The Breakfast Meeting: Restraint on Election Day, and Revenge Against Amazon

Executives at the TV networks and other news gathering operations said they were committed to holding off proclaiming a winner in the presidential election on Tuesday until they were confident of a winner, Brian Stelter reported. The promised restraint shows that the networks are fully aware that Web sites and individuals on social media services like Twitter and Facebook undoubtedly would be sharing results as soon as they come in, rushing to call the race.

• The support for Mitt Romney from the influential conservative radio and online host Glenn Beck has taken a special form, Amy Chozick writes. Mr. Beck, who is Mormon like Mr. Romney, has attempted to be a bridge between the candidate and the evangelic Christians in his audience. There is a long history of skepticism among evangelicals about Mormonism, and Mr. Beck engaged those concerns directly during special one-hour show. Its title: “Does Mitt Romney's Mormonism make him too scary or weird to be elected to president of the United States?” Mr. Beck's answer at the end: “It's not weird to be a Mormon, and it's not weird to be president if you're Mormon.”

While American newspapers have come to accept the way Google News operates - creating a page of headlines and summaries (as well as links) to articles created by news publications - the fight from publishers overseas continues, David Carr writes. There is a large boycott of Google News under way in Brazil, legislation aimed at Google in Germany, and perhaps similar legislation in France. In an interview, Eric E. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, described the company's view: “Whenever you are dealing with government, you want to be very clear about what you will do and will not do. And we don't want to pay for content that we do not host. We are very clear on that.”

• Google's dominant position in search has lately drawn the attention of regulators in the United States and Europe, who a re questioning whether the company exploits its size to stifle competition. For many small Web sites, Steve Lohr and Claire Cain Miller write, the search engine is the sun their businesses revolve around - they watch each day to see that it rises same as before. If it doesn't - if somehow the rankings suddenly change - the small Web site can wither away.

“The 4-Hour Chef” by Timothy Ferriss, who has become a best-selling author by offering a path to success without trying too hard, is getting the cold shoulder from bricks-and-mortar booksellers, David Streitfeld reports. Mr. Ferriss was a big signing by Amazon's publishing unit, and it is his connection to Amazon that is hurting his cause among booksellers. Barnes & Noble won't sell Amazon books; many independent bookstores say they feel betrayed by Mr. Ferriss. “We don't think it's in our best interests to do business with Amazon,” said Bill Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage, a large store in suburban Marin County, Calif.

The seemingly arcane question of what royalties are paid to stream music digitally is again being considered by Congress, Ben Sisario writes, with potentially great meaning for how the public listens to music. At issue is the lower rate charged to satellite radio outlets like Sirius XM when compared to streaming music sites like Pandora. To Pandora, which pays more than half of its revenues in royalties, the system is unfairly rigged against it. To musicians and the record labels, the outlier is the rate charged to satellite radio, which they argue should be lifted to match Pandora's.

Mark Thompson, who next Monday is set to become president and chief executive of The New York Times Company, navigated eight years atop the British Broadcasting Company, Matthew Purdy writes, only to have a scandal involving Jimmy Savile cast a shadow over his tenure there. Late last year, the BBC show “Newsnight” decided not to pursue an investigation of a ccusations of child sexual abuse against Mr. Savile - an investigation Mr. Thompson said he knew nothing about before it was canceled by the editor of the show.

Mr. Purdy writes:

Interviews with former BBC executives and officials here in London show that in the months after the investigation was canceled, Mr. Thompson and his top executives repeatedly missed opportunities to pursue a fuller picture of the “Newsnight” reporting, the fate of the program and, perhaps, of Mr. Savile.

 

Noam Cohen edits and writes for the Media Decoder blog. Follow @noamcohen on Twitter.