Morning Media Newsfeed: WH Probes CIA Press Leak | Katz, Lenfest Win <em>Inquirer</em> Bidding

[emailonly]{{{ sbox300x250 }}}[/emailonly] Click here to receive Mediabistro's Morning Media Newsfeed via email. White House Launches Probe Into CIA Station Chief Disclosure (Politico) The White House has launched an investigation into how the name of the CIA’s station chief in Afghanistan was released to the press Sunday during President Barack Obama’s surprise visit to U.S. troops there, officials said. TVNewser White House counsel Neil Eggleston will oversee the investigation. FishbowlDC On Sunday as President Obama spoke at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, a pool report sent to upwards of 6,000 journalists included the name of a CIA station chief in the country, as one of many briefing the President during his visit. HuffPost The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson, who wrote the pool report, had received the list from White House officials. Wilson included the list as part of a pool report from Obama's visit to Afghanistan that was distributed Saturday by the White House press office, which later sent out a revised version not including the station chief's name. Despite the pool report appearing in thousands of inboxes, all major news outlets have continued to withhold the covert agent's name at the government's request. Time The CIA official operates under a cover, though their identity is known to the Afghan government. The release of the name is not only a faux pas in intelligence circles, but could jeopardize the CIA officer’s career and safety. Katz, Lenfest Win Control of Philadelphia Inquirer Parent Company (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Philadelphia Inquirer co-owners Lewis Katz and H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest won control of the newspaper and its parent company Tuesday after a bidding war with other owners in a private auction at a Philadelphia law firm. Poynter / MediaWire They paid $88 million. Katz and Lenfest told the court they were “trying to right what we think was a wrong” when Inquirer editor Bill Marimow was fired. He was later reinstated by a judge. “I certainly hope to stay, and that -- of course -- is up to our owners,” Marimow said. Lenfest will serve as interim publisher, the new owners told staffers. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media The bid was for IGM, which owns the Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, three websites and a printing plant. The company was formed two years ago along with George E. Norcross III, Joseph Buckelew and William Hankowsky, but disputes over how to run the company led to sharp disagreements. IGM has had a rocky history over the past few years. The company was bought and sold twice in 2006, went through a bankruptcy and has had two groups of local owners, in between ownership by a group of hedge funds. HuffPost The Inquirer newsroom reportedly got the news a little before 11 a.m. and an eruption of applause took over, the newspaper said. As for the losing group, Norcross, Hankowsky and Buckelew gave little comment after the decision but appeared relieved to have the legal battle behind them. Report: Abramson Refused to Sign Non-Disparagement Agreement (The New Yorker / Daily Comment) Friends of ousted New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson say that she signed a nondisclosure document as part of her final settlement with the Times, agreeing not to reveal the financial terms of her termination. But she refused to sign a non-disparagement agreement, according to Ken Auletta of The New Yorker. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media Auletta quotes an "adviser" who says Abramson said: "Just as I’m not going to end my job at The New York Times by lying, I’m not giving up my right to free speech." The revelation means that Abramson may address the details regarding her termination at some point in the future. New York Magazine / Daily Intelligencer That doesn't mean we'll be getting an xoJane barn-burner anytime soon -- "She does not want, friends say, to define herself as a disgruntled, terminated editor rather than as the distinguished journalist she has unquestionably been" -- but a tell-all memoir to set the record straight somewhere down the line is not out of the question. Especially once Abramson realizes that her leadership style has been repeatedly and publicly undermined by her old boss. Auletta reports that Abramson has been avoiding the coverage of her ouster. The Washington Post / Erik Wemple Auletta also reported more details about the firing. As the story stood, publisher Arthur Sulzberger was miffed that Abramson may have misled him about her plans to hire Janine Gibson of the Guardian to work on the paper’s digital operations -- in a position with authority equal to that of reigning managing editor Dean Baquet. Though Abramson reportedly told Sulzberger that she’d kept Baquet apprised of the plans vis-a-vis Gibson, “Baquet has told friends that she did not clue him in,” reports Auletta. [emailonly]{{{ jodslot01 }}}[/emailonly] Six of 10 Highest Paid CEOs Are in Media (The Associated Press / The Big Story) Six of the 10 highest-paid CEOs of 2013 are in media, as calculated by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive pay research firm. TVNewser They include: 2. Leslie Moonves, CBS Corp., $65.6 million, up 9 percent; 5. Philippe Dauman, Viacom, $37.2 million, up 11 percent; 7. Robert Iger, Walt Disney, $34.3 million, up 46 percent; 8. David Zaslav, Discovery Communications, $33.3 million, down 33 percent; 9. Jeffrey Bewkes, Time Warner, $32.5 million, up 27 percent; and 10. Brian Roberts, Comcast, $31.4 million, up 8 percent. WSJ Total direct compensation includes salary, annual incentives, the value of grants of stock options and restricted stock and performance-based incentive awards. None of the companies with the 10 best-paid CEOs ranked in the top 10 percent by 2013 performance. CBS and Viacom came closest, at 29th and 53rd, respectively, out of the 267 companies whose chiefs have presided over at least a year of results. Disney ranked 165th, in the lower half of the field. Robert Vargas Named Businessweek Creative Director (FishbowlNY) Robert Vargas has been named Bloomberg Businessweek’s new creative director. Vargas has been art director at Businessweek since 2010. Poynter / MediaWire Vargas will replace Richard Turley, who announced he was leaving last month. Tracy Ma will be deputy creative director. Capital New York The promotions put a new team in place to fill out the large hole left by Turley's departure to MTV. Turley's bold, unconventional covers and design packages were a big component of the buzz Businessweek has enjoyed since it was acquired by Bloomberg L.P. in 2009 and relaunched under the direction of editor Josh Tyrangiel. NBC Restructures Scripted, Tal Rabinowitz Out (THR / The Live Feed) NBC Entertainment is reorganizing its scripted operations. President Jennifer Salke announced Tuesday that development and current are being combined, and scripted programming will now consist of drama and comedy divisions. Variety Pearlena Igbokwe, formerly head of drama series development, is being named executive vice president of drama programming, which will now encompass both development and current operations for all drama series. Vernon Sanders, formerly head of current programming, is being named executive vice president of comedy programming and will head up development and current operations for comedy series. Sanders will continue to oversee returning dramas during this transition. Deadline Hollywood The current head of comedy development Tal Rabinowitz is leaving the network. Rabinowitz was the first new top programming executive brought in by NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt in May 2011, a couple of months after he took the reins of the network in early 2011. [emailonly]{{{ sbox01 }}}[/emailonly] BBC News Crew Detained in Egypt, Released After Two Hours (TVNewser) A BBC News crew reporting on Egypt’s presidential election was temporarily detained in Egypt Tuesday. Cairo correspondent Orla Guerin, Cairo producer Wael Hussein, and Middle East producer Kate Benyon-Tinker were initially cornered in a building by local Egyptians accusing them of being spies. Police then detained the crew, along with a woman they were interviewing. HuffPost All three journalists informed the public of their safety via Twitter Tuesday morning. Tweets sent out prior to the detaining suggest that the news crew had been closely covering the polls during the election, which was in its second and last day when the journalists were taken. NYC Mayor Bars Media From Dozens of Events (The Associated Press / The Big Story) From the first moments of New York City mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, when he initially declared his midnight swearing-in off limits to the media, he has established a record of frequently conducting public business in private, with dozens of events closed to the press. Politico / Dylan Byers on Media The mayor has barred reporters from more than 20 percent of his listed events. In nearly five months in office, de Blasio barred the media from 53 events and limited access to 30 more, an Associated Press analysis found. De Blasio also uses a tactic similar to the White House, which will sometimes bar the press from an event only to publish a photo or video shot by a White House staffer. Face The Nation Wins 2013-14 Season (TVNewser) Although the Sunday public affairs shows continue to be in a tight race for the top spot from week to week, Face The Nation finished the 2013-14 season first in both total viewers and the adult 25-54 demographic. It was the best audience in total viewers for the show in 21 years, since the 1992-93 season. ABC’s This Week was second for the season, followed by NBC’s Meet The Press in third, Fox News Sunday in fourth and Univision’s Al Punto in fifth. [emailonly]{{{ sbox02 }}}[/emailonly] Netflix Buys Pay-TV Rights to Sony Animated Films (Variety) Netflix has reached a multiyear deal with Sony Pictures Television for U.S. pay-TV window rights to the studio’s animated films, starting with Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2, while Sony’s other feature films will remain with Starz through at least 2021. SCOTUS Rules in Favor of Fox News Reporter (Politico / Dylan Byers on Media) The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal to a lower court ruling that shielded Fox News reporter Jana Winter from revealing confidential sources in stories about the 2012 Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting. Lawyers for James Holmes, the man accused of the shooting, wanted Winter to reveal the names of law enforcement sources who told her about a notebook containing violent images that Holmes sent to a psychiatrist. TVNewser The high court’s decision keeps in place a December ruling from the New York Court of Appeals ending the nearly two-year-long legal fight. Billboard’s Real-Time Twitter Music Chart Is Now Live (AllTwitter) Tuesday Billboard and Twitter launched the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts, which provide an up-to-the-minute ranking of the most shared songs on Twitter in the U.S. Song shares are tracked via a number of methods, including the use of links to music platforms such as Spotify, Vevo and iTunes, specific hashtags (i.e., #nowplaying) and various terms associated with music (for example, “music,” “song” and “listen”) in tweets. [emailonly]{{{ sbox03 }}}[/emailonly] ESPN Floats A Netflix-Style Trial Balloon (Re/code) ESPN has already said it may let you pay for its sports programming on the Web without subscribing to a traditional pay-TV package. Now it is floating the idea of selling some of its stuff directly to consumers, just like Netflix does. ESPN boss John Skipper says that next year the company may sell a package of Major League Soccer games to Web viewers, who could pay for the games without subscribing to ESPN itself. Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices Author’s Note Released (FishbowlDC) Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices is set to be released June 10 and Tuesday morning, publisher Simon & Schuster released the book’s Author’s Notes to the morning shows and NPR. Eric Holder Meets With Media Over New Guidelines (Politico / Dylan Byers on Media) Representatives from some of the nation's most notable media organizations met with attorney general Eric Holder on Tuesday to discuss recently implemented revisions to the Justice Department’s media guidelines. The group's primary concerns were the James Risen case involving the New York Times reporter who has refused to testify against his suspected source, and the new DOJ standards that serve as guides to prosecutors, which have new language about when it is appropriate to subpoena reporters and search news rooms. Mediabistro Blogs TVNewser Six of 10 Highest Paid CEOs Are in Media TVSpy WDAY Reporter Kay Cooley Arrested for DUI Lost Remote NBC Finishes Strong with The #VoiceFinale FishbowlDC Face the Nation Wins 2013-14 Season FishbowlNY Susan Pocharski Named Entertainment Director of More SocialTimes The Periodic Table of Content Marketing AllFacebook News Feed Algorithm to De-Emphasize Stories from Apps AllTwitter Twitter Expected to Grow By Almost 25% in 2014 As Asia Becomes Biggest Audience 10,000 Words BuzzFeed Will Focus on Video, Rethink Traffic Partner Program Inside Mobile Apps The New Realities of Facebook Mobile App Advertising Inside Facebook 5 Effective Facebook Ad Tools for Small Businesses GalleyCat Rachel Louise Carson Gets Google Doodle for her 107th Birthday PRNewser Google Tops Apple On ‘Most Valuable Brand’ List AgencySpy Click 3X Adds The Kloons, JetPacks Go! To Directorial Roster MediaJobsDaily Where in the World is the Worst Place to Work? Advertise on Our Blog Network Mediabistro Chats What's your favorite news outlet to follow on social media? marevaraves definitely @TheAtlantic / @TheWire KatieTThompson @TheWeek. No contest for me. ShortStackLab our favorite news sources are @nytimes @WSJD @mashable @npralltech and, of course, @InsideNetwork and @allfacebook cherylynne @TheAtlantic @gawker @Slate @qz @KING5Seattle @TodayinTabs @TVbytheNumbers and individual correspondents MrsWndr for local news- local paper, then feeds from sheriff and fire. Learned with Dorner large ones are too busy trying to be first. Follow Mediabistro on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Fishbowl

Morning Media Newsfeed: WH Probes CIA Press Leak | Katz, Lenfest Win Inquirer Bidding | New Abramson/NYT Details

Christine Zosche

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Christine Zosche