Comments made by Conrad Black, one time head of Hollinger International Inc., on the untapped potential of Canadian news titles have prompted speculation that the former media magnate may be considering a return to the newspaper industry.

During a meeting of the editorial board at Huffington Post Canada, Black remarked that “[t]here is a great premium to be placed on the editorial function and on the goodwill of a famous trademark like a respected newspaper.” He went on to add that he could be interested by a “good title that’s grossly under-priced.” The current state of Canada’s news press could see Black presented with just such a low-cost opportunity in the near future. One of Canada’s largest news companies, Postmedia Network Canada Corp. has been forced to respond to declining ad revenue and debts of $516 million (CAD) with radical efficiency restructuring, involving job cuts and the cancellation of Sunday print editions in certain areas.

"The biggest media event in history," might well be shaping up into "the biggest circulation war for decades," according to a report from the Guardian, which highlights the extensive efforts by the British press regarding Olympics coverage.

Offices of the Mexican newspaper El Norte near Monterrey have been attacked three times in less than a month. In the most recent attack, on Sunday, armed and masked men broke into the offices and started a fire using gasoline, according to a report on The Telegraph's website.

Brazilian newspapers are reporting growth in average daily circulation as well as advertising revenue, based on data from the Circulation Verification Institute (IVC) and published on news.com.au.

Back when WAN-IFRA was still FIEJ (the Fédération Internationale des Editeurs de Journaux et Publications), the organisation’s 1962 News Bulletin carried an article that showed that the vast majority of British newspapers relied on advertising, not reader-generated revenue, to cover production and distribution costs. "Quality" newspapers garnered 73 percent of their income from advertising, as opposed to sales and circulation revenue at weekly titles. It is a trend that dates from well before the 1960s and continues to the present day, in both the UK and the United States.

At least, it was a trend that continued until very recently. Now there are growing signs that the tide is at last turning. This week, the New York Times co., publisher of The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe released second quarter figures showing that its titles’ circulation-generated revenue was higher than advertising revenue. Although dwindling income from print and digital advertising (which shrank by 6.6 percent and stands at $220 million) undoubtedly contributed to the shift, the Times’ famous paywall and an increase in price for print subscriptions saw circulation revenue at the NYT company’s news titles rise by 8.3 percent, to $233 million.

The New York Times was in the news on several fronts today. First, Peter Kafka on AllThingsD.com, reports that the newspaper has seen an increase in circulation revenue, but that both print and digital advertising figures are down. Kafka also notes the number of digital subscribers has climbed to 532,000. According to a report on FishbowlNY, the company might announce a new CEO as soon as September (former CEO Janet Robinson left late last year).

In other NYT news, Reuters reports that as of this past Monday, the Times has pulled the plug on its BlackBerry app. And, in yet another report, former Executive Editor Bill Keller tells GigaOM's Mathew Ingram why we should defend WikiLeaks.

Though the temperature is soaring in Paris the sun has set for France-Soir, the embattled title that had been serving the French public since 1944. The Tribunal de commerce de Paris, the city’s commercial court, announced on Tuesday, 23 July that the paper’s assets were to be liquidated, after several buyout attempts failed to fully materialise. France-Soir’s archives, domain name, brand, and production rights will subsequently be auctioned off  and all 49 members of staff, 42 of whom are journalists, now find themselves unemployed.

It looks like a normal tweet. It can be re-tweeted, replied to and marked as a “favourite” like a normal tweet, but Twitter’s new targeted tweets are not shared in the same way as the standard model, and it’s this feature that seems to be paying dividends for advertisers like The Washington Post.

Only five days ago Twitter officially announced that it would be enhancing its "Promoted Tweets," having already piloted a new scheme with British Airways, Wendys, The Washington Post and Coca-Cola. The changes introduced mean that instead of publishing a tweet to all followers and only being able to make it a promoted tweet afterwards, advertisers can target specific sections of their audiences according to geographical location, or device (desktop/ laptop computer vs. mobile phones, tablets).

Rupert Murdoch has stepped down from the boards of all his newspaper businesses, reports Press Gazette. Dan Sabbagh in the Guardian points out that "the 81-year-old is no longer a director of a UK company for the first time since the late 1960s."

"News curators must collect, summarize, make sense, add value, attribute, link, intrigue and entice," writes Steve Buttry, Digital First Media's Director of Community Engagement & Social Media, in a post on his blog titled "Curation techniques, types and tips."

Digital First's new curation team was supposed to begin work next Monday, but following the shooting in Colorado, the company assembled a "makeshift" team to help MediaNews Group title The Denver Post report on the tragedy, reports Journalism.co.uk.

“The change in the industry right now is the most dramatic I've ever seen... Virtually every paper in the country is, if not diving head first, at least dipping [its] toes into video,” said videographer Chuck Fadley to the American Journalism Review.

That was nearly four years ago; it is now safe to say they are doing canon balls.

The New York Times, which started including videos with digital news stories seven years ago, now produces approximately 120 videos per month, and streams two live shows to its website every business day. The Wall Street Journal, which began shooting video more than three years ago, now produces about 50 clips per day, as well as nine live shows from around the globe. Meanwhile, the U.S. edition of the Huffington Post has recently unveiled HuffPost Live, a plan to stream live video to its website for 12 hours five days a week beginning on August 13.

Logically enough, the news content is attracted by the prospect of advertising revenue.

The smartphone has become the latest hope for news outlets struggling to fight falling print revenue.

The Star, Malaysia’s most read English daily, recently introduced the iSnap, a feature that brings the “newspaper to life” using augmented reality technology and two major Australian publishers, Fairfax and News Limited have both launched new smartphone enhancements in the past month.

Over at The Star, iSnap sprang from an internal challenge thrown to the New Media Department and to the paper’s technology partner, Knorex Pte Ltd of Singapore. Summoned by the owners to find new ways to enhance the flagship publication, both teams started an intense brainstorming session that eventually triggered the iSnap concept.

“The Guardian wants to aggregate the web’s best journalism, and it wants your help,” begins Mashable’s Lauren Indvik as she reports on the newspaper’s plans to launch a “pop-up aggregator” today. The way to participate? Tweet great commentary and analysis on trending stories with the hashtag #smarttakes.

A court order has banned the BBC from broadcasting a docu-drama about last year’s London riots, the Guardian reports, and the broadcaster's lawyers are considering making a formal appeal.

The digital news payments kiosk Piano Media through which numerous Slovenian and Slovakian publishers charge for content has announced that seven publishers in Poland (who are together behind 26 national and regional newspapers, 42 websites and 11 magazines) will adopt a joint subscription system in September, Journalism.co.uk and PaidContent report.

Narcissistic linking disorder (NLD): an ailment whereby mainstream news organisations link more frequently to themselves than to anyone else. And on average, they do – a shocking 91 percent of the time – despite their best philosophical intentions, according to a recent study by Mark Coddington at the University of Texas, Austin. On the other side of the navel-gazing spectrum, independent bloggers link to themselves only 18 percent of the time on average. Poynter’s Andrew Beaujon reports.

The Guardian News and Media, parent company of the Guardian and Observernewspapers, is expected to announce job cuts in the near future, following publishing losses of about £45m in the financial year ending in March 2012, the Telegraph andMediaWeek report.