Mediagazer: A Digital Guy at the Helm (Kaila Stein/American Journalism Review)

6:25 AM ET, May 9, 2013

Top News:

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

News Corp. Beats Profit Estimates on Higher Licensing Revenue — News Corp. (NWSA), the Rupert Murdoch-led media company that's set to split in two, beat fiscal third-quarter profit estimates on higher licensing fees for television shows such as “American Idol” and “New Girl.”

Discussion: @journalismbuzz, The Huffington Post, Fox Business and Reuters

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:

News Corp shareholders renew call for Rupert Murdoch to step down — Dissident shareholders file resolution calling for appointment of independent chairman — Dissident shareholders are pressing once more for media mogul Rupert Murdoch to step down as chairman of News Corporation.

Discussion: Forbes, Media News, Radio & Television …, Home Media Magazine, Broadcasting & Cable, Bloomberg and Crikey

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

News Corp. earnings report highlights need for coming corporate crack-up — On a call with Wall Street analysts today, News Corp. chief operating officer Chase Carey said the international media conglomerate's planned split is “our top priority.” — And Dave Devoe, News Corp's chief financial officer …

TechCrunch:

Microsoft Mulling Nook Media LLC Purchase For $1 Billion — Microsoft is offering to pay $1 billion to buy the digital assets of Nook Media LLC, the digital book and college book joint venture with Barnes & Noble and other investors, according to internal documents we've obtained.

Discussion: Pocket-lint, ZDNet, VentureBeat, Kindle Review, CNET, The Verge, Gizmodo, GeekWire, Softpedia News and Electronista

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Dallas Morning News' paywall is getting a makeover to try to capture digital-only readers — If 2012 was the Year of the Paywall for American newspapers, 2013 is turning into the Year of Paywall Tinkering. — Last month, it was The New York Times that announced it planned to diversify …

Curtis Brainard / Columbia Journalism Review:

A new ‘golden era’? — Nautilus is the latest in a proliferation of science-news sites — Nautilus, a new science magazine whose first issue appeared online April 29, has New York Times reporter Dennis Overbye, one of the beat's veterans, feeling a bit a nostalgic. In a review on Monday, he wrote:

Discussion: bookforum.com

Mathew Ingram / paidContent:

Open interviews and gatekeepers: The media can either open up or sources can go direct — Startup founder Chad Whitacre caused a fuss recently when he suggested that a reporter do an “open interview” that would available to everyone — but why is that approach seen as such a threat by the some media outlets?

Discussion: Co.Labs, 10,000 Words and Valleywag

Kaila Stein / American Journalism Review:

A Digital Guy at the Helm — Trif Alatzas, the new executive editor of the Baltimore Sun, is excited about the opportunities for journalism in a transformative era for newspapers. — Kaila Stein (kstein1010@gmail.com) is a student at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Social + mobile = the “dynamite” combo ITV News needed to build reputation and audience — Since ITV News launched its atomized, live, streaming redesign a little over a year ago, they've adhered fairly resolutely to a single maxim: “We'll tell you what we know, when we know it.”

Discussion: bbc.co.uk and National Updates

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Pink slips for a dozen-plus ‘Daily News’ staffers; vets Joanna Molloy and Albor Ruiz among them — The Daily News is now undergoing what employees of the tabloid have been fearing for weeks: Multiple insiders tell Capital that layoffs have hit the newsroom today.

Discussion: Melville House Books, FishbowlNY and New York Magazine

Tom Bill / Reuters:

Murdoch's News International in talks to occupy Shard neighbor — (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News International is in talks to occupy the whole of an empty office block at the foot of London's Shard, Western Europe's tallest skyscraper, two sources told Reuters.

Discussion: egi.co.uk, Bloomberg, London SE1 community website and Guardian

Rachele Kanigel / Mediashift:

Journalism Schools Become Incubators for Media Startups, Entrepreneurs — When Adda Birnir joined the first class of the new entrepreneurial journalism program at the City University of New York in 2012, she thought she had a great idea for a new business: creating software that could optimize web content for a tablet.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Advocate owner says he ‘tried to buy’ Times-Picayune — In a May 2 interview, WWL-TV anchor Melanie Hebert passed on a viewer question to John Georges, the new owner of the Baton Rouge, La.-based Advocate: Would he be interested in buying the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, with which his paper is engaged in a growing newspaper war?

Discussion: Baton Rouge news …, Columbia Journalism Review, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Dump the Picayune