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Washington Post Sells Access, $25,000+ (Politico)
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few" -- Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.

Facebook Plans New Privacy-Control Features (NYT)
Facebook is testing new controls that will allow members to specify which groups or individuals are able to see each text update, photo or video they post on the site. For now the new features are available only to a limited number of users, but the company plans to provide them eventually to everyone.

Unscripted Balances Real With 'Reality' (Hollywood Reporter)
As TLC has learned with its breakout hit Jon & Kate Plus 8, the unanticipated real-life travails of reality personalities can prove both a boon and a bust to the network following their every move. The Jon & Kate phenomenon has sent shock waves through Hollywood's unscripted TV community.

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NYT Reporter Who Escaped Taliban Returns to Newsroom (NYT/City Room)
After seven months of being held hostage by the Taliban, David Rohde returned to The New York Times yesterday and to perhaps the most sustained ovation ever heard in the paper's newsroom. Mr. Rohde, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, escaped from his captors two weeks ago.

Gannett Announces It Will Cut 1,400 (AP)
Gannett Co. plans to cut 1,400 jobs in the next few weeks, about three percent of the work force. Bob Dickey, head of the company's U.S. community publishing division, informed staff of the layoffs in a letter Wednesday. The majority of layoffs will come by July 9, he said.

Court Blocks Catcher in the Rye Sequel (AP)
Swedish author Fredrik Colting, whose new book was promoted as a sequel to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, cannot publish it in the United States because it too closely mirrors Salinger's classic without adequate parody or critique, a judge ruled Wednesday.

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BET Awards Ratings Soar Thanks to Michael Jackson, Twitter (AdAge)
Broadcast networks may have gotten a boost from Michael Jackson tributes over the weekend, but the biggest beneficiary was Sunday night's BET Awards. The annual ceremony was the year's highest-rated cable telecast, with 10.65 million viewers watching live-plus-same day, thanks to its last-minute tribute to the late singer.

Joost to Reorg Biz Model; CEO Steps Down (Mediaweek)
Joost -- the mega-hyped and mostly disappointing online video platform -- has announced that it will undergo a major shift in its business model, away from focusing on its consumer-aimed video site Joost.com toward becoming a back-end technology vendor for other media companies.

Keeping the Fizz in the Journalism Biz (Slate)
Jack Shafer: The cheap tools and affordable devices the average Joe has at his disposal to produce precision journalism and distribute it around the world are enough to make the reporters of yesterday sob in envy. It's the difference between digging ditches with a spade and excavating a canal with dynamite.

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Vibe Magazine Shutting Down (Daily Finance)
Vibe magazine, the urban-music magazine founded in 1993 by Quincy Jones, is the latest victim of the media recession. In recent years the title has fallen on hard times under the Wicks Group, which bought it in 2006.

Gannett Will Cut More Than 1,000 Jobs (WSJ)
Gannett Co., the largest U.S. newspaper publisher by daily circulation, will cut between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs out of its 41,500-person work force in response to continuing revenue declines. The cuts will come from the U.S. Community Publishing division, which consists of more than 80 local dailies.

NBC News Unveils Plans For New Series on War Crimes (NYO)
At NBC News in recent months, there's been a lot of chatter among staffers about what was happening to a network series, apparently in development, about catching real-life war criminals. NBC has announced that the series, titled The Wanted, will begin airing at 10 p.m. on Monday, July 20.

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Michael Gross Gets Times Review, Gets Happy (NYO)
On Sunday, the New York Times finally reviewed Rogues' Gallery, Michael Gross' two-month-old, unauthorized exposé about the famous people behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "I was thrilled," said Gross, who had lamented the book's curious lack of coverage.

Twitter-Addled CNN Refers to Tweets as a 'Source' (Gawker)
Everyone's coverage of the uprising in Iran has been Twitter-centric, for obvious reasons. But CNN, in an apparent attempt to look like they have real, non-Twitter newsgathering capabilities, has been regurgitating Twitter posts and attributing them to unnamed "sources."

Who's the Free Rider? (BuzzMachine)
Jeff Jarvis: The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Connie Schultz complains about the "free-riding" of aggregators, et al. But it's the newspapers that are free-riding, getting the benefit of links. These newspaper people are the ones trying to act as if they own the news and can monopolize it. Those days are over.

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Zuckerberg Turning Facebook Into Twitter? (Silicon Alley Insider)
Last fall, Facebook tried and failed to acquire Twitter for $500 million in Facebook stock. So what has Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg done since the deal blew up? Since then, Facebook has bit by bit taken on Twitter-like features as its own.

OK! Paid $500k for Michael Jackson Death Pic (Mediaweek)
While other publications went with feel-good images to commemorate Michael Jackson, OK! chose a grim photo of the dying star being whisked to the hospital June 25. A source said Northern & Shell paid roughly $500,000 in U.S. dollars for exclusive magazine rights to the photo in the U.S. and U.K.

Journalism Online Announces First Deal (Crain's New York Business)
Journalism Online, the brainchild of Court TV founder Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, has announced its first partnership, with ITZ Publishing, marking a step in the direction of enabling newspapers to charge for content on the Web.

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Infomercial Pitchman Billy Mays Dies (TVNewser)
Even as infomercials he hosted aired on local stations across the country this morning, the cable news channels were reporting on the death of pitchman Billy Mays. 50-year-old Mays was found unresponsive by his wife in his Tampa home yesterday morning.

AOL Cracks Web Publishing -- Sans Time Warner (AdAge)
AOL is making its version of Web content one of four cornerstones of its post-spinoff strategy under its new management. Why would AOL want to become a content company? For starters, that's where the traffic growth is coming from.

Why CEOs Are Avoiding Online Social Networking (Newsweek)
Douglas A. McIntyre: CEOs will never come to the social networks in any numbers. Most have enough reputation problems and they do not need those magnified by people who have nothing better to do than go online and insult one another.

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Times Co. Reportedly Sets Bid Deadline for Globe (Boston Globe)
The New York Times Co. has asked potential buyers of The Boston Globe to submit preliminary bids by July 8. In a letter to parties that have expressed interest in buying New England's largest daily, Goldman Sachs & Co. said it is looking for preliminary indications of interest, including a potential price range. NYT: The Times hopes to sell The Worcester Telegram & Gazette along with the Globe and wants the buyer of the papers to take on $59 million in pension liabilities.

NBC's Zucker Dispatches CFO to Hollywood (NYP)
NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker is so concerned about the poor performance of Universal Studios that he is dispatching the company's chief financial officer to Hollywood for a month to observe the studio's business.

Journalism Rules Are Bent in News Coverage From Iran (NYT)
"Check the source" may be the first rule of journalism. But in the coverage of the protests in Iran this month, some news organizations have adopted a different stance: publish first, ask questions later. If you still don't know the answer, ask your readers.

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Google's China Rift Hints at Challenges Ahead (Reuters via Wired)
The tension between Google and Beijing is more of a nuisance than a financial blow for now, but it's a taste of the challenges that lie ahead as the world's largest Internet search engine strives to expand in China.

Daily News Turns 90, Finds Reader of First Issue (NYDN)
Hundred-year-old Helen Troiano of the Bronx remembers picking up the very first copy of the Daily News, published 90 years ago Friday. "I got it, I devoured it, I read it and read it and read it," she said. "From day one until this morning."

Charging for Online Content Gets Closer (BusinessWeek)
Jon Fine: Expect the ecosystem of the Web to start feeling a little different once the summer slips away. Publishers, stung by an economic downturn and ongoing disappointment with online ad revenues, will begin charging for at least some of their Web content.

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TMZ Is First to Report Michael Jackson's Death (LAT)
With the death of pop star Michael Jackson, TMZ gave the most potent demonstration yet of its ability to stir the pot of entertainment news. The site left traditional media scrambling in its wake, even as they attempted to distance themselves from a source widely regarded as salacious, if not disreputable. NYT: Jackson was a more popular topic on Twitter than the Iranian election or the recent flu outbreak ever were. CNET: News sites swamped following Jackson's death. WaPo: Tom Shales looks at how the major networks covered the yesterday's celebrity deaths. PaidContent: As news of Jackson's death spread, an estimated 15 percent of all updates on Twitter mentioned the King of Pop. TVNewser: Cablers scrambled to cover Jackson's death. TV Week: Michael Jackson was the key to establishing MTV as the success it became, former CEO Freston says.

Genachowski Approved as FCC Chairman (Wired/Epicenter)
Julius Genachowski, a former venture capitalist and backer of net neutrality, was confirmed Thursday as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. It will be Genachowski's first term at the FCC, where he has worked twice previously.

Letterman Has First Weekly Win Over Conan (Bloomberg)
David Letterman has beaten Conan O'Brien in the late-night talk-show ratings race on a weekly basis for the first time since O'Brien succeeded Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show. Letterman's viewing audience increased 13 percent last week from a year ago, CBS said.

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