Mediagazer: Vivendi Declined SoftBank's Lucrative Offer for Universal (Ben Sisario/New York Times)

9:35 PM ET, July 18, 2013

Top News:

Let Tech Blogs Celebrate Start-Ups — Sarah Lacy, in her TechCrunch days, interviewing Keith Rabois, formerly of Square. — Sarah Lacy is having a rough month. The founder of tech blog PandoDaily and perennial Valleywag target first ignited criticism with inflammatory comments …

Sandra Laville / Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch admits error in criticism of police investigations — Media mogul writes to MP Keith Vaz to retract ‘incompetence’ remark but says inquiries have taken too long — Read the full text of Murdoch's letter to Vaz — Rupert Murdoch has admitted he was wrong to describe phone-hacking …

Discussion: Crikey, Hollywood Reporter, @chucktodd and Variety

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
‘New York Post’ gears up for early August web relaunch

Discussion: bizjournals

David Freedlander / The Daily Beast: New York Post Looks Thinner After News Corporation Split

Erin Banco / New York Times:

Judge in Manning Case Allows Charge of Aiding the Enemy — The military judge in the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning decided on Thursday not to drop a charge accusing Private Manning of “aiding the enemy.” If he is found guilty of the charge, he faces a life sentence in military custody with no chance of parole.

Discussion: Guardian, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, Amnesty International, Kirk LaPointe's …, NPR and New York Magazine

Ben Wizner / Freedom of the Press Foundation:
How Today's Ruling in the Bradley Manning Case Could Adversely Affect Journalists and Whistleblowers

Discussion: Techdirt and The Huffington Post

Emily Bazelon / Slate: Bradley Manning trial and WikiLeaks: The government's charge that he aided the enemy is wrong and dangerous.

Dorothy Pomerantz / Forbes:

Don't Get Too Excited About Those Netflix Emmy Nominations — The fact that Netflix scored 14 nods at this morning's Emmy Awards nominations is the story of the day. Until recently, Netflix was a tech company distributing content that other companies made. Now, suddenly, it's a player in creating that content.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, TechCrunch, Speakeasy, Variety, New Yorker, AllThingsD, Media & Entertainment, @atdmedia, /Film, Media Money … and Digits

Zachary M. Seward / Quartz:
Netflix's “House of Cards” gets first major Emmy nominations for online-only show

Peter Lauria / BuzzFeed:
Netflix Needs To Turn Emmy Nominations Into Subscribers

Discussion: Daily Dot

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Condé Nast Touts Biggest September in Five Years — Fashion bible Vogue seems to be the winner in the September ad page race so far. — The Condé Nast book weighed in last year at 658 ad pages; this year, publisher Susan Plagemann added 1 percentage point for a total of 665 total ad pages.

Discussion: Folio, AdAge, FishbowlNY, Mashable, WWD Media Headlines and The Huffington Post

Erik Maza / WWD: Ad Sales Tick Up for September Issues

Kevin Poulsen / Wired:

MIT Moves to Intervene in Release of Aaron Swartz's Secret Service File — Lawyers representing MIT are filing a motion to intervene in my FOIA lawsuit over thousands of pages of Secret Service documents about the late activist and coder Aaron Swartz. — I am the plaintiff in this lawsuit.

Discussion: The Verge, @emptywheel, @quinnnorton and @sinabahram

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Vivendi Declined SoftBank's Lucrative Offer for Universal — Vivendi, the French media and telecommunications conglomerate, rejected an $8.5 billion cash bid from SoftBank for the Universal Music Group, even though it represented a premium of at least $2 billion more than some analysts' estimates …

Discussion: Billboard, Reuters, Financial Times and @pkafka

Carrie Johnson / NPR:

Justice's Rules Mean Reporter Need Not Testify, Lawyer Says — A lawyer for New York Times reporter James Risen is citing new Justice Department guidelines about when to subpoena journalists to support his argument that Risen is covered by a common-law reporter's privilege and need not testify …

Discussion: emptywheel

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:

Former Fox Exec Mike Darnell Moving to Warner Bros. TV — New position will put him in charge of unscripted programming for the production company behind “American Idol” rival “The Voice” — It looks like Mike Darnell has found a new gig. — Darnell, who until the end of June had served …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Reuters, Associated Press, Variety and Digital Spy

Steve Jordon / Omaha World-Herald:

Warren Buffett's newspaper company to buy Atlantic City paper — Warren Buffett's newspaper company said Thursday it plans to acquire the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., for an undisclosed price. The Press is owned by Abarta, a private holding company in Pittsburgh that is owned by the Bitzer and Taylor families.

Discussion: Poynter and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Max Read / Gawker:

Incredible Photos Capture Last Moments of Boston Bombing Manhunt — In response to the Rolling Stone cover featuring Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Instagram selfie, Boston magazine has published a number incredible of photos from behind the scenes of the manhunt that captured the accused Boston bomber …

Discussion: Boston Magazine, @johnwolfson, Mediaite, BAGnewsNotes, TechCrunch, Guardian, Yahoo! News, The Wrap, @johnwolfson, @johnwolfson, Erik Wemple, @hunterw, WBUR and CBS News

Jim Romenesko:

[UPDATED] Sun-Times lays off 14 production staffers — The downsizing continues at the Chicago Sun-Times. — The paper confirmed today that 14 production employees were laid off last Wednesday. The paper released this statement after I asked about the cuts:

LaGrange News:

Civitas Media to Close Suburban Newspapers in Ohio and North Carolina — DAVIDSON, N.C. - July 17 -, 2013 - Civitas Media, parent company to the LaGrange Daily News, a multi-platform information provider to local communities, announced today that it is closing eight suburban weekly newspapers in the Dayton, Ohio and Raleigh, NC areas.

Discussion: bizjournals, CaryCitizen and Dayton, Ohio …

Rebecca Grant / VentureBeat:

Swell raises $5.4M to ‘reinvent news radio’ around your preferences — Swell wants to expand your mind. — Today the startup “reinventing news radio” closed a $5.4 million round of funding, led by elite firm Draper Fisher Jurveston. Swell provides a Pandora-like service for listening to podcasts.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Venture Capital Dispatch, AllThingsD and GigaOM

John Cook / Gawker:

Here's Where Your Crackstarter Money Is Going — As you may recall, roughly six weeks ago we succeeded in raising $200,000 from readers in an effort to purchase and publish a video of Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. I'm disappointed to announce definitively that the money …

Discussion: Guardian

Tom Gara / Corporate Intelligence:

Media Diversity: Washington Post Expands Into Industrial Boilers … Washington Post Co. agreed to buy Forney Corp., a global supplier of products and systems for power and industrial boilers, from United Technologies Corp. (UTX), as the education and media company continues …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, bizjournals and Herald