Danny Sheridan

Four weeks ago, USA Today handicapper Danny Sheridan had 11,000 Twitter followers.

“Then, starting on the first of June, something crazy happened,” writes John Koblin. “His follower count started to skyrocket. Between June 1 and today, his Twitter follower count went from some 11,000 to nearly 400,000. For the last month, he has been picking up thousands and thousands of followers a day.”

WHAT SHERIDAN SAYS: “I have never, ever spent a penny to buy followers on Twitter.”

He emails Koblin:

the people responsible for this (claiming I’ve bought twiter names) appear to run criminal outfits, according to the DOJ & our country laws, and are only doing this to raise awareness to their name (by using my name & usatody’s name, as no one has ever heard of them including you). I intend to contact the DOJ about them, & my guess is they will then crawl under the rock they’ve always been. I’ve not broken any laws, let’s see if they can say the same thing if and when the DOJ contacts them

* Is USA Today’s veteran gambling guy buying Twitter followers? (USA Today)
* Join the hundreds of thousands following Sheridan on Twitter

Go ahead and read this while you’re finishing your eggs and hash browns.

On @CNBC, @rupertmurdoch says name of Wall Street Journal might be changed to WSJ.

— Charles Forelle (@charlesforelle) June 28, 2012

A story in today’s Wall Street Journal says Rupert Murdoch “has long eyed titles such as the Los Angeles Times, whose parent company, Tribune Co., is due to emerge from bankruptcy in coming months.” But Murdoch tells his paper that an LAT deal would have to be looked at “closely” because of regulatory restrictions, among other things.

He also told CNBC’s David Faber that he might change the Wall Street Journal’s name to simply WSJ. (The Journal’s Charles Forelle tweeted the news and got this reaction from followers: “Say it isn’t so!” and “I don’t get it.”)

In the New York Times, Amy Chozik writes:

When asked by analysts about his papers’ future, Mr. Murdoch replied: “The answer is one word: digital.” He said the new company would double down on its digital efforts and that news was “the most valuable commodity in the world” even if “people are buying fewer papers printed on crushed wood.”

Murdoch also said on CNBC that “I’ll head the [News Corp.] board until they bury me.” The 81-year-old media mogul added: “I’m not saying that day is any time soon. I’m in great shape, and, obviously, if I’m lucky enough to live a long time, a very long time, there will be a time when I’ll slow down mentally, and I’ll have to get out.”

* Inside Murdoch’s decision (Wall Street Journal)
* Murdoch praises News Corp.’s newspapers (New York Times)
* Murdoch says News Corp. split will unlock value (Los Angeles Times)
* Watch Murdoch being interviewed by David Faber (CNBC)