A merger of sorts at Queensland Newspapers. News Limited isn’t merging its Queensland tabloids The Courier Mail and Sunday Mail as has long been rumoured — but it is combining some resources within the Bowen Hills bunker.

Queensland Newspapers editor-in-chief David Fagan — who stepped up from the editorship of the Courier earlier this year under a management restructure — confirms to Crikey that sports journalists and photographers will now work to a seven-day roster, filing for both papers. Separate sports/photo editors will remain. Fagan assures us there are “definitely no redundancies”. He told Crikey by email this morning: “The papers will remain separate and competitive.” — Jason Whittaker

AFR out to lunch. Australian Financial Review editor Glenn Burge and reporter Anne Hyland should hang their heads in shame for a blatant rip-off perpetrated in today’s edition of the paper. On page 69 is a feature entitled “Lunch for the AFR” (this one is with ABC chairman and former broker Maurice Newman), complete with where the lunch was held, what was eaten and how much it all cost. It’s a direct steal from the long-running feature in the weekend edition of the Financial Times, which includes the lunch menu, cost and where it was eaten. Last Saturday’s edition featured former British SAS soldier and now author, Andy McNab. Don’t Burge and others realise that the weekend edition of the FT is the paper’s best seller in Australia each week? Don’t they read it? As with so much of the AFR, there’s nothing original in the idea. — Glenn Dyer

Google mapping tests China’s internet liberalism

“New Chinese licensing rules for online mapping services could provide the first measure of the government’s attitude toward Google Inc since the internet giant stopped operating its Chinese web-search site in March.” — Wall Street Journal

Apple challenges Google in ad market

“In just eight weeks, Apple’s infant mobile advertising effort has emerged as a serious contender to challenge Google for the crown in the fast-growing new ad market.” — Sydney Morning Herald

The oil spills, but the news is getting clogged

“Journalists struggling to document the impact of the oil rig explosion have repeatedly found themselves turned away from public areas affected by the spill, and not only by BP and its contractors, but by local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and government officials.” —  New York Times

NY Times spikes the word ‘tweet’

“Yesterday, the following memo went out, asking writers to abstain from the invented past-tense and other weird iterations of the magical noun-verb ‘Twitter’.” — The AWL

CNN checks in at World Cup

“CNN and Foursquare are teaming up on a 2010 FIFA World Cup promotion.” — WebNewser