Mediagazer: Shhh! Amazon Starts a Semi-Secret Digital Focus Group for Its Homegrown TV Shows and Movies. (Peter Kafka/AllThingsD)

11:45 AM ET, November 6, 2013

Top News:

Deadline.com And Nikki Finke Parting Ways — Despite attempts by all to have it go otherwise, Nikki Finke will no longer be leading Deadline Hollywood, and she will not be writing weekend box office or filing stories going forward. This is an emotional and painful parting of the ways for us.

Discussion: Gawker, @nikkifinke, The Wrap, Variety, @nikkifinke, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, LA Observed, @carr2n, @benfritz, FishbowlNY, @samontv and @popcornhaas

Ben Fritz / Speakeasy:
As Nikki Finke Exits Deadline, Dispute Over Her Plan for A New Site Grows

Discussion: @benfritz and @ethanwsj

Darren Boyle / Press Gazette:

Mirror group newspapers ‘habitually used phone-hacking’ High Court documents released today claim — A senior Mirror Group journalist “regularly paid” £125 for mobile phone numbers and pin codes from a private detective, High Court documents lodged by the alleged victims released today claim.

Press Association:
Mirror fails in bid to throw out phone-hacking cases

Discussion: Guardian, Life Style Extra and Interactive Investor

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Shhh! Amazon Starts a Semi-Secret Digital Focus Group for Its Homegrown TV Shows and Movies. — Amazon, which is starting to make its own TV shows, has already made a splash by letting anyone on the Web watch its test programs and weigh in on them. — Now it's starting a more selective effort …

Discussion: The Next Web, Softpedia News and The Verge

BBC:

Blogger raises funds to tweet from phone-hacking trial — A blogger who turned to crowdfunding website Indiegogo to raise money to tweet from the UK's phone-hacking trial has hit his target. — Peter Jukes has raised more than £4,000 to pay “his living expenses” for the trial's duration.

Discussion: @peterjukes and @peterjukes

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Sunday People launches seven-day Buzzfeed-style website entirely funded by ‘native advertising’ — Trinity Mirror today launched a stand-alone seven-day website for the Sunday People which is entirely funded by ‘native advertising’. — This means that the site will carry no display advertising …

Discussion: The Drum

Malin Rising / Associated Press:

Swedish cinemas take aim at gender bias with Bechdel test rating — Movies need to pass test that gauges the active presence of women on screen in bid to promote gender equality — You expect movie ratings to tell you whether a film contains nudity, sex, profanity or violence.

Discussion: Guardian, @weldonwk, The Atlantic Wire and Telegraph

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

The NYT paywall plugs the hole — Charting the state of The New York Times — Felix asks what my graph of New York Times digital revenue would look like including print ads. — Here's the original chart, which shows the paywall doubling NYT digital revenue in just over two years:

Discussion: @niemanlab, @ryanchittum and @abeaujon

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:

How geolocation is being used to promote magazine apps — Music Week is now free when downloaded from Abbey Road and The Gooner is free at the Emirates Stadium — Copyright: Image courtesy of Exact Editions — Exact Editions, which packages magazine apps for publishers …

Discussion: Exact Editions

Bill Carter / New York Times:

CBS News Defends Its ‘60 Minutes’ Benghazi Report — CBS News, under fire from critics who dispute details in a “60 Minutes” report on the Benghazi attacks last year that was broadcast on Oct. 27, aggressively defended the report's accuracy on Tuesday and the account of its main interview subject.

Discussion: TVNewser, @jesslevin, @beychok, @mlcalderone, @ericboehlert, @romenesko and Philly.com

Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:

Google Ordered by Court to Block 9 Images in Max Mosley Case — Google Inc. (GOOG) was ordered by a Paris court to filter nine images linked to Max Mosley in a lawsuit seeking to block search results referring to a “Nazi-themed” sex party and the former Formula One president.

Alistair Barr / USA Today:

Amazon cozies up to book stores to sell Kindle devices — Amazon executive says new Amazon Source program will help physical stores be more relevant to customers. But Amazon needs physical store partners too — CONNECT — Amazon.com is turning to some of its natural rivals …

Discussion: Amazon.com, TechCrunch, Publishers Weekly, AllThingsD, @tcarmody and The Next Web

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Is AOL Finally Making Money From Content? Maybe! — One of the perennially weird things about AOL is that it's a content company that doesn't make money from content: All of its actual profit has come from subscribers to its old Internet-access business, which still has 2.5 million customers,* who pay $20 a month to get online.

Discussion: @pkafka and @dkthomp

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

TV Discovery Startup i.TV Acquires GetGlue In Second-Screen App Mashup — Provo, Utah-based video discovery startup i.TV has acquired GetGlue, we've learned, as consolidation in the market for second-screen or companion TV apps continues. The acquisition, which is expected to be announced soon …

Discussion: Digital TV Europe

Jack Marshall / Digiday:

How BuzzFeed Gives Native Ads a Traffic Boost — The story of modern media is wrapped up in this situation: The hottest area for ads need ads to people to see it. — The problem with advertiser content on BuzzFeed and other publisher sites is that users just aren't always eager to consume it.

Discussion: @digiday

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Yahoo's Mayer in talks with Ryan Seacrest about creating original content — Yahoo's Mayer Now Chit-Chatting With Ryan Seacrest About Content Ideas — Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is tearing her way through the content celebrities, it seems. — First, news star Katie Couric.

Discussion: Betabeat

Paul Elias / Associated Press:

Calif. Supreme Court to consider disgraced journalist Stephen Glass' request for law license — SAN FRANCISCO - The deceit of disgraced former reporter Stephen Glass in the journalism world was so extraordinary that his tale was turned into a critically acclaimed movie, “Shattered Glass.”

Discussion: Associated Press and FishbowlNY

Joshua Goldman / CNET:

Streamnation expands to streaming, sharing your movie, TV show collections — The service that's built for storing, streaming, and sharing your photos and videos is now looking to become a streaming media hub. — Remember when you used to let friends and family borrow a DVD?

Discussion: AllThingsD, Softpedia News, Engadget, Pocket-lint, VentureBeat, The Next Web and The Verge

Reporters Without Borders:

Mali - Dim prospects for media freedom in north after French journalists' murder — The murder of Radio France Internationale journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon on the outskirts of Kidal, a town in the Ifoghas massif, on 2 November has highlighted the extent of the threats …

Cassandra Vinograd / Associated Press:

David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's Partner, Challenges UK Detention In Court — LONDON (AP) — Lawyers for the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald are challenging the lawfulness of his detention at London's Heathrow Airport, arguing Wednesday in Britain's High Court that the police's use …

Discussion: Reuters and Guardian

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

NUJ calls for public subsidies to save newspapers from closure — The National Union of Journalists is calling for regional and local newspapers to be given public funding in order to ensure their survival. — A union delegation put the NUJ's case for subsidised papers to Ed Vaizey …

Discussion: HoldTheFrontPage, Carmarthenshire Planning … and National Union of Journalists