The News of the World phone-hacking story won't go away. MPs are to debate it tomorrow. A key witness, a former News International employee, Ross Hall, is is prepared to talk about his knowledge of transcribing intercepted voicemail messages. And a former NoW reporter, Sean Hoare, is eager to testify.

The scandal is the subject of my London Evening Standard column today in which I argue that the truth may never be told because most of the press - Murdoch-owned and Murdoch-sympathising - is not giving it the coverage it merits.

All the same, the prime minister's director of communications, Andy Coulson (and, possibly, even Rupert Murdoch and David Cameron), must be feeling the heat. Few stories about the media have had the longevity of this one.

It dates back to August 2006 - when Coulson was NoW editor - with the arrests of the NoW's royal editor, Clive Goodman, and its casually-employed investigator, Glenn Mulcaire.

They were jailed in January 2007, precipitating the resignation of Coulson, and the opening of inquiries into his part (or lack of it) in the unethical and illegal use of voicemail interceptions.

Coulson said he knew nothing. Among journalists, his denial was met with incredulity. If he did know, he was complicit (and therefore lying). If he didn't know, he was incompetent because editors are expected to know the provenance of the stories they publish.

He maintained that Goodman was a rogue operator. There were no other examples of phone-hacking by his reporters, and most of Mulcaire's work for the paper did not involve illegal activity (despite being paid £100,000 a year).

Just six months after Coulson's resignation from the NoW in such shameful circumstances he was hired by Cameron to be the Conservative party's communications chief. That prompted another collective raising of eyebrows among the journalistic community.

His appointment prompted new questions about his role in his former paper's phone-hacking. Despite my considerable scepticism, I thought he must be clean because, surely, Cameron would not have dared to bring him aboard if there was any lingering doubt about the veracity of his denials.

For a while, a good while, the phone-hacking trail went cold. Goodman and Mulcaire were released from jail and refused to speak. I bumped into Goodman at Nigel Dempster's memorial in October 2007 and asked him if he had been paid by News International to keep quiet. He smiled and said nothing.

I would guess that, as the months passed, Coulson felt increasingly confident that the saga was behind him. But he must also have been aware of the fact that his former bosses were coping with a legal action by one of the hacking victims, Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association.

Taylor was paid £400,000 by News Int, a fact that emerged in public in July last year amid revelations by Nick Davies in The Guardian about a culture of phone-hacking in the NoW newsroom during Coulson's editorship.

Davies's story, which revealed the names of other hacking victims, led to special sittings of the Commons media, culture and sport select committee.

Coulson appeared at one of them and once again denied any knowledge of phone-hacking scandal, saying: "My instructions to the staff were clear - we did not use subterfuge of any kind unless there was a clear public interest in doing so." His statements were supported by other NoW executives.

The committee's resulting report, issued in February this year, condemned the testimony of the News Int witnesses referring to their "collective amnesia" and "deliberate obfuscation".

A month later, the NoW settled a case brought against it by publicist Max Clifford for a sum reputed to have reached £1m. In succeeding months, other people contacted their lawyers too. Former MP Peter Kilfoyle is the latest to consider suing the paper.

Then, out of the blue, came the publication last week of an investigation by the New York Times. It quoted Hoare and referred to allegations by other members of the NoW staff about phone-hacking.

That prompted political concern, with the Commons home affairs select committee yesterday questioning the Met Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates over alleged police failures to investigate the NoW's phone-hacking in 2006, and since, with enough rigour (well, in fact, with any rigour at all). He stonewalled his MP interrogators.

There were certainly pertinent questions to ask both him and the home secretary, Theresa May, as Davies has pointed out.

Meanwhile, the story has some traction in the United States, according to FollowTheMedia's Philip Stone.

In my Standard column, and on the BBC Radio 4's The Media Show a half hour ago, I contended that Coulson will survive. But there are plenty of people who think otherwise.

See News of the World phone-hacking and why we may never learn real truth

• The Next Newsroom Project | Blog | HTML 5, Arcade Fire, and the next generation of multimedia storytelling
  Kevin: Google is definitely starting to find some clever ways to drive HTML5 uptake. One way is by helping to develop interesting interactivity using the emerging web standard. In this case, they have worked with Arcade Fire to develop a video that pulls in your location and "mashes up the film with Google Maps and Street View". The video also allows you to write a postcard to "your younger self". This is driving new levels of real interactivity, and it will be a great time for storytellers.
  (tags: html5 multimedia video storytelling interactivity google 2010)
• Value of Twitter Ecosystem Shrinks as Funding Falls «
  Kevin: Mathew Ingram looks at investments in companies trying to build a business in the Twitter ecosystem. As Twitter itself seeks a business model, it's making it more difficult for other companies to build their businesses off of providing Twitter services. It's a fine line. Twitter wouldn't have experienced such growth if it hadn't been for the eco-system that developed around it, but Twitter also needs to find a sustainable business model or the heart of the eco-system will die.
  (tags: twitter business venturecapital startup strategy investments 2010)
• How to Make Your Location-Based App a Success: Reward People for Their Activities
  Kevin: Sarah Perez writes at ReadWriteWeb: "According to ABI Research's Neil Strother, check-in apps may raise privacy concerns among some users today, but those issues can be overcome by offering consumers deals, discounts and rewards. The "value-exchange" of receiving these rewards will be high enough that consumers won't mind giving up privacy in order to take advantage of the benefits."
  (tags: location foursquare locationbasedservices advertising privacy mobile 2010 spoton)
• London Tube Strike Map – September 2010
  Kevin: The BBC uses Ushahidi's new cloud-based service, crowdmap, to map reports surrounding the London tube strike in September 2010. It should have had a filter not just as to what form of transportation but also whether the report was of a problem or of alternative routes to avoid congestion or suspended service.
  (tags: crowdsourcing london bbc tubestrike Ushahidi cloudcomputing 2010 training)

Odd one: AOL (AOL) board member Jim Wiatt is stepping down from that role, but will get a new one as a “strategic advisor”, the company announced. AOL says Wiatt, the former head of the William Morris agency, will report directly to CEO Tim Armstrong, “helping to expand AOL’s development of content, partnerships and relationships across the entertainment and media world”. If this sounds familiar, it should: Google’s (GOOG) Eric Schmidt was discussing a similar role for Wiatt in 2009.

Deputy PM Nick Clegg and Labour's Jack Straw clash in Commons over Andy Coulson's involvement in News of the World phone-hacking scandal

Wallpaper* October issue sees Lynch share editor's chair with stage director Robert Wilson

Film director David Lynch has guest-edited a section of the October issue of IPC Media's design, fashion and lifestyle magazine Wallpaper*.

Lynch, whose credits include Blue Velvet, Eraserhead and Twin Peaks, and stage director Robert Wilson have each edited a section of the magazine's latest issue, as well as creating their own covers.

In a collaboration with creative communications agency Dentsu London, Wallpaper* readers will be able to animate Wilson's still images by using a striped sheet of acetate provided by the magazine.

Readers can also use a QR code – a type of two-dimensional barcode that can be scanned by a smartphone - to go to a web page where they can view Wilson's films, which feature Isabella Rossellini, Brad Pitt, a sumo wrestling champion and snowy owls.

Wallpaper* will also launch its first iPad app with the October issue, The Director's Cut, which goes on sale tomorrow.

Deputy PM Nick Clegg offers only qualified backing for No 10's director of communications, Andy Coulson, as Speaker grants debate on newspaper phone hacking

The Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson is under renewed pressure as it was announced that MPs will hold an emergency Commons debate about newspaper phone hacking tomorrow.

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minster, gave only qualified backing to Coulson at prime minister's questions today as Labour strived to keep the affair at the top of the political agenda.

As the Speaker, John Bercow, said he would grant a debate on phone hacking, Clegg refused to say whether he believed Coulson's insistence that he did not know about the illegal practices that took place when he was editor of the News of the World.

Taking prime minster's questions in the absence of David Cameron, who flew to France to be with his ill father today, Clegg warned Labour not to "second guess" police inquiries into fresh allegations surrounding Cameron's press chief.

Clegg cited Coulson's repeated insistence that he had no knowledge of the practice when he was editor of the paper. It was "for the police alone" to decide if a new investigation was required, Clegg told Jack Straw, the shadow justice secretary, who was leading for Labour.

Immediately after the session, Bercow said he had accepted a request from Labour former minister Chris Bryant – who is one of the MPs whose mobile phones is alleged to have been hacked – for a debate tomorrow, in which Coulson's role is likely to come under further scrutiny. .

Senior Liberal Democrats were highly critical of the former NoW editor before joining the Tories in government, with Chris Huhne, now climate change and energy secretary, publicly suggesting before the general election that Coulson was either complicit or incompetent.

Pressed by Straw today on whether he was "entirely satisfied" that Coulson had been in the dark about phone hacking at the News of the World, Clegg directed MPs to the previous statement of the Number 10 communications chief, which he insisted "speaks for itself".

"Phone hacking is a very serious offence indeed. It is an outrageous invasion of privacy and it is right that two individuals were convicted and imprisoned," Clegg told MPs.

"As for Mr Coulson, he has made it very, very clear that he took responsibility for something of which he had no knowledge at the News of the World and he refutes all the allegations that have been made to the contrary."

He added: "It is now for the police, and the police alone, to decide whether new evidence has come to light which needs to be investigated."

Coulson always denied any knowledge of the illegal eavesdropping, for which the NoW's ex-royal editor, Clive Goodman, and a private detective were jailed in 2007.

But one of his former reporters, Sean Hoare, reignited the row last week by publicly claiming his boss had been aware of the activities. Senior Scotland Yard officer John Yates indicated yesterday he was likely to speak to Coulson as he considers whether to reopen the police probe.

In a further development, the Guardian reported today that a key witness has said he will testify on the phone-hacking affair, both to police and an inquiry begun by parliament.

Ross Hall, a former employee who until now has been silent, had been named in a previous MPs' inquiry as the man who transcribed swaths of hacked voicemail messages for other journalists, including the tabloid's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck.

He told the Guardian he was willing to talk to Scotland Yard and to the home affairs select committee inquiry, which was announced by MPs yesterday.

Downing Street has stood firm on the matter, insisting that Coulson's position is not under threat and said he has the full backing of the prime minister.

Straw used the Commons' session to put pressure on Clegg by quoting Huhne's former comments in which he said that Coulson "was either complicit in criminal activity or the most incompetent editor in Fleet Street".

Straw told Clegg: "Do you expect us to believe that the only person who knew nothing about phone hacking at News of the World was the editor – the very man the prime minister has brought into the heart of the government?"

Clegg replied: "Mr Huhne and I are in complete agreement that if new evidence has come to light the police – and that is what I want and that is what I expect – will now actively look to see whether that evidence is worthy of further investigation. That is what the police are there for," Clegg retorted.

The deputy prime minister took the opportunity to claim that the first person to call Coulson to commiserate on his resignation was Labour former prime minister Gordon Brown.

"He told him not to worry, that he had done the honourable thing and that he knew he would go on to do a worthwhile job," Clegg said to laughter from the government benches.

Social network has 2,600 groups covering various projects and lab methods, and is backed by experienced investors

There was a time, before the Facebook reign truly began, when specialist networks seemed to be the direction in which social networks were headed. Although a handful of big-name sites now dominate the space, there are still opportunities, now the marker has matured a little, for a well-executed niche network to build a strong business.

That's exactly what ResearchGATE has done for the scientific research community by building a site that crowdsources research. With an impressive set of experienced investors, the Berlin and Massachusetts-based site is announcing its first major funding round today. Medical doctor and PhD Ijad Madisch founded the site two years ago to build a community around scientific research but also to capture what he describes as "research redundancy".

"People only report positive results, whereas research is really often based on what didn't work," he said. ResearchGATE has 2,600 groups covering various projects and lab methods, with those communities replacing what had traditionally been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at seminars. It's about presenting work in progress and sharing practical research tips.

Madisch said scientists and researchers from 196 countries and principalities are contributing to the site, with users in the US, UK, Germany and India making up the bulk of the 500,000 registered users. Madisch said the undisclosed amount of funding will be used to expand the staff team in Berlin and accelerate growth of the company and audience base.

The round was led by Benchmark, with Accel and various UK superangels including Bebo founder Michael Birch, Accel's Simon Levene and Rolf Christof Dienst of Wellington. Scout24 founder Joachim Schoss, idealo.com co-founder Martin Sinner, Sedo.com co-founder Ulrich Essmann and MyVideo.de found Christian Vollmann have all joined the funding round. It's like buses. Benchmark's Matt Cohler, with Leven and Schoss, join the board.

Is this is threat to UK research startup Mendeley? Madisch doesn't think so. "I believe in more diverse apps. Mendeley is more about literature - we cover literature but also collaboration, events, jobs... I want to be very diversified because everyone needs something different." Different, but also with every chance of making a real difference. This is where the promise of crowdsourcing and collaboration could really be fulfilled.

• Former Google China head and startup whisperer Kai-Fu Lee >> AllThingsD
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• The next five years in social media >> Mashable
• Google lets Yahoo users sign in with OpenID >> Wired
• Five of the best tablets revealed so far >> Gizmodo
• Should Android be startups' first choice? >> GigaOM
• Google TV to go global >> WSJ
• Google's Schmidt: Autonomous, fast search is 'our new definition' >> mocoNews
• How Ping might grow >> Daring Fireball
• 3D TV is here to stay >> TechCrunch
• The future of search: news before you know you want it >> Econsultancy
• New demo of Google TV >> Daring Fireball
• Firefox 4 Beta: Faster graphics and visual sound >> TechCrunch
• iPod nano - sixth generation, late 2010 >> Macworld
• Justin Bieber has dedicated servers at Twitter >> Gizmodo

Photo by kindofadraag on Flickr. Some rights reserved

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• All we can take is one day of logos. >> TechCrunch
• Thoughts from a former Craigslist sex worker >> Huffington Post
• Google courts Yahoo users with one-click account creation >> Mashable
• Freed journalist tricked captors into Twitter access >> PC World
• Samsung to sell 10m Galaxy Tabs by Q3 2011? >> VentureBeat
• Web privacy startups struggle >> WSJ
• Craigslist quiet on fate of adult services section >> Yahoo

Via Google Reader

Can anything be off-the-record when the prime minister of the largest democracy in the solar system has a rare celestial confluence with the stars and satellites of the media galaxy?

More importantly, should anything be off the record?

And merely because a media minder says so, should it remain off the record, howsoever important the issue?

Manmohan Singh, a television-era politician with a face for the radio (who hasn’t given a single one-on-one interview to any Indian print, television or digital journalist since 2004), called for a rare pow-wow with a dozen of the “second-most important people in India“, on Monday, 6 September, the year of the lord 2010.

Obviously, it was a belated attempt at getting some good press after the intimations of mortality some of his party colleagues have been giving him in morse code. More such interactions are to follow.

All went to plan till the paperboy flung the Tuesday papers into 7, Race Course Road.

The nation’s largest English daily, The Times of India, led with the headline: “China wants India to be in state of low-level equilibrium.”

ToI (represented at the meeting by its executive editor Arindam Sengupta) reported that in response to a question, the PM had:

“agreed that Beijing could be tempted to use India’s ‘soft underbelly,’ Kashmir, and Pakistan ‘to keep India in low-level equilibrium….’ China would like to have a foothold in South Asia and we have to reflect on this reality.”

Turns out the PM’s comment was off-the-record, and the PM’s description of Kashmir as India’s “soft underbelly” was actually the questioner’s.

The Wall Street Journal has a story today on how the prime minister was “furious” at the outcome.

What’s not clear is whether Mr. Singh’s bad experience with the media will force him back in to his shell. “The idea was our friends in the media should have access to the prime minister,” the senior Indian government official said. “This is a bit of a setback.”

Obviously, there were some pre-arranged rules for the interaction. However, was the PM too trustful of the media on the hot-button issue of the day (China) on which two of his ministerial colleagues (Jairam Ramesh and P. Chidambaram) sparred openly and noisily?

Or did the PM himself let it slip deliberately?

Read the full article: Will media setback silence Mr Singh?

Also read: Why Manmohan should talk to the media more

Harish Khare: Because when man bites dog, it’s news—I

Harish Khare: Because when man bites dog, it’s news—II

Chinese hackers break into The Times of India

Censorship in the name of ‘national interest’

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Niemann Foundation for Journalism at Harvard have concluded plans to work together to support "international reporting initiatives with a special focus on global health coverage."

Established in 2006, Nieman Foundation's specialized fellowship in global health has been helping journalists "learn and report about health issues firsthand." However, recent media trends have made this task more difficult and according to a Press Release from Nieman FJH, "placing those stories in mainstream media outlets is becoming increasingly difficult." Media houses are struggling with declining audiences, and searching for ways to compete with all the free content on the internet. It is not very practical footing expensive bills for journalists who want to cover international issues.

This collaboration with Pulitzer CCR is therefore a welcome development, especially as the Pulitzer Center has been known to ensure international news can be available to the average individual. The center has agreed to sponsor Nieman FJR global health fellows' fieldwork in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Nieman Foundation curator Bob Giles explains that the "new venture will benefit not only Nieman Global Health Fellows but many other reporters covering international events and issues." Will this opportunity for improved international reporting boost appreciation for traditional journalistic values?

Source: Nieman FJH Press Release

New York Observer

Baltimore Sun | You Don't Say
It read: "Opposing votes limn difference in race." A reader tells the Sun: "To put a word like 'limn' in the headline for the lead article on the front page of this newspaper seems to me to be unbelievably arrogant and patronizing." John McIntyre, the paper's grammar guru, says the word "is most commonly found in writing about art, so it may not have been the shrewdest choice for the front page, rather than an arts page."

Add another digital music startup to the bonfire: Amazon is buying up Amie Street, the online store it helpd fund four years ago. Jeff Bezos and company will shut down Amie Street’s retail operations, and focus exclusively on Songza, a music streaming service the company acquired last year.

Terms weren’t disclosed, but it’s unlikely Amazon paid much for Amie Street, which tried an innovative retail model, based on variable pricing, that never really broke through: The company took a long time to get the big music labels on board, and when they did it was in a limited way. So the store was primarily a place for unknown musicians to try promoting their stuff. It is perhaps most famous as the place you could go to hear the , who is best known for work other than music.

So the company has been shifting toward Songaz and a Pandora-like radio model for a while, but making that really work requires significant resources for marketing and license fees.

So the Amazon (AMZN) deal makes sense for both sides: The startup team gets to keep working, and Amazon gets a relatively cheap addition to its digital music portfolio, as it tries to figure out how to cut into Apple’s (AAPL) dominance.

Here’s the letter Amie Street sent out to its users:

Amie Street is Moving to Amazon

Dear Amie Street Community,

As of September 22, 2010, all AmieStreet.com pages will be forwarded to Amazon.com and you will no longer be able to use AmieStreet.com or any of its services.

The folks at Amazon have been our advisers since they invested in Amie Street almost four years ago, and as a small thank you for your loyalty and support we’re giving you a $5 promotional code* to spend at the Amazon MP3 store. Simply click here (http://www.amazon.com/mp3credit) and enter this %%code%%. The promotional code must be redeemed by December 1, 2010.

Regarding your Amie Street account, please make sure you download all of your purchased music by September 22, 2010 (the music you have previously downloaded will continue to play normally). If you have credit in your AmieStreet.com account, please make sure you spend your remaining balance before September 22, 2010 as it will not transfer over to Amazon.com.

If you have any questions, concerns or thoughts you’d like to share with us, please don’t hesitate to contact us at feedback@amiestreet.com and one of us will answer you personally.

We believe we’ve found a great home for AmieStreet.com and are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for you, our fantastic customers.

We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your support, help, patience and enthusiasm, and we sincerely hope you’ll continue with us on our journey with the new Songza.com.

Thanks for an incredible four years!

-Elias, Elliott, Eric, Josh and Peter

AmieStreet.com

*Restrictions apply. See www.amazon.com/mp3credit for terms & conditions. Service available only to customers in the United States and is subject to the Amazon MP3 Music Service Terms of Use.

When the Boulder Sheriff's emergency alert system failed, its emergency operations center asked that residents use Twitter and Facebook to help spread the word of mandatory evacuations,reports the Boulder Blog.

Documents have helped tell the story about hospital care in Las Vegas, city budgets in Missouri, and the oil industry in Washington, D.C.

No. 1: Mobile devices allow for more hybrid journalism, and No. 3: Geolocation a defining feature of mobile content

NPR wants to show that with the right resources, stations can create beats of value to the community and in turn increase their own audience and value by using the internet as a platform for original content.

NetNewsCheck.com, the web portal delivering news and information as it happens for local online media executives, announced today that it will present a Special Report, The State of the Local Online Media Industry, beginning Thursday, September 9, 2010.

"The open secret of online publishing is that ... wild discrepancies are routine. Whether you ask The Washington Post or a stand-alone site like Talking Points Memo (TPM), you’ll hear the same refrain: publishers looking at their own server data always see much more traffic than is reported by Nielsen and comScore."

Mark Contreras of NAA and E.W. Scripps: "The lack of standards creates disproportionately low CPMs. If you look at the average CPM for a national Internet buy compared to any other media, it’s one-fifth, one-tenth the amount of a legacy media CPM. ... Part of the reason for that is the lack of standards. It’s retarding revenue growth"