Mediagazer: Jill Abramson to staff: ‘We had to layoff far fewer people than we anticipated’ (Andrew Beaujon/Poynter)

Christine Haughney / Media Decoder:

After Staff Reductions, New Appointments at The Times — 9:06 p.m. | Updated The New York Times announced on Monday a restructured masthead and some significant newsroom appointments, while also saying that the staff reductions the company was seeking had been accomplished primarily through voluntary buyouts.

Discussion: Politico and Talking Biz News

Jill Abramson to staff: ‘We had to layoff far fewer people than we anticipated’ — New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson tells staffers the paper's most recent round of buyouts limited layoffs: “In the end, we had to layoff far fewer people than we anticipated, having achieved …

Discussion: @rajunarisetti

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Nick Denton Is Resurrecting Valleywag — Valleywag, a Silicon Valley gossip blog Gawker killed off in 2009, is making a comeback. — Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, says he'll be bringing the site back to life, and he's currently hunting for an editor or two to run it.

Discussion: @mattbuchanan, @brooke, @stevekovach, @grobertson, PandoDaily and @megan

David Carr / New York Times:

“South Park” Creators Fortify Their Content Empire — When it comes to success stories in the entertainment world, it doesn't get much better than the one about a pair of regular guys from Colorado, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who took cutout paper dolls, animated them and triumphed on cable television …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, The New York Observer, Splitsider and The Corsair

Press Gazette:

Met makes 20th arrest in computer hacking probe — A 52-year-old man has been arrested by detectives investigating computer hacking linked to business espionage, Scotland Yard said today. — The man was held at around 7am at his home in Oxfordshire on suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act.

Discussion: National Updates

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Sir Harold Evans: Murdoch should sell The Times rather than merge it with the Sunday — Sir Harold Evans suggested that Rupert Murdoch should sell The Times rather than merge it with its Sunday stablemate. — In December Times editor James Harding resigned saying: “It has been clear …

Martin Belam / GigaOM:

How Facebook comments affect trolling for news websites — Whether news sites should or shouldn't use the Facebook comment plug-in or Facebook identity seems to have been a recurring theme in the last few days. — The Nieman Journalism Lab called it a “movement”, which seems quite …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Starting salary for j-school grads rises to $41K, on average — NACE's annual report on college grads has good news for 2012 communications majors: Their starting salaries were up 4 percent on average over 2011 grads'. Reached by email, NACE Employment Information Manager Andrea Koncz …

Janko Roettgers / paidContent:

German rights holders sue YouTube in escalating royalty fight — German music rights group GEMA has filed a lawsuit against YouTube, alleging that the video site is misleading users about the details of an ongoing licensing dispute between the two parties. The lawsuit is the latest escalation …

Eric Pfanner / New York Times:

Print Media Bastion May Be Giving Way — MUNICH — Long after newspaper audiences started defecting to the Internet in other Western countries, Germany still looks like a bastion of print. — On any train, plane or bus, readers unfurl broadsheets that still do justice to the word, thick with advertising.

Eric Ostermeier / Smart Politics:

The Price of Palin: $15 per Word Spoken During FOX Contract — Sarah Palin uttered more than 189,000 words over 150 appearances on various FOX broadcasts during her three years as an analyst at the network, or $15.85 per word — With the three-year contract now expired between FOX News and Sarah Palin …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Chickaboomer, msnbc.com, Change of Subject, Mediaite, The Raw Story, The Huffington Post and The Wrap

Brian Anthony Hernandez / Mashable!:

Billboard's Website Redesign Makes Music Charts Playable — Billboard this week gave a facelift to its magazine, launched an iPad app and refreshed its business-focused Billboard.biz. What's more, the music brand unveiled a revamped Billboard.com. — The new Billboard.com …

Barry Petchesky / Deadspin:

How Two Newspapers Wound Up Staging The Same Sob Story About The Ray Lewis Murder Case — Richard Lollar was one of two men killed in the 2000 Super Bowl week stabbing outside an Atlanta nightclub that led to Ray Lewis's pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.

Discussion: Poynter

Emily Greenhouse / The New Yorker:

Twitter's Speech Problem: Hashtags and Hate — On October 19, 2012, Twitter turned censor. In response to complaints from the Union of French Jewish Students, Twitter pulled tweets that used the hashtag #UnBonJuif, or “a good Jew,” which had been worked into slurs and jokes, some using concentration-camp photographs as illustrations.

Discussion: Daily Dot and Business Insider

Wall Street Journal:

Media Firms Probed on Data Release — Investigators Examined if Economic Figures Were Given Early to Clients; No Criminal Charges Seen — WASHINGTON—Law-enforcement authorities have conducted a wide-ranging investigation into whether media companies facilitated insider trading on Wall Street …

Discussion: @spenchey and @daschles

Jim Romenesko:

Ben Yagoda claims The New Republic ‘borrowed’ from his ‘lady resurgence’ piece — From BEN YAGODA: The new-look New Republic may be cool and rich and everything, but the extent to which its piece (posted yesterday) about the resurgence of the word “lady” borrowed (that is the polite word) …

Discussion: Melville House Books and http://annfriedman.com/

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Ends 2012 With A Solid Q4: $1.22 Billion Ex-TAC Revenue, Non-GAAP EPS 32 Cents — Yahoo today released its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012, marking the end of a key year for the long-running web portal. — Q4 2012 was Yahoo's second full quarter with Marissa Mayer …

Discussion: AllThingsD, MarketBeat, Bloomberg, Broadcasting & Cable, Adweek, VentureBeat, AllThingsD, Forbes, MarketWatch and NetNewsCheck Latest

John Jannarone / Wall Street Journal:

Warner Bros. New CEO Brings Digital Know-How — Time Warner Inc. named its home video and digital chief, Kevin Tsujihara, as the new chief executive of Warner Bros. Entertainment, handing one of Hollywood's biggest jobs to an executive best known for his work on digital distribution strategies.

Discussion: Adweek and MediaPost

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Start-Up Puts Streaming TV on Campus — At Harvard, resident students do not have to borrow their parents' HBO GO passwords to watch “Girls” and “Game of Thrones” online. They can log in with their own college credentials, getting in the habit of having a cable subscription at an early age.

Discussion: Media Decoder

Gregory Ferenstein / TechCrunch:

Whoops! Google Map Of Gun Permit Holders Was Woefully Inaccurate — When the Journal News caused a national uproar and endangered the lives of its staff to create a Google Map of gun permit holders in New York, it was justified for the cause of transparency and civic dialog.

Discussion: Newser, CNET and The Verge

Etan Vlessing / Hollywood Reporter:

Conrad Black Getting Own TV Talk Show in Canada — The fallen media baron is to co-host a talker produced by Moses Znaimer's ZoomerMedia and shopped to international buyers at NAPTE Miami. — TORONTO - It turns out those combative British TV news interviews last fall by fallen Canadian media mogul Conrad Black were just a warm-up.

Discussion: Guardian