Mediagazer: Variety lays an egg: Is firing its critics really ‘economic reality’? (LAT Blogs/The Big Picture)

8:25 AM ET, March 9, 2010

Top News:

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Variety editor: 'It doesn't make economic sense to have full-time reviewers' — Subject: internal memo, for Variety editorial staff only — Change is always scary, and at Variety, we have had a lot of changes in the past few years. But change is not always bad. — We are making further changes in the newsroom.

Discussion: Variety, MinOnline, The Hot Blog and LA Observed

Michael Cieply / Media Decoder:

Variety Lets Go of 2 of Its Top Critics — Neil Stiles, the president of Variety, said the entertainment industry trade paper was cutting from its staff two of its most prominent writers — the film reviewer Todd McCarthy and the theater critic David Rooney.

Discussion: New York Magazine

LAT Blogs / The Big Picture:

Variety lays an egg: Is firing its critics really ‘economic reality’? — In showbiz, timing is everything. It could hardly be a coincidence that the morning after Oscar season mercifully came to a close, Variety laid off its two best-known critics, longtime chief film critic Todd McCarthy and chief theater critic David Rooney.

Discussion: 24 Frames

Thompson on Hollywood:

Variety Cuts Its Life's Blood: Critics McCarthy and Rooney — At Saturday's HBO Oscar party, I enjoyed dishing about the upcoming Cannes line-up with Todd McCarthy, Variety's long-time film critic, who is the paper's biggest star and the main reason readers all over the world read the august trade.

Discussion: Guardian, State of the Fourth Estate, 24 Frames, paidContent, LA Observed and Movieline

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap: McCarthy Fired After 31 Years at Variety: 'It's the End of Something'

Damon Kiesow / Mobile Media:

New York Times to spin off Book Review for e-readers — The New York Times is planning to offer its Book Review as a separate digital e-reader product, disaggregated from the rest of the Times content on the mobile devices, according to James Dunn, director of marketing for The New York Times.

Discussion: Fitz & Jen, News & Tech, Guardian, Editors Weblog and paidContent

Megan McCarthy / Mediagazer News:

Introducing Mediagazer — Mediagazer presents the day's must read media news on a single page. — The media business is in tumult: from the production side to the distribution side, new technologies are upending the industry. What do news organizations need to do to survive? Will books become extinct?

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, 901am, PaidContent, WebNewser, Matt Singley, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Fimoculous.com, Silicon Alley Insider, Silicon Valley Watcher, Techmeme News, ResourceShelf, The Next Web, Search Engine Land, Pulse2, VentureBeat, broadstuff, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com and The Bivings Report

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Yet Another Media Aggregation Site? Yup. …

Discussion: Media Musings, TechCrunch, All Shook Down and Gawker

Paul Bradshaw / Online Journalism Blog:

Print's advertising problem - tying one hand behind its back — Last week Karl Schneider, Reed Business Information's Editorial Director, spent an hour chatting with students in my Online Journalism class. Most of it is available on video here, but of particular interest to me was a point Karl …

Martin Langeveld / News after Newspapers:

iPad strategies for publishers — This is a white paper based on and expanded from my earlier post on the same topic, prepared for the Digital Publishing Alliance meeting at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri on March 7-9, 2010

Discussion: TeleRead, Poynter and RJI

Phil Rosenthal / Chicago Tribune:

Chicago Tribune to produce pages for sister paper in Virginia — Tribune Co.'s Virginia newspaper plans to outsource the editing and designing of much of its content to the newsroom of its corporate flagship, the Chicago Tribune, in a bid to reduce costs and focus resources on local coverage.

Nicholas White / Style Watch:

Betty White Confirms She'll Appear on Saturday Night Live — Betty White fans, your prayers have been answered. The former Golden Girl will appear on Saturday Night Live in the near future, she confirmed to PEOPLE at Elton John's annual Oscars viewing party on Sunday night.

Discussion: Speakeasy, Mashable!, USA Today, Movieline, WebNewser, Geekosystem, Runnin' Scared, PopEater, All Facebook, New York Magazine, TV Squad and TVWeek.com

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Don't Blame Your Community: Ad Blocking Is Not Killing Any Sites — Every so often we hear about a random blog or website that freaks out and claims that ad blockers are “stealing” or somehow damaging websites. But it's quite a surprise to see a similar argument from a site like Ars Technica …

Discussion: Guardian, John Battelle's Searchblog, PlagiarismToday and NetNewsCheck Latest

Ryan Tate / Gawker:

Inside the Low-Paying Cheezburger Empire — Ben Huh's media startup is focused on LOLcats and other internet animal memes. Things are less cute behind the scenes, where underpaid and overworked humans lurk, according to several company veterans who answered our recent request for information.

Discussion: TechFlash and broadstuff

Oliver Willis / Media Matters for America:

Glenn Beck advertiser offers “survival seeds” as defense against “emerging totalitarianism” — With all the companies that have pulled their advertising from Glenn Beck, it's understandable that many of those still advertising with him aren't exactly blue-chip enterprises.

Tricia Duryee / paidContent:

CBS Adds Live 3G Streaming To March Madness App; Charges $9.99 — No need to duck out of work early, now you can watch March Madness games live over your iPhone, and for the first time—anywhere over AT&T's 3G network. — The application, which is expected to be available Monday on iTunes …

Discussion: WebNewser

Elizabeth Jensen / New York Times:

For Web and Public TV, Brief Films That Dramatize Issues — ITVS is best known for its financing of documentaries, many of which appear on PBS's “Independent Lens” series. But beginning on Monday, the organization will present a series of brief, fictional films that cast social issues into the future …

Discussion: WebNewser

Marshall's Curated FabulousNess:

Tech startups, exclusivity and our competitors (some thoughts) — What do Quora, Path.io & now SnapGroups have in common? They are 3 — HUGE startup stories *ignored* by TechCrunch, AllThingsD and Mashable — after RWW broke them. I can't think of any reason other than that

Discussion: Scripting News and ReadWriteWeb

Dorian Benkoil / PoynterOnline:

Can Ad Networks & Exchanges Help Increase Ad Prices (Instead of Driving Them Down)? — It's generally said that advertising networks and exchanges push down the price of advertising on the Web, making it harder for publishers to get top dollar and support quality editorial products.

Discussion: Silicon Valley Watcher

Stan Schroeder / Mashable!:

Tumblr Hits Major Milestones, Plans to Start Generating Revenue — Tumblr, one of the simplest blogging platforms around, is doing really well. Situated between WordPress, which requires a bit more effort to create and organize content, and Twitter, which requires almost no effort …