Top News:
Hal Varian / Google Public Policy Blog:
Newspaper economics: online and offline — It is widely recognized that the news industry is facing financial difficulties, but there is little agreement about the source of those difficulties or what can be done about them. The debate about the role of the web has been particularly heated …
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Google's Chief Economist: “Newspapers Have Never Made Much Money From News”
Google's Chief Economist: “Newspapers Have Never Made Much Money From News”
Discussion:
Newspaper Death Watch
Joe Flint / Company Town:
Time Warner Cable to ask FCC for new rules on negotiating programming deals — A group of distributors led by Time Warner Cable is going to file a petition with the Federal Communications Commission later this week, seeking new rules about how broadcasters and distributors can and cannot negotiate carriage deals.
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Elizabeth Jensen / Media Decoder:
Meacham of Newsweek in Talks for Weekly PBS Show — The Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, is negotiating to add a television job to his schedule. He is in final talks to be the co-host of a new PBS Friday night public affairs series called “Need to Know,” …
Robert MacMillan / MediaFile:
New York Times poaches Wall Street Journal spokesman Christie — New York TimesProfessional New York Times haters often fixate on the company's seeming haplessness and its namesake newspaper's flat-footed, delayed and defensive strategies for dealing with bad news, bad press and bad times for newspapers.
Discussion:
New York Observer
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John Hudson / The Atlantic Wire:
My Traffic's Bigger Than Yours — It's no secret. Conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart and libertarian commentator Conor Friedersdorf like to fight. Whether it's about journalistic ethics or left-wing media bias, the two spar relentlessly, passionately and intelligently.
Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:
NYT Ad Totally Swallows Trash-Talking Blog — Just last month, Gothamist boss Jake Dobkin was slamming the New York Times as uncompetitive, unoriginal, and lazy. Today, the NYT has plastered Gothamist with the most in-your-face wallpaper ad buy we've ever seen. Huh. Let's recall that rant!
Sean Blanda / eMedia Vitals:
Demand Media's content assembly line — How Demand Media makes content production an assembly line, and what you can learn. — Today, I am trading in my assignment editor for an algorithm: I am becoming a Demand Media writer. — The company, founded in 2006, uses primarily freelance labor …
Discussion:
Romenesko
City Room:
Producer Pleads Guilty in Letterman Extortion Case — Updated Robert Halderman, the man accused of trying to extort $2 million from David Letterman, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan and will serve six months in jail. — As part of the plea agreement …
Terry McDermott / CJR:
Dumb Like a Fox — Fox News isn't part of the GOP; it has simply (and shamelessly) mastered the confines of cable — Last December 10 was a big news day. U.S. Senate negotiators announced they had agreed to a compromise on health care reform, final preparations were being made for a global conference …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is the Kindle Finally Ready for the Web? — If you own a Kindle, you also own a mobile Web browser. But chances are you never use it. That's because it's a lousy experience, and one Amazon does its best to keep away from users (hint: look in the gadget's “experimental” menu).
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Jeff Bercovici / DailyFinance:
BusinessWeek Prepares for Round Two of Layoffs — The other shoe is about to drop at BusinessWeek — or Bloomberg BusinessWeek, as it's been officially known since the financial news giant bought it last October. — Shortly after taking over the 80-year-old magazine, Bloomberg pruned its staff by a reported 30%.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Sarah Rabil / Bloomberg:
Viacom Says ‘Daily Show’ May Return to Hulu if Model Changes — Viacom Inc. Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman said “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” may return to Hulu.com if the video site's business model changes. — “On the current economic model for Hulu there's …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Get Your Reading Glasses Out: Here Come the YouTube-Viacom Files — Want to lose yourself in the truckloads of paperwork the YouTube-Viacom case has generated? You're going to get your wish in the near future. — That's the upshot of a federal judge's ruling ordering both sides …
Lindsay Fortado / Bloomberg:
Pink Floyd Suing EMI Label Over Online Royalties — Pink Floyd, the band that recorded the best-selling album ‘The Dark Side of the Moon,’ is suing record label EMI Group Ltd. in London over online royalty payments and the sale of single tracks. — The band is asking for clarification …
Associated Press:
AP hires NY Times exec to boost digital revenue — AP puts New York Times Web vice president in charge of digital sales expansion — The Associated Press has named Nick Ascheim as general manager of AP Digital with responsibility for its new strategic business unit, AP Gateway.
bengoldacre:
no movement on the BBC's bizarre links policy — here;s the background: — below is their email back to me this afternoon, and my rambling hurried response. — it's odd that they don't get it, and i don't understand why they're so against linking to journal articles, when their arguments so obviously dont hold water.
Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:
How Ars Technica's “experiment” with ad-blocking readers built on its community's affection for the site — Even on the web, sometimes actions really do speak louder than words. — The technology site Ars Technica has a tech-savvy group of readers, of which about 40 percent have installed ad-blocking software in their web browsers.
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 …
Jim O'Neill / FierceOnlineVideo:
Hulu scores deal with the NFL Network for online video — Think Hulu's going to suffer because it lost The Daily Show and The Colbert Report? Maybe, but it gained a whole new audience by adding more than 600 clips of NFL content—more than 400 hours worth—to its site this week.
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
The Value of Anonymity — It's true that being briefed by anonymous “senior” officials is largely an exercise in getting spun, but in its defense doing on the record interviews with senior officials is also largely an exercise in getting spun. And I do think anonymity has some value …