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Apple's Tim Cook Turns Down $75-Million Quarterly Stock Dividends (LAT)
Apple Inc.announced that Chief Executive Tim Cook would be passing up on $75 million four times a year by not participating in the Cupertino, Calif., company's quarterly dividends. AllThingsD Say what you will, but this was a classy gesture up and down. When was the last time you saw headlines about a successful CEO of a wildly successful company walking away from millions of dollars that he could have just as easily pocketed?

First Look at a Video Shot by Google Glasses (AppNewser)
Google has been teasing us lately with driblets of information on Glasses, their new heads up display. And this morning someone finally posted a video which had been shot with the device. Gizmodo Google also released some more new pictures along with the video, which further demonstrate that the perspective they offer is pretty amazing.

Marvel Designs Deaf Hero to Inspire Boy (Newser)
A 4-year-old boy was sick of wearing his hearing aid because, he told his mother, superheroes don't wear them. So she sent Marvel Comics an email asking about deaf characters -- and the company designed a hero just for young Anthony Smith.

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Times-Picayune Confirms Staff Cuts And Three-Day-A-Week Print Schedule (NYT / Media Decoder)
The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans confirmed on Thursday that it would cut back its print publishing schedule to three days a week and lay off an unknown number of staff members. NOLA.com A new company -- the NOLA Media Group, which will include The Times-Picayune and its affiliated website NOLA.com -- was announced Thursday by Ricky Mathews, who will become its president. NOLA Media Group will significantly increase its online news-gathering efforts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while offering enhanced printed newspapers on a schedule of three days a week. The newspaper will be home-delivered and sold in stores on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays only. A second new company, Advance Central Services, will print and deliver the newspaper. Both of the new companies are owned by Advance Publications. JimRomenesko.com The full memo to New Orleans Times-Picayune staff. Poynter / MediaWire This would make New Orleans the largest U.S. city without a daily newspaper. The Times-Picayune, with a circulation of about 155,000 on Sundays and 134,000 weekdays, would be the largest paper in the U.S. to shift to non-daily publication. Its circulation in March 2005, before Hurricane Katrina flooded the city and shrank the city's population: about 285,000 on Sundays and 257,000 weekdays. Gambit / Blog Of New Orleans The original Picayune originally published in 1837. Washington Post / Erik Wemple There's even some mention of "plans" to beef up food and dining coverage. A quote from publisher Ashton Phelps Jr. puts a smiley spin on things: "I have run The Times-Picayune for over 32 years. I believe moving to a stronger digital focus positions the new company to continue to serve the needs of our various communities." Forbes / John McQuaid I spent most of my journalism career at The Times-Picayune and have many friends there, so the news that its owners are slashing the staff, dismissing top editors, and cutting back publication days is very difficult to process. My heart goes out to my valiant former colleagues, and to the city itself, which will suffer from having reduced news coverage and seeing one of its signature institutions diminished. Poynter / MediaWire David Simon, whose HBO series Treme chronicles life in post-Katrina New Orleans, told Poynter that the Times-Picayune's decision to cut publication to three days a week and cut staff is "grievous news as it would be for any American city." Washington Post This is a tactical trend for New York-based Advance Publications, which owns The Times-Picayune, as it pushes toward a limited print-digital model. Advance said Thursday that in addition to The Times-Picayune, it will also cut back the print frequency of its three papers in Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville, Ala., to three days. The Advocate The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Press-Register of Mobile, which are also owned in Alabama by Advance Publications Inc., a Newhouse family company, announced on Thursday they too will transition to a three-day circulation pattern. Poynter / MediaWire Average circulation at the three papers between March 2011 and March 2012 has followed national trends, increasing or basically holding steady on Sundays and decreasing Monday through Friday.

Warren Buffett Won't Stop Buying Newspapers Until He's Dead (FishbowlNY)
Warren Buffett is going to buy more newspapers. Yes, in addition to the 63 his Berkshire Hathaway Media Group scooped up last week. In a letter sent to the editors and publishers of those publications, Buffett says he "will probably purchase more papers in the next few years." JimRomenesko.com Warren Buffett: "Berkshire buys for keeps. Our only exception to permanent ownership is when a business faces unending losses, a remote prospect for virtually all of our dailies. So let me express a few thoughts about what lies ahead as we join forces." Omaha World-Herald Warren Buffett has pledged a "hands-off" policy at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. newspapers and called for their editors and publishers to make their papers indispensable to anyone who cares about their city or town. Poynter / MediaWire They will, however, have to follow certain principles: take on no debt that makes them vulnerable, expect to charge for online content somehow and make sure an intense local focus is in their DNA. Bloomberg Businessweek / AP Buffett said many of the newspaper editors he was writing to would likely outlive him as Berkshire employees, but he predicted that his successors would follow the same hands-off management approach. Forbes / Mixed Media Warren Buffett in 2009: "For most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price." Warren Buffett in 2012: "I've loved newspapers all my life -- and always will... Berkshire will probably purchase more papers in the next few years." Will the real Warren Buffett please stand up? Is the Sage of Omaha a sentimentalist or a skeptic when it comes to newspapers?

NBCU Exploring Buyback Of MSNBC.com (Adweek)
Chris Matthews must be getting that tingling feeling down his leg again. He and his colleagues may soon have a giant news site to call their own. That's because NBCUniversal is in serious negotiations with Microsoft to buy back MSNBC.com. TVNewser Microsoft sold a majority stake in the cable channel MSNBC to NBCU back in 2005, but it maintained control of the website, which is an enormously popular online destination. The deal, if consummated, could result in two separate websites, NBCNews.com and a reworked MSNBC.com. THR A transaction would likely include an agreement that would allow the site to retain some of the traffic it gets from being placed on Microsoft's MSN portal.

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Apple Applies for Stylus Patent (Mashable)
Yes, you read that right: Apple wants to patent a stylus, the very thing Steve Jobs famously shunned when he unveiled the original iPhone. Apple's idea of the stylus, however, is slightly different from the simple styluses you usually get with tablets today.

Fox News Slams Professors Who Claimed Its Viewers Were Ill-Informed (THR)
This month, FDU released another of its PublicMind polls touting that "this nationwide survey confirms initial findings" of ill-informed FNC viewers, and an FNC spokesperson blasted the findings and turned the tables on the university, pointing out that its own students don't exactly measure up academically. TVNewser The professor behind the study noted that it was not just FNC viewers that ranked low on the survey, other outlets, including MSNBC viewers, had problems as well.

The New Yorker Will Serialize Jennifer Egan's Short Story on Twitter, Starting Tonight (New York Observer)
What are you doing from 8-9 p.m. tonight, and for the next nine nights after that? You'll be in just the place to catch "Black Box," Jennifer Egan's latest New Yorker story, which will be serialized on Twitter, starting tonight. The installments of <140 character paragraphs will be rounded up each day on the New Yorker's Page-Turner blog, and the full story will appear in the Monday "Science Fiction" issue.

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Disgruntled Man Breaks Into WIBW Newsroom, Stabs Two Employees (TVSpy)
Two WIBW staffers were stabbed Wednesday morning when a disgruntled man wielding a knife broke into the station's Topeka headquarters. Topeka Capital-Journal WIBW-TV news director Jon Janes was in cardiopulmonary resuscitation training on what had been a routine Wednesday morning when he was called at about 9:10 a.m. to the front lobby of the Topeka station. A man who had been buzzed in through the station's secured glass doors was waiting in the lobby to talk with Janes. The man, who Janes said "obviously had some kind of mental problem," demanded the station do a story about an issue he was having with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. WIBW.com In surveillance video, the man, identified as Ray Miles, is seen punching two employees. Those workers and two others tackle him. They appear to have him subdued when sales manager Roger Brokke starts to sit up and other workers join the pile -- that's the moment Brokke feels himself being stabbed and sees the man has somehow taken out a knife. Poynter / MediaWire In the effort to subdue him, sales manager Roger Brokke and sales associate Greg Palmer were stabbed. Both were treated for minor injuries. HuffPost / AP The station reported that the melee started after the man spoke to Janes on a lobby phone, saying the Department of Veterans Affairs was mishandling his case. When Janes explained that the man needed to discuss the issue with the VA, the man left the building. He returned about 10 minutes later and threw a lamp through the glass front doors, Janes said.

Huffington Post Names First Publisher (FishbowlNY)
The Huffington Post Media Group has named Janet Balis its first publisher. AdAge / Digital She had been senior vice president for sales strategy, marketing and partnerships for AOL Advertising since October. In her new role, Balis will focus on new strategies for The Huffington Post's work with marketers. FishbowlLA Also on the HuffPost business end, former chief agency officer and general manager of sales for MSNBC Interactive Moritz Loew has been named the new head of sales specialist and senior vice president. Capital New York Joining HuffPost's 5,000 or so verticals come August will be an Oprah Winfrey section featuring "content created and curated by writers and producers from OWN and Oprah.com specifically for The Huffington Post," according to a press release. "Additionally, the section will call upon The Huffington Post's vast network of bloggers and community to have a conversation around Oprah.com content." AllThingsD In the year to date, Oprah.com has been averaging just five million monthly unique visitors, while the Huffington Post has close to 37 million. Reuters AOL said on Wednesday that Ned Brody, formerly chief revenue officer, will become CEO of the company's advertising network, Advertising.com Group. Adweek Jim Norton, who in December was promoted to head of AOL sales, will remain in that role but will now report directly to CEO Tim Armstrong and will also serve on a new executive committee.

Platt Resigns, Days Back At Daily News (Philadelphia Daily News)
The Larry Platt era at the Daily News is over just over 16 months after it started. Michael Days, the popular editor who ran the Daily News from 2005 until early last year, is back at the helm. Politico / Dylan Byers On Media The announcement marks yet another step in an attempt by the new ownership group to restore order to the Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, where top editors were forced out following a bankruptcy auction. JimRomenesko.com Platt: "I never looked at this gig as a long-term play for me."

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Hewlett-Packard to Cut 30,000 Jobs (NYT)
Hewlett-Packard's chief executive, Meg Whitman, plans to cut 30,000 or more jobs next week, according to officials familiar with the plan. Her goal, they said Thursday, is to spend the money she saves on increasing the efficiency of the company's sales force and on creating new products.

Groupon Customers Offered Class Action Payout Over Expiration Dates (CNNMoney)
Groupon has settled the case and will pay a proposed $8.5 million in cash to do so. Seventeen Groupon subscribers each filed individual lawsuits over the past few years about expiration dates on Groupon's deals and how the company sold or advertised those deals. On the customer side, the settlement class includes anyone in the U.S. who bought a Groupon deal or received one as a gift from November 1, 2008, through December 1, 2011. But what those customers will actually get remains pretty murky.

YouTube Partner Onision: "YouTube Is Murdering Off Some Of Our Favorite YouTubers" (SocialTimes)
Over the past week or so, YouTuber Onision has emerged as something of a voice for the YouTube partners that are suffering losses in viewership and subscribers, starting with a post he wrote on Crovati.com.

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CNN Hits 20-Year Weekday Primetime Low (Deadline Hollywood)
The only ratings news CNN is getting lately is bad news. THR Following last week's news of a 15-year primetime low during Piers Morgan Tonight, final Nielsen ratings give the network its lowest-rated weekday primetime showing among total viewers in more than 20 years. NYT / Media Decoder CNN averaged just 395,000 viewers in prime time for the week of May 14, a figure lower than any week of primetime programming on the network since September 1991.

Facebook IPO Raises Regulatory Concerns (NYT / DealBook)
Just days before Facebook went public, some big investors grew nervous about the company's prospects. Reuters In the run-up to Facebook's $16 billion IPO, Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter on the deal, unexpectedly delivered some negative news to major clients: The bank's consumer Internet analyst, Scott Devitt, was reducing his revenue forecasts for the company. CNBC / Reuters The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's chairman said on Tuesday that regulators plan to review allegations that Morgan Stanley shared negative news before Facebook's initial public offering with institutional investors. Time Just what did Facebook executives tell the stock analysts at the investment banks in the days before the offering? On May 9, Facebook issued an updated prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In dense securities-legalese, Facebook said that the number of daily users was increasing faster than the number of ads the company was serving, a change it attributed to its fast-growing mobile user base. Such an updated "risk factor" may have served to satisfy regulatory requirements prior to the IPO. Yahoo! News / AP Facebook stock itself has been a disappointment. It fell $3.03 on Tuesday to close at $31 and has now fallen $7, or more than 18 percent, from its offering price of $38. It managed to add just 23 cents in its first hours of trading on Friday, then suffered a big decline on Monday. MarketWatch / Market Pulse Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has sold 30.2 million shares and director Peter Thiel has sold 16.8 million shares of the social-networking company. WSJ While Wall Street moved into crisis mode over Facebook Inc.'s fumbled initial public offering, employees at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters had an entirely different response: a shrug. Business Insider Here's the inside story of what happened on the Facebook IPO.

Court Dismisses One Complaint Against Aereo (WSJ)
A federal court in Manhattan dismissed one of the legal complaints filed by TV broadcasters against online video start-up Aereo Inc., leaving another claim still to be heard. THR / Hollywood, Esq. In March, Aereo began streaming local TV content online to New York residents for $12 a month. The major TV broadcasters -- Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC -- sued to shut the service down. TheWrap.com / Media Alley In response, Aereo has argued that it has a legal right to access broadcast signals because the airwaves are publicly owned. TVSpy According to court documents, the judge dismissed the broadcasters' unfair competition complaint, leaving Aereo to only face claims of copyright infringement in the case. Bloomberg Businessweek / AP The case is being closely watched because of the precedent it could set. Broadcasters owned by The Walt Disney Co., CBS Corp. and Comcast Corp. have deals to collect hundreds of millions of dollars annually from cable and satellite TV providers for the right to retransmit their signals to subscribers.

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Google Seals $13 Billion Motorola Buy (CNNMoney)
Google officially completed its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility on Tuesday. It's a watershed moment for the company, marking both its biggest acquisition ever and Google's transition from a search-and-software company to a consumer gadgets maker. EnGadget Big G was able to put the manufacturer on its ledger for the price of $40 per share, or about $12.5 billion. As it stands, Motorola Mobility will continue to operate as a separate business entity and as a licensee of Android, but Mountain View is still claiming the purchase will allow it to "supercharge" its mobile ecosystem. The future of the new subsidiary's employees is a different matter, however.

New Twist in Lawsuit Over Huffington Post's Origins; 'Cover-Up' Alleged (Forbes)
Two Democratic consultants who claim they supplied Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer with the idea for the Huffington Post have filed an amended version of their lawsuit, saying emails and other documents they obtained through discovery show how the defendants appropriated the concept and attempted to cover their tracks.

Facebook Quietly Rolls Out Pages Manager For IPhone, Tweaks App's News Feed (AllFacebook)
Facebook has been quietly rolling out updates to its iPhone application, releasing its new Pages Manager iPhone app for page administrators in the U.S. with no announcement, and tweaking the news feed in the iPhone app to look more like timeline.

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ABC To Debut Good Afternoon America July 9 (TVSpy)
ABC Monday made official what was reported several weeks ago: The new extension of Good Morning America will debut on July 9 and run for nine weeks on most ABC stations. TVNewser Josh Elliott and Lara Spencer will anchor an early-afternoon spinoff of ABC's Good Morning America called, appropriately, Good Afternoon America. THR The nine-week run of Good Afternoon America also will include special appearances from fellow GMA staffers Sam Champion, Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos. LA Times / Show Tracker Rather than the harder news of the wee morning hours, the afternoon edition of the show will focus on celebrities, pop culture, lifestyle and health reports. NY Mag / Daily Intel If your grandma keeps loudly wondering why they had to cancel One Life To Live, we finally have an answer: It's all part of Good Morning America's never-ending battle with the Today show. New York Daily News Putting the established Good Morning America franchise into the 2 p.m. slot also should help ABC retain viewers it hopes will watch the Katie Couric talk show that debuts Sept. 10 on many ABC stations.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Files For Bankruptcy (GalleyCat)
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has officially filed a major restructuring plan to redistribute the company's $3.1 billion in debt, entering what they called "a prompt, court-supervised, chapter 11 process." NYT / DealBook The storied Boston company, which produces everything from math textbooks to computer games like The Oregon Trail, had reached an agreement earlier this month with 70 percent of its senior secured creditors to restructure its $3.1 billion in debt into equity. LA Times / Money & Co. Houghton Mifflin, along with many other publishers, has struggled to keep its print products popular as eBooks swarm into the market. Bloomberg Sales of adult paperbacks and hardcover books fell 18 percent from 2010 to 2011, according to the Association of American Publishers. Borders Group Inc., the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain, filed for bankruptcy in February 2011.

New York Times Public Editor To Leave In September (Washington Post / Erik Wemple)
New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane will leave his position on Sept. 1 of this year, completing a two-year term as in-house watchdog for the paper. FishbowlNY Brisbane will surely be remembered for his ridiculously awful column that asked if The New York Times should report facts. NYT / Media Decoder Brisbane, 61, joined the paper as public editor in 2010 after a long career at The Washington Post and more recently at The Kansas City Star, where he was publisher. He accepted the public editor job with the understanding that he would stay for two years and consider a third.

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Emotional Last Show for Saturday Night Live Cast Members Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg (New York Daily News)
Lorne Michaels says he won't officially announce changes in the cast of Saturday Night Live, but Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg left little doubt that this past weekend's season finale was their last. USA Today Wiig, who had a final dance with co-stars during SNL's concluding skit (led by Mick Jagger), has high prospects in film. She already has scored a big hit in the comedy Bridesmaids.

Hulu Announces the Summer Series, A New Slate of Original Programming (SocialTimes)
Hulu, the Web video site that delivers quality network and cable television shows to Web viewers, has announced their slate of new programming called the "Summer Series." Instead of just replaying the network programs, Web video providers will now be creating their own series, and if they get even just one hit, users will have a whole new source of programming, thereby cleaving the market.

House Beautiful Lets Readers Post to Pinterest From Print (AdAge)
House Beautiful is letting users post photos from its print edition directly to Pinterest using smartphone apps, the latest effort by a magazine to make print more interactive. Only photos from the "Kitchen of the Month" article are pinnable using the new system in the June issue, but House Beautiful expects to expand the Pinterest capability throughout its issues soon.

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Foer Returns To New Republic As Editor (NYT / Media Decoder)
Two months after buying a majority stake in The New Republic, technology entrepreneur Chris Hughes has lured one of its former stars, Franklin Foer, back to the magazine as its editor. Politico / Dylan Byers On Media Foer replaces Richard Just, who became editor after Foer left the magazine in 2010, and marks the first major hire for Hughes, who bought a majority stake in March and now plans to revive the 98-year-old magazine by hiring top-tier journalists, doubling staff, and redesigning the print and online editions. HuffPost The quick change of editors is surprising, considering that Just is viewed internally as instrumental in helping facilitate Hughes' purchase of the esteemed, yet money-losing, 98-year-old magazine of American liberalism. Just allowed Hughes to sit in on an editorial meeting late last year, prior to most staffers having any idea he could become the new owner. And Just is highly regarded for his skill in editing the type of long-form, New Republic journalism that Hughes has praised since buying the magazine.

Murdoch Denies Planning To Spin Off UK Newspapers (Reuters)
Rupert Murdoch has denied reports that News Corp. is considering spinning off its British newspapers to protect the rest of his media empire from a phone hacking scandal. The Daily Beast / Newsweek The dress she arrived in told it all. When Rebekah Brooks, former CEO of News International, posed on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice two weeks ago, it was a red-carpet moment. The Leveson Inquiry into press standards taking place in London had already become the best show in town, with a glittering cast including Hugh Grant, Sienna Miller, and James and Rupert Murdoch -- but Brooks was bound to take the starring role.

Yahoo! And Alibaba Officially Shake On $7 Billion Stock Sale Deal (AllThingsD)
Yahoo! and Alibaba Group have finally reached an agreement for the Silicon Valley Internet giant to sell back half its stake in the Chinese Web company in a $7 billion deal. NYT / DealBook Yahoo! will divest an additional 10 percent of the Chinese company when Alibaba files for an initial public offering, which could come in the next few years. Yahoo! expects to sell the remainder of its stake at a later date. Mashable Yahoo! had bought a 40 percent stake in Alibaba for about $1 billion in 2005. Bloomberg Alibaba has been trying to buy back the stake for more than a year and stepped up efforts in September because of improving prospects for growth and expansion beyond China. WSJ / Deal Journal Ever since former Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz was ousted last September, Yahoo! investors, battered by an unending string of bad news, have been hoping that the company could at least come to an agreement with Alibaba.

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