Mediagazer: Richard Ben Cramer Dead: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist And Author Dies At 62 (Jade Walker/The Huffington Post)

11:45 AM ET, January 8, 2013

Top News:

John Letzing / SmartMoney.com:

AOL Says One Out of Nine Patch Sites Profitable — AOL Inc. (AOL) CEO Tim Armstrong said Monday about 100 of the company's 900 Patch sites are now profitable, as the Internet media firm seeks to use its costly local online news network to help fuel an ongoing turnaround effort.

Discussion: Noted and Business Insider

Jim Romenesko:

Washington Post to start doing polling work for outside clients — Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron tells his staff this morning that the paper's polling operation will become an independent polling group of Washington Post Media so it can start doing work for outside clients and “grow a new business for the company.”

Discussion: mediabistro.com

New York Times:

Faceoff in Chinese City Over Censorship of Newspaper — GUANGZHOU, China — Protests over censorship at one of China's most liberal newspapers descended into ideological confrontation on Tuesday, pitting advocates of free speech against supporters of Communist Party control who wielded red flags and portraits of Mao Zedong.

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, Corporate Intelligence, The Independent, Agence France Presse, Associated Press, Telegraph, The Week, BBC, China Real Time Report, Los Angeles Times, Channel 4, Quartz, Guardian, Business Week and TIME

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Leveson data protection plans ‘could have chilling effect on journalism’ — Information commissioner Christopher Graham says there are ‘legitimate concerns’ about impact of proposals on journalism — Lord Justice Leveson's proposals for tougher data protection laws could have a …

Discussion: @coreypein and ico.gov.uk

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Power of the indie: Macmillan strikes partnerships with e-publisher Entangled — In the latest example of a big-six publisher tapping the power of indies, Macmillan announced two new partnerships with Entangled, the independent romance publisher behind bestsellers like Jennifer Probst's The Marriage Bargain.

Discussion: world.einnews.com, PublishersWeekly.com and Dear Author

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Charlie Ergen Ticks Off the TV Guys, Again — Last year, Charlie Ergen used CES to lob a bomb at the TV establishment, and ended up fighting the TV networks in court. 2013 could end up shaping up the same way. — Yesterday, Ergen's Dish Network used the gadget show to unveil several …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Variety, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, TechRadar.com, SlashGear, Mashable!, ABCNEWS and Engadget

Jade Walker / The Huffington Post:

Richard Ben Cramer Dead: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist And Author Dies At 62 — Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Richard Ben Cramer died Jan. 7 of complications from lung cancer. He was 62. — Born in Rochester, N.Y., Cramer studied at Johns Hopkins University …

Discussion: Philly.com, The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed, Poynter, Politico, FishbowlNY, Remembrances and The Daily Beast

Michael Peel / Financial Times:

Is al-Jazeera too soft on Qatar and its allies? — ABU DHABI — Qatar's al-Jazeera television station provided a great ringside seat for the “day of rage” in Cairo almost two years ago that offered the first clear sign of the threat to the rule of then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Linking: Scraping vs. Copyright — Irish newspapers created quite a stir when they demanded a fee for incoming links to their content. Actually, this is a mere prelude to a much more crucial debate on copyrights, robotic scraping and subsequent synthetic content re-creation from scraps.

Discussion: WebProNews, eMedia Vitals, McGarr Solicitors and Common Sense Journalism

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Absolutely, Positively Not a Netflix-Killer: AT&T Launches Its Own Video Subscription Service — Does the world need another streaming video subscription service? It is getting one, regardless: Here comes U-Verse Screen Pack, a $5-a-month offer from AT&T.

Discussion: /Film, Cable Television News, TechCrunch, Home Media Magazine and CNET

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Politico Layoffs Begin Amid Restructuring — NEW YORK — Since its 2007 debut, Politico has expanded its newsroom quickly while some legacy media outlets, like the Washington Post, have scaled back. But Politico isn't immune from having to restructure in the face of industry demands, and in recent days, it has laid off some staffers.

Discussion: Mediaite and @michaelroston

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Scotland Yard Officer Defends Herself as Phone Hacking-Related Trial Starts — The detective is accused of looking to sell confidential information to the shuttered “News of the World” tabloid of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. — LONDON - A Scotland Yard detective here has defended herself …

Discussion: New York Times, The Independent, Sky News, London Evening Standard and Guardian