Only nine percent of Brits approve of News Corp. takeover of BSkyB, but will it matter?

A poll released this weekend by YouGov, a London-based public opinion survey company shows that only nine percent of those surveyed thought the proposed News Corp. bid to take over full ownership of BSkyB should go forward, while 70 percent were opposed.

But will public opinion really matter? If this were the U.S. involved the answer would be a resounding No based on the complete lack of responsiveness to public opinion exhibited by teh Congress and White House on issues such as tax hikes, social programs and war.

But the U.K. situation might be different in that there are mechanisms in place such as stronger media regulations and oversight that might make the public's opinion more influential.

The survey, conducted with The Sunday Times, a Murdoch owned property, was quite lengthy and covered a number of topics including the practice of journalists paying police officers for information – no surprise, they are against it.

Publishers show disrespect for their own readers by accepting cheap, poorly designed replicas from vendors

While Apple celebrates the fact that their iPad tablet now has thousands of apps available for it in the App Store, users are well aware that a huge number of those apps are garbage: badly designed apps only developed to lure in the naive. Apps are the new Wild West.

What is amazing, however, is how many of these garbage apps come from media companies, especially newspapers. Each week brings more new apps, developed by third party vendors that are often no more than digital versions of the print edition, shrunk down to the size of the iPad's display. If these replica editions are virtually unreadable on the iPad, how readable will they be on a seven inch display?

No matter, it is clear that many newspaper publishers do not care in the least. Their goal is to get something, anything into the App Store before they are accused of being dinosaurs.

Sadly I am beginning to see a new trend: digital replica editions launched as an alternative to native designs. The Oklahoman, for instance, released a tablet edition back in October that was fairly well received by readers, though quite a number complained about the price.

But for some reason the paper has now released an app from Olive Software, a maker of flipbooks, that is a replica of the print edition. The Oklahoman Print Replica is still priced the same as the native app, so it doesn't solve the price issue. So why does this app even exist?

I attempted to test the app but found it completely unresponsive to attempts to access the same issue - constantly giving me the same warning message despite following the app description instructions. I quickly gave up, after all, why would I want to read a replica edition on an iPad anyway.

In the meantime, The Oklahoman has issued an update its older app that regular users claim makes the app unusable. Since I don't have a paid subscription, and can access the content for seven days as a trial, I did not experience any major problems, though I did find the app 'sticky' in its navigation.

Morning Brief: Afghanistan's battle with the Taliban turns personal; Google Doodle celebrates the 450th anniversary of the completion of Moscow's Saint Basil's Cathedral

The endless war in Afghanistan, fought between its government and the Taliban, the US and the Taliban, and the US and the Afghanis, turned a little more personal today with the assassination of Ahmad Wali Karzai, the chairman of the Kandahar Provincial Council and the half-brother of President Hamid Karzai.

Apparently the work of one of his own bodyguard, the assassination may harden Afghanistan's government position towards any negotiated peace, and extend out even further the involvement of US troops.

The TelegraphG describes the impact this way: "(Ahmad Wali Karzai's) assassination is likely to drive home a very stark message to the Afghan population, that the Afghan state under President Karzai is incapable of providing security, even for its own leadership. As such, this will make it much harder for Nato to persuade the local population to switch their allegiance to the Afghan government as ISAF forces begin to hand over the security lead to Afghan.

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Today's Google Doodle celebrates the 450th anniversary of Saint Basil's Cathedral, located in Moscow's Red Square, and completed in 1561.

The cathedral is one of the most distinctive in the world, and has been as much synonymous with Moscow as the Effel Tower is synonymous with Paris.

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The final edition of the News of the World reportedly sold 3.8 million copies, and it is this fact that probably lies behind the whole phone hacking scandal. It is the question appears to lie at the heart of today's popular press: does the insatiable thirst of consumers for celebrity news and private details justify the methods the press (and especially the Murdoch press) use to obtain such information? Is 3.8 million the answer to the question "at which point does economics trump morality and professionalism?"

"Retailers were hit by unprecedented demand as people swept up copies of the newspaper, which included a 48-page souvenir pullout charting some of the paper's famous scoops over its 168-year history," News International said in their press release.

But as the actor Hugh Grant said the other day, there is the issue of what interests the public, and what is in the public interest.

Late afternoon updates: News International phone hacking story continues to dwarf all other media news; Hoodgrown gets an update, as does ABC News, MLB.TV

For most of the day I have been without electricity in my office forcing me, along with hundreds of others in the Chicago area, being great customers of Starbucks today. Though I could have posted more news here at TNM the simple fact is that nothing I would have posted would have been nearly as important as the story that continues to come from the UK.

The Guardian, and to a lesser degree, other newspapers like The Telegraph, continue to update the phone hacking story. Nothing else in the world of media really can compare with this one story.

But if you want to know just how dead Editor & Publisher really is, check them out today. Their headline is a link to an AP story: Rupert Murdoch Takes Charge of Newspaper Scandal. If E&P didn't die a year and half ago, it is surely dead, dead, dead now.

So what else is going on? We;;, I'm sure TNM reader Chris Cartel wouldn't mind me mentioning that he has updated the app for his tablet magazine Hoodgrown. The app now sports in-app purchase activation.

ABC News also updated their app, which is really a good thing since users have complained about the app's performance.

MLB.TV has also issued an update to its iPad app in time for the All Star game. It also claims to fix some performance issue. I certainly hope so because, frankly, I rather tired of having it conk out with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.

Storm knocks out TNM

A massive storm blew through the Chicago area this morning, knocking out power about two minutes after this morning's first story was posted. No word on when power will be restored.

In the meantime, The Guardian continues to post revelation after revelation concerning the phone hacking scandal.

Update: Finally, late in the afternoon the power is back on. Sorry for the lack of posts, but this will be explained in the next post.

The Guardian launches Kindle Edition in UK; still testing new iPad app with select readers

In the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, the newspaper that has been leading the coverage, The Guardian, has launched a Kindle Edition (U.S. link here.). The price is £9.99 per month or £0.99 per issue in the U.K., and $9.99 per month or $.75 per issue in the U.S.

The Guardian also said that it is testing a new tablet edition for the iPad with some readers, though they still did not announced a launch date for their iPad app.

"Our objective has been to produce the most accessible, elegant interpretation of the Guardian newspaper for iPad and we hope we're close to achieving that aim," wrote Subhajit Banerjee on the paper's website.

"Rather than simply replicate the newspaper design for iPad, this project has provided an opportunity for us to redesign the newspaper exclusively in tablet form. The app will deliver a single daily edition of content, specifically curated for iPad. Like Kindle, it will be a subscription product, though we will be releasing it with a free trial period from launch," Banerjee wrote.