Mediagazer: NBC's Richard Engel: 'We weren't expecting a rescue' (Julie Moos/Poynter)

News Corp. Says Publishing Unit Lost Money — News Corp . said the publishing company it plans to spin off incurred losses last fiscal year and in the most recent quarter. — The media conglomerate, which plans to separate its entertainment businesses from its publishing businesses …

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

News Corp's head of demerged newspaper arm may take home £2.5m — • Robert Thomson will also receive £1.2m bonus as company hives off publishing division from TV and film business — • If ‘new News Corporation’ was running as standalone entity it would have reported net loss of £2.07bn in year to 30 June

Discussion: The Wrap

Sayantani Ghosh / Reuters:
News Corp files with U.S. regulators to split company

Discussion: Deadline.com and Asiaone

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:

‘Snow Fall’ Isn't the Future of Journalism — The New York Times' miraculous mega-multi-media feature “Snow Fall” is a triumph of reporting, design, and creativity. It was immediately hailed by much of the Internet as the “future of journalism.” It's not. And that's okay.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Rebecca Greenfield / New York Times: What the New York Times's ‘Snow Fall’ Means to Online Journalism's Future

Emma Gardner / Lean Back 2.0:
The New York Times pushes the limits of online storytelling

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, New York Times and Gawker

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg Tech Blog:

The New York Times Paywall Is Working Better Than Anyone Had Guessed — Ever since the New York Times rolled out its so-called paywall in March 2011, a perennial dispute has waged. Anxious publishers say they can't afford to give away their content for free, while the blogger set claim paywalls tend …

Discussion: @zimbalist

Wall Street Journal:

Hulu's Fork in the Road — As Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. battle it out for dominance in online video, owners of the much smaller Hulu LLC, Hollywood's own online video service, are under pressure to decide which direction to go. — Jason Kilar, chief executive of Hulu …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Business Insider, The Content Strategist and VentureBeat

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Michael Kinsley Returns To The New Republic As Editor-At-Large — NEW YORK — Michael Kinsley, who edited The New Republic for 20 years, is returning to the magazine in January as editor-at-large. Kinsley's return comes as the nearly 100-year-old politics and culture magazine relaunches …

Manuela D'Alessandro / Reuters:

Google executives acquitted in Milan autism video case — (Reuters) - An Italy appeals court acquitted three Google executives of charges of having violated the privacy of an Italian boy with autism by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006.

Discussion: Betabeat, SocialTimes, Wall Street Journal and The Verge

John Plunkett / Guardian:

BBC Daily and Sunday Politics editor tipped to run Newsnight — Robbie Gibb emerges as leading candidate to rejuvenate programme in wake of Jimmy Savile and McAlpine scandals — The editor of the BBC's Daily and Sunday Politics shows has emerged as the leading candidate to be the next editor of Newsnight.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, The Huffington Post and Guardian

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

CNN, Planning New Programming, Hires Jake Tapper From ABC — 8:57 p.m. | Updated CNN said on Thursday that it had hired Jake Tapper, the senior White House correspondent for ABC News, as new programming for the cable news channel was announced. — Mr. Tapper, widely seen …

Discussion: mediabistro.com, TVWeek.com, CNN, ABCNEWS, Poynter, Politico, Chickaboomer, Softpedia News, TVNewser and The Wrap

Carl Bernstein / Guardian:

Why the US media ignored Murdoch's brazen bid to hijack the presidency — Did the Washington Post and others underplay the story through fear of the News Corp chairman, or simply tin-eared judgement? — So now we have it: what appears to be hard, irrefutable evidence of Rupert Murdoch's ultimate …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Politico, @jackshafer and Pressing Issues

Erik Maza / WWD:

Wal-Mart Turns to Condé Nast for Beauty Magazine — Wal-Mart's BeautyScoop. — Photo By Courtesy of Wal-Mart Photo By Courtesy of Wal-Mart — Buried within Wal-Mart's Web site, beneath the red sales banners and loud holiday graphics, is a magazine called BeautyScoop.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Julie Moos / Poynter:

NBC's Richard Engel: 'We weren't expecting a rescue' — During the five days Richard Engel and a crew of four others were held in Syria, the kidnappers “didn't really know who we were,” Engel told Savannah Guthrie during an interview that aired Friday on the “Today” show.

Discussion: TVNewser

Christine Haughney / Media Decoder:

Brian McGrory Rises From Boston Globe Paperboy to Become the Paper's Next Editor — The Boston Globe announced on Thursday that Brian McGrory, a columnist and former metro editor at the newspaper and a Boston native with deep roots in the area, would be its next editor. The appointment is effective immediately.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Boston Globe, Nieman Journalism Lab, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wrap, Media Nation •, Adweek and FishbowlNY

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

The Good News Bears of Atlantic Media announce new China Channel, new hires, promotions — ‘The Atlantic’ in print. Digital revenue at the company is growing. — In a cheery year-end staff memo unlike most of the ones we see in the media industry these days, Atlantic Media has announced …

Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:

E-Reader Market Shrinks Faster Than Many Predicted — Nearly three years after the first iPad was introduced, the tablet has come a long way. Now there are plenty of smaller, cheaper tablets that are pretty powerful. So why buy a more primitive e-book reader?

Discussion: eMarketer and Blog Posts