In the Air: Digital will boost mags' circulation

*Intriguing appointment: Google UK's new boss Dan Cobley has joined the board of Telegraph Media Group. The two firms' London offices are virtually opposite each other in Victoria on Buckingham Palace Road.

*It's hard to believe that Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger decides his pay on the basis of what George Monbiot writes but the Left-wing columnist's call for a £500,000 "maximum wage" - as reported here last month - has been heeded. Rusbridger, whose annual package last year was worth £605,000, will now earn £470,000 after he gave up 10% of his salary and half his pension contribution.

*Has the Government quietly restarted its spend on advertising and marketing after highly publicised austerity cuts 18 months ago? The NHS is pushing TV ads encouraging people to quit smoking and now the Ministry of Defence is set to launch an Army recruitment drive with a consortium that includes ad agency JWT and outsourcers Capita. Perhaps Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and No. 10 strategy guru Steve Hilton have belatedly discovered ads are an effective way for Government to talk to citizens...

*Tim Bell, chairman of Chime Communications, owner of PR firm Bell Pottinger and ad agency VCCP, will be grilled at a fundraising question and answer session in aid of the National Advertising Benevolent Society (NABS) on February 27.

Organisers promise Lord Bell will answer questions from leading figures, including WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell, at Conway Hall in Holborn. But will Bell talk about his plans for a management buyout of Bell Pottinger after some unfortunate PR about the agency's government lobbying? Details about tickets are at nabs.org.uk.

*Could Rupert Murdoch be personally liable for any of the bad behaviour that happened at News Group Newspapers Limited, the immediate subsidiary that owns The Sun and defunct News of the World?

Experts say it is unlikely that Murdoch or the other directors of NGN would face legal action - unless dissident shareholders of parent company News Corp decided to sue. But he can't dismiss NGN as a mere subsidiary about which he knew little.

Murdoch served as both director and chairman of the board of NGN until 2008 - when hacking took place - and he would have had to sign off the accounts. Importantly, the editors of The Sun and NOTW did not sit on the board of NGN, unlike sister company Times Newspapers Ltd where the editors of The Times and Sunday Times are directors.

*Insiders at Rupert Murdoch's News International, already under siege, now have a new irritation.

The barriers in and out of the car park at Wapping HQ don't work. They have been broken for a about a week, which means the guy on the gate has to write down everyone's car number plate registration. An insider grumbled: "They just spent all this money on a committee shopping our own staff to the police, but they can't fix an entry gate."

*There are complaints about dumbing down among arts types as the BBC is reducing its TV coverage of the Stirling Architecture Prize - apparently because of lacklustre ratings. Previously the BBC2's culture show devoted an entire programme to the prize but now it will just be incorporated into a wider episode. It comes two years after the Beeb got the rights from Channel 4.