Mediagazer: Inquirer, Daily News owners threaten drastic action, union memo says (Peter Van Allen/Philadelphia Business …)

5:35 PM ET, January 10, 2013

Top News:

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Amazon “AutoRip” Service Goes Live — Giving Customers Free MP3s For CDs Purchased On Amazon As Far Back As 1998 (Hands-On) - Amazon is today introducing a new service called Amazon AutoRip, which automatically gives customers free MP3 versions of any CDs they've purchased from Amazon since the launch of its Music Store back in 1998.

Discussion: Amazon.com, Fast Company, AllThingsD, Pocket-lint, Lifehacker and parislemon

Megan Rose Dickey / Business Insider: Amazon Should AutoRip All The Books You've Bought To Your Kindle

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Newseum says it laid off 16 — The Newseum says it “eliminated 16 positions” this week. — The Gannett blog reported the Freedom Forum, which funds the Newseum, “laid off 20% of approximately 150 employees at the Washington museum and other programs financed by the foundation”:

Discussion: Gannett Blog

Jim Hopkins / Gannett Blog:
Freedom Forum paid new CEO Duff $1.6M in 2011, documents show, amid signs of more fiscal distress

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

Christine Haughney / Media Decoder:

Homicide Tracking Site Expanding to Chicago — Homicide Watch, the Washington, D.C., Web site that tracks murders, has found another crime-ridden city to cover. — The Chicago Sun-Times is partnering with Homicide Watch's co-founders, Laura and Chris Amico, to launch a Chicago edition.

Guardian:

Police officer found guilty of trying to sell information to News of the World — Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn offered details of phone-hacking investigation to tabloid in return for payment — A senior counter-terrorism detective has been found guilty of trying to sell information to the News of the World newspaper.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Sky News, Daily Mail, Telegraph, London Evening Standard, ITV News and @tom_watson

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

Why are Bob Woodward's WH sources - or Woodward himself - not on trial next to Bradley Manning? — The extremist prosecution of Manning, accused of “aiding and abetting al-Qaida”, poses a real threat to US press freedom — There are numerous travesties defining the ongoing prosecution …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, New York Times, Boing Boing, The New Yorker Blog, Capital New York, Daily Kos, Business Insider and Pressing Issues

Peter Van Allen / Philadelphia Business Journal:

Inquirer, Daily News owners threaten drastic action, union memo says … Tension rose between the owners of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the labor union representing newsroom employees, according to a memo released on Thursday. — The owner of the Inquirer and Daily News told union members …

Discussion: Phawker

Chicago Business Journal:

Warrant issued for former Tribune executive … Stephanie Pater missed a second scheduled court appearance in as many weeks, and so a warrant has been issued for her arrest, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune. — The Tribune said Pater sent an email to an official at the court saying …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Beats' New Music Subscription Service Gets a New Boss: Topspin's Ian Rogers — There are a ton of digital music services out there, with more on the way. — So how will Beats Electronics, the headphone maker, stand out when it rolls out its own version this year? — The company won't spell that out quite yet.

Discussion: Media Decoder, GigaOM, Fast Company, 9to5Mac, FISTFULAYEN, Rolling Stone, App Advice and The Next Web

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Time Inc. Prepares for Layoffs — Time Inc. staff are on eggshells as they await news of layoffs and smaller bonuses than in years past as the company faces declining revenue. — CEO Laura Lang, in a memo yesterday, has already told employees she would eliminate the usual 3 percent merit increase …

Discussion: New York Post

Mathew Ingram / paidContent:

Henry Blodget isn't telling us the most important thing about Business Insider — Business Insider founder Henry Blodget has pulled aside the curtain — or the kimono, as he likes to call it — to tell us all about how well the site is doing, courtesy of a presentation he put together for Folio magazine.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, The Corsair, PandoDaily, Business Insider and Adweek

Janet Stilson / Adweek:

Why do community news sites, once hailed as the future of journalism, so often flop? — Spelunking equipment, climbing gear and snowshoes are Steve Sutorius' life. That's clear watching him as he peddles outdoor-sports merchandise in his shop, Wildernest, on this 10-mile-long jewel in Puget Sound just off the coast from Seattle.

Erik Wemple:

A future for news at high-brow restaurants? — Leland Schwartz is trying to feed news to a tough crowd. He knows that they're on top of the goings-on in Washington. That's because they're the ones who are influencing the goings-on in Washington. — They're diners at the Old Ebbitt Grill …

Discussion: Washington Post, All and Poynter