Mediagazer: Pocket Sees 240M Saves In 2012 From 7.4M Users, Obama And Gangnam Style Most-Saved Items (Darrell Etherington/TechCrunch)

8:30 AM ET, December 20, 2012

Top News:

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Pollard report: BBC News deputy Stephen Mitchell retires without payout — Mitchell was only executive to part company with corporation in wake of criticism of his role in Jimmy Savile debacle — Stephen Mitchell, the deputy director of BBC News, is the only executive to part company …

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Pollard report uncovers culture of distrust at BBC

Discussion: bbc.co.uk and Guardian

Mackenzie Weinger / Politico:
NYT CEO Thompson spared in BBC inquiry

Discussion: Guardian and New York Times

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:

At News Conference, Reporters Skip Past Gun Control and Face Instant Criticism — The harshest judges of those in news media are often others in the news media, and, with the benefit of Twitter, that intrajournalistic watchdog role can be performed simultaneously with the journalism being criticized.

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Lynn Sweet, CNN, Mediaite, Mediaite, Globe and Mail, The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Paywalls Don't Bump Ad Prices — The bet on paywalls, meters and other methods of charging for access to digital content is that the revenue generated directly from consumers will outpace an expected decrease in ad revenue. — The other assumption is that a publisher's paying audience …

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Pocket Sees 240M Saves In 2012 From 7.4M Users, Obama And Gangnam Style Most-Saved Items — Save-for-later service Pocket reported today that it has seen 240 million total items saved to its platform during 2012, from 7.4 million followers. That represents growth of around 85 percent for the year …

Discussion: Pocket Blog

New York Times:

Newtown Massacre Changes Plans at Movie and TV Studios — LOS ANGELES — When news broke about the massacre in Newtown, Conn., on Friday, the USA cable channel jumped into action. Using key words like “shooting,” “school” and “children,” executives reviewed scripts and identified problematic episodes …

Joel Sappell / Los Angeles Magazine:

The Tip of the Spear — “Hot, blinding klieg lights were aimed at our faces, as were an array of video cameras, in violation of our negotiated agreement that allowed for only one. Our hearts racing, we walked out.” — In the mid-1980s, journalist Joel Sappell and a colleague began …

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Reuters Creates Integrated Business Unit — Reuters is forming a new business unit which is essentially a combining of existing editorial and news-centric sales and marketing operations. — As part of the shift, Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief of Reuters, will run the business unit and add “president” to his role.

Discussion: @mathewi, SocialTimes and TVSpy

Bloomberg:

Watching Searches by Content Fleet Seen Saving Newspapers — Sixteen hours before Whitney Houston was pronounced dead on Feb. 11, a startup in Hamburg noticed a surge in Web traffic about the American singer after she had been seen drunk and arguing in a Hollywood club.

Thanks:@steverubel

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

NYT says it was ‘simply asking for proper attribution’ from Quartz — Quartz added credit to a New York Times-made graphic it featured in its list of great charts of 2012, defusing a request from the paper's legal department to remove the graphic. — “The issue in the Quartz piece …

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:
New York Times tells us to take down screenshot of its interactive graphic (that we praised)

Discussion: Techdirt, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @pkafka, @smalera, @digiphile, @jbenton and @jackshafer

Christopher Zara / International Business Times:

Is Time Magazine's Person Of The Year Still Relevant? — When Time magazine named Charles Lindbergh its first Man of the Year in 1927, superlative journalism was still a fresh concept. The Oscars weren't born yet. And the notion of “Best Of” still promised to serve an untapped niche.

Discussion: Daily Download, App Advice and Adweek

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Pakistani teen blogger Malala Yousafzai is Time's runner-up for Person of the Year

Discussion: Gothamist, PolicyMic and TIME

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
President Barack Obama Is Time's Person of the Year, By Default

Discussion: TIME, Mediaite, Globe and Mail, The Huffington Post, TUAW, Real-Time News from Birmingham, Mediaite and Capital New York

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Macmillan CEO: No, we won't settle with the DOJ in the ebooks case — Macmillan CEO John Sargent sent a letter to authors and agents on Wednesday afternoon, saying that the publisher does not plan to follow Penguin's lead and settle with the Department of Justice in the ebooks lawsuit.

Discussion: Tor.com Frontpage Partial, Bookseller news, Wall Street Journal and PublishersWeekly.com

Katy Bachman / Adweek:

House Passes Video Sharing Bill — A bill that will allow consumers to share on social media what movies or TV shows they watched passed the House of Representatives Tuesday. — The bill amends the Video Privacy Protection Act to allow sharing as long as the companies obtain consent …

Discussion: Gawker, Hillicon Valley, CNET and TechCrunch

Alistair Barr / Reuters:

Owner of OpenTV slaps Netflix with patent lawsuit — (Reuters) - The owner of interactive television pioneer OpenTV sued Netflix Inc on Wednesday, alleging the company infringed on patents that cover technology underpinning the fast-growing Internet video sector.

Discussion: Stock market news, ZDNet, Cable Television News and The Next Web

Andrew Kirell / Mediaite:

ABC News Reporter Sam Donaldson Arrested For DUI — Veteran ABC News reporter and former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson was reportedly arrested earlier this month in Delaware on charges of driving under the influence. — City of Lewes Police Chief Jeffrey Horvath told Delaware 105.9 radio …

Discussion: TMZ.com and Delaware 105.9, Lewes, DE