Mediagazer: Pay as You Read? Upstart Total Boox Hopes to Change How We Buy E-Books (Andrew Albanese/PublishersWeekly.com)

11:25 AM ET, January 18, 2013

Top News:

John R. MacArthur / Harper's:

Google's Media Barons — I had to cheer when I read the news the other week about a French company that's selling an ad-blocking service on the Internet. Xavier Niel, the entrepreneurial owner of the web-service provider Free, is threatening to smash the advertiser-supported “free-content” model.

Discussion: @waxpancake, @clarajeffery, @alexismadrigal, @waxpancake, Hit & Run and Boing Boing

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

With All Eyes on Manti Te'o Hoax Story, Deadspin Doesn't Immediately Cash In — Scoop Highlights Difficulty Publishers Face When Traffic Spikes — Deadspin's blockbuster article revealing that the girlfriend of star Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o never existed eclipsed 3.5 million views Thursday evening.

Discussion: L.A. NOW, Yahoo! News and App Advice

Jen Doll / The Atlantic Wire:
Manti Te'o and the New Burden of Internet Truth

Discussion: NPR, BuzzFeed and Hollywood Life

Jack Shafer:
Manti Te'o and the press get blitzed

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Forbes, The Big Lead, Deadspin and Poynter

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:
Reporting in The Times on Football Star's Nonexistent Girlfriend Was Glancing, but Still Troubling

Discussion: The Buttry Diary, AdAge, L.A. NOW, Hollywood Life, CBS New York, VICE, Fox News, Guardian, Deadspin and Pressing Issues

Mobutu Sese Seko / Gawker:
Journalism, Scientology, and Manti Te'o: Finding the Leper with the Most Fingers

Discussion: Poynter, Outsports, The Daily Nightly and The Big Lead

Andrew Pugh / PressGazette:

Sunday Times: £1m fraud claim ‘strengthened’ after Lance Armstrong's Oprah confession — Sunday Times: 'We watched Lance Armstrong's interview with interest' Paper seeking to recoup 2006 costs plus interest Case is ‘stronger’ after Oprah confession The Sunday Times today warned Lance Armstrong it will …

Discussion: Guardian, FishbowlNY, Forbes and TVNewser

BuzzFeed: Lance Armstrong's Last Legacy Is A Content Farm

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

How news organizations can sell sponsored content without lowering their standards — Advertisers want to be let out of the box. — They want to break out of the constrained 300-pixel display ad box that everyone's eyes have learned to ignore, and leap into the stream of engaging content that readers actually pay attention to.

Discussion: SPEAKEASY and CNN

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

PCC to investigate Julie Burchill column — The Press Complaints Commission is to launch an inquiry into the publication of Julie Burchill's controversial column in The Observer that caused outrage among transgender people. The commission decided to act after receiving 800 complaints.

Discussion: @jeffjarvis

Nieman Journalism Lab:

When print is thriving, where does social media fit? A look at practices at India's The Hindu — In November, Sam Pitroda, technology advisor to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, held a “global Twitter press conference” on his account (@pitrodasam). Hyped as the first of its kind …

Alexander C. Kaufman / The Wrap:

Washington Post Suspends Mexico Bureau Chief for Plagiarism — The Washington Post suspended Mexico bureau chief William Booth on Thursday after he admitted to plagiarizing four sentences from an academic journal, an individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap.

Discussion: Poynter, City Desk and Politico

Katherine Fung / The Huffington Post:

BuzzFeed's Michael Hastings: Rahm Emanuel Physically Assaulted Me — BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hastings is alleging that Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel physically assaulted during a contentious exchange in 2010. Emanuel, former White House chief of staff to President Obama, is known for his hardball tactics.

Discussion: BuzzFeed

Andrew Albanese / PublishersWeekly.com:

Pay as You Read? Upstart Total Boox Hopes to Change How We Buy E-Books — Throughout this week's Digital Book World conference, one was constantly reminded of things that technology has made or will soon make a relic of the reading past. And for one new company, Total Boox (pronounced total books) …

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

New Tribune CEO Peter Liguori sees opportunity to grow — Peter Liguori is Tribune's new CEO. — In its first board of directors meeting since emerging from a protracted bankruptcy, Tribune Co. named investor Bruce Karsh as chairman and veteran entertainment executive Peter Liguori as chief executive.

Discussion: Chicago Tribune, Media Decoder, The Wrap, tribune.com and Broadcasting & Cable

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Winfrey's Low-Rated Channel Is Poised to Break Through — Last Tuesday afternoon, Oprah Winfrey called the co-presidents of her cable channel OWN with jump-on-the-couch-with-joy news. “Lance wants to talk,” she said, referring to Lance Armstrong, whom she had been courting for a confessional interview …

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Media Decoder

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

BBC may change severance policy after George Entwistle payout criticised — Commons committee says £450,000 paid to former DG was a ‘reward for failure’ as trust claims it was best outcome available — The BBC is considering significant reforms to its severance agreement policies …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Media roll out plans for Inauguration Day, stressing how ‘multiplatform’ they'll be — Over the last couple of days, news outlets have been rolling out their plans for covering Barack Obama's second swearing in as President of the United States on Monday at the National Mall …

Agence France Presse:

Sniper kills French journalist in Syria's Aleppo — BEIRUT — A Belgian-born French journalist, Yves Debay, has died from sniper fire in north Syria's Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday. — “He was killed on one of Aleppo's fronts” on Thursday …

Discussion: Radio Free Europe/Radio … and Alarabiya.net English

Erik Maza / WWD:

American Society of Magazine Editors Under Fire From Industry — PROFILES IN UMBRAGE: A noted editor was on the phone recently discussing the American Society of Magazine Editors, the industry's main professional club, whose board is comprised of 18 rotating editors in chief from magazines as varied as Redbook and BusinessWeek.

Dylan Byers / Politico:

POLITICO interview: Piers Morgan — To Piers Morgan, the answer is simple: pro-gun advocate and conservative radio show host Alex Jones was the best guest he ever had. — “The best thing about Alex Jones is that 8 million people watched that video on YouTube,” Morgan told POLITICO …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, Chickaboomer and Guy Fawkes' blog