Whoops wrong Kroeger More journalistic expertise from the Herald Sun Confidential team Fiona Byrne, Alice Coster and Katherine Firkin. There were tremors in the Liberal Party today as Confidential reported that Nickelback crooner Michael Kroeger has been practising his poker face while in Melbourne. “The deep-voiced singer has been spending time with poker champion Joe Hachem in between his two shows at Rod Laver Arena.”

The Confidential team probably means Nickelback crooner Chad Kroeger. Michael Kroger has not given up his day job at the Liberal Party. Or maybe they meant band member Mike Kroeger, whose full name is Michael Kroeger. But Mike isn’t the crooner or deep-voiced singer. He’s the bass player. — Crikey reader Thurston Howell The 3rd

Bad Santa. Today’s NT News provides Crikey with our (albeit tasteless) headline of the day:

ABC to relaunch opinion site Unleashed In a move that will put the ABC directly up against News Ltd and Fairfax’s online comment sites, the broadcaster is relaunching ABC Unleashed to form part of a new commentary and analysis site that will for the first time aggregate the public broadcaster’s commentry content as well as feature original material…As part of the changes, Unleashed editor Catherine Taylor will report to the new editor of the still-to-be-named opinion site, Jonathan Green, the outgoing Crikey editor. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Annabel Crabb will also join Green’s team. There are currently three commissioning staff – including Taylor – on Unleased, which primarily features content from external contributors. — Mumbrella

Go, just go!/$8 million to leave. CNN was so sick of Lou Dobbs, it gave him an $8 million severance package to leave, The Post has learned. CNN boss Jonathan Klein and Dobbs, 64, had been publicly feuding over the kind of reporting Dobbs was doing on his show — especially stories about illegal immigration and the anti-Obama “birther” movement, which contends the president was not born in Hawaii and is not an American citizen. Klein long believed Dobbs was at odds with CNN’s desire to position itself as an opinion-free, middle-of-the-road alternative to its cable news rivals — conservative Fox News and liberal MSNBC. Dobbs characterized his split with CNN after 27 years as “pleasant, friendly and professional”. — New York Post

NSW Supreme Court Judge calls for changes to defamation laws. One of Australia’s leading judges has called for a rethink of defamation laws, saying trials are now three times longer, overwhelm juries and can inflict “very considerable injustice” on litigants. — The Australian

AFR relaunch The Financial Review Group has this week launched its new look AFR.com site, but media buyers remain reserved about just how much the changes will lure more subscribers and advertisers.

The relaunched site claims to be more user friendly, with more advertising inventory and a new editorial section called AFR Dealbook which provides an analysis of all the major business deals and capital market developments. — Mumbrella

Would the Wall Street Journal survive a Google block? If anyone could survive invisibility on Google, it’s Mr. Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal — even though the newspaper’s website got 7% of its page views and 17% of its unique visitors through Google last month, according to Compete.com. The move could make News Corp. websites work more like print — in a good way. Readers who want news from their favorite source would have to enter through the front door, registering and subscribing along the way. Those readers are worth more to advertisers than the unwashed, anonymous masses shipped in by search. – Advertising Age

YouTube supports citizen journalism. A new YouTube service aims to make it easier for citizen journalists filming everything from celebrity antics to natural disasters to connect with news outlets. The YouTube Direct service allows news outlets to request, verify, and rebroadcast video from YouTube users. NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Politico were among the news outlets on board as the service was unveiled today, Reuters reports. — Newser

No athiests allowed. The BBC Trust has rejected calls for non-religious contributors to be allowed on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. Complaints were made earlier this year that banning atheists, secularist or humanists from taking part in Thought for the Day breached the BBC’s guidelines on impartiality. However, today the trust said it had found that Thought for the Day is “religious output and that it is a matter of editorial discretion for the BBC executive and its director general as editor-in-chief as to whether the BBC broadcasts a slot commenting on an issue of the day from a faith perspective”. — The Guardian