhai, New York Magazine and DealBook

Adam Clark Estes / The Atlantic Wire:

Does Michael Bloomberg Really Need a Newspaper? — Michael Bloomberg's got a lot going on. He's the mayor of New York City, one of the most powerful cities on the planet. He owns 90 percent of the wickedly profitable media company that bears his name. He's number 10 on the Forbes 500 list.

Discussion: Quartz, Business Insider and Talking Biz News

Andrew Pugh / Press Gazette:

Owners of Australian prank call radio station accuse British media of ‘witch-hunt’ — Radio DJ's Michael Christian and Mel Greig during an interview on Australia's Channel Seven. Picture: Today Tonight/PA Wire — The owners of the Australian radio station behind a prank call …

Discussion: Guardian

Rob Taylor / Reuters:

Royal phone scandal highlights new media risks — (Reuters) - Back in 2007, as investigations were gathering strength into the UK phone hacking scandal involving journalists working under the umbrella of the Murdoch media empire, a comedy show based around prank telephone calls made a low-key debut in Britain.

Discussion: The Daily Beast

Bloomberg:

Royal Phone-Hoax Death Prompts Cancellation of Sydney Radio Show — The Australian radio station that made a hoax call to a London hospital about the Duchess of Cambridge said it's canceling the show and will cooperate with authorities after a nurse who answered the phone was found dead.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Age, The Independent, myfoxphilly.com, HeraldSun, Yahoo! News and New York Times

David Carr / New York Times:

For Wall Street Journal, Leadership at a Crossroads — Betting against Rupert Murdoch hasn't gone very well for many people, including me. When he bought The Wall Street Journal in 2007 and brought in a trusted associate, Robert Thomson from The Times of London, I said that he might ruin …

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

In “Seismic Shift,” New COO De Castro Planning to Move Yahoo Ad Sales to Category Model (Backed Up by “Marissa Halo") — In what will be a major shift in how the Silicon Valley Internet giant sells online advertising, Yahoo's new COO Henrique De Castro has briefed employees on a plan to move …

Anna Heim / The Next Web:

Meet Matter, San Francisco's new accelerator for media startups [Interview] — If you think traditional media outlets are disconnected from the startup world, think again. While Europe has already welcomed initiatives such as BBC Worldwide's Labs and the Irish Times' Digital Challenge …

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Simon & Schuster signs new ebook retailer contracts post-DOJ settlement — Simon & Schusterhas entered new ebook contracts with retailers over the weekend, as a result of its settlement with the Department of Justice. The other two settling publishers, Hachette and HarperCollins …

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Patent troll strikes NYT, media industry over mobile web sites — A shell company is suing the New York Times, the Huffington Post and five other media companies over patents related to mobile computing. — In a series of complaints filed in Delaware, Clouding IP LLC claims the media outlets …

Discussion: WebProNews and Business Insider

Margaret Sullivan / New York Times:

An Empty Seat in the Courtroom — THE lawyer David Coombs rarely speaks publicly outside the courtroom. He says that his client, Bradley Manning, the Army private accused of leaking secret documents to WikiLeaks, prefers it that way. — But last Monday night at a Unitarian Church in Washington, Coombs made an exception.

Discussion: GigaOM, @davidfolkenflik and @jayrosen_nyu

Agence France-Presse:

Iran launches own ‘YouTube’ website: state TV — Tehran: Iran has launched its own video-sharing website to compete against Google's popular YouTube whose content is deemed inappropriate by the Islamic regime, the state television reported on Sunday. — The website (http://www.mehr.ir) …