Mediagazer: Why Are Russians Spending Like Mad To Save Journalism? (Robert Andrews/paidContent)

11:40 AM ET, March 18, 2010

Top News:

Google and Partners Seek a Television Foothold — Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes. — The move is an effort by Google and Intel to extend their dominance …

Stephanie Strom / New York Times:

Pentagon Sees a Threat From Online Muckrakers — To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret.

Discussion: The Business Insider, Runnin' Scared and Gawker

New York Times:

Amazon May Impede Access to Some Publishers' Books — Amazon.com has threatened to stop directly selling the books of some publishers online unless they agree to a detailed list of concessions regarding the sale of electronic books, according to two industry executives with direct knowledge the discussions.

Discussion: GalleyCat, Silicon Alley Insider, Fast Company, eBookNewser, Gizmodo and TechFlash

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:

AOL Sets Up $10 Million Venture Fund To Back Local Startups — AOL (NYSE: AOL)—which is doubling down on its own local efforts—is now setting up a $10 million venture capital fund to invest in the local space. The company cites the “increasing number of startups” in the market as driving …

Discussion: Guardian, MediaPost, Local Onliner and DealBook

Julia Boorstin / CNBC:
AOL Goes Local at South By Southwest

Discussion: paidContent

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Ailes to the DC Staff: No More Shooting Inside the Tent — Fox News founder and chairman Roger Ailes dropped in to the Washington Bureau this afternoon for an impromptu talk to the troops ahead of tonight's RTCA dinner. — Sources inside the packed newsroom tell TVNewser Ailes started …

Discussion: Romenesko, The Huffington Post, Chickaboomer and Michael Calderone's Blog

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Hyperlocal Newswire Fwix To Provide Content To NYTCo Properties — The NYTCo's local content efforts are getting a quick boost from hyperlocal newswire Fwix. In a sense, the deal with Fwix can buttress the NYTimes.com's New York metro area blogs program, The Local, which it began last year.

Discussion: Editor and Publisher, New Jersey Online, Yahoo! Finance, Newsonomics, The Business Insider, mediabistro.com, Romenesko, Editors Weblog and Cision

Dan Frommer / The Business Insider:

CHART OF THE DAY: There's A Reason They Call It ‘Old Media’ — Media industry ad revenue declined 12% year-over-year to $125.3 billion in 2009, according to a report issued by Kantar Media, the WPP-owned research firm formerly known as TNS. — The only major growth area: Online ad spending.

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:
Yes, It Was a Bad Year for Ad Spending, But It Got Less Worse in the Fourth Quarter

Discussion: Crain's New York Business, Business Wire, Media Buyer Planner, Broadcasting & Cable, TechCrunch, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, paidContent, AdAge, TVWeek.com, Romenesko, Gawker and Gannett Blog

Felix Salmon:

Advertising on the iPad — There was another panel today on the iPad and the future of magazines, this one featuring my friends Rachel Sklar and Jacob Lewis. Jacob was pretty downbeat about the ability of the iPad to rescue the economics of the magazine industry, for two reasons; one, I think, is much better than the other.

Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
An ‘unanswerable’ question: Can the iPad save magazines?

Discussion: Media on HuffingtonPost.com and Mediaite

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

ABC and Amanpour Close to Deal for ‘This Week’ — ABC News is close to concluding a deal to install the longtime CNN foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour as the new host of its Sunday political discussion show “This Week.” — The network's interest in Ms. Amanpour …

Discussion: Romenesko, Michael Calderone's Blog and TVNewser

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Reuters Begins Selling New Customized Financial Data, Graphics Service To Newspapers — As major newspaper publishers have seen profits return and ad declines slow a bit, Reuters (NYSE: TRI) is hoping that the time is right to sell a new product designed to enhance understaffed business sections.

Discussion: The Wire

Umair Haque:

Twitter, SXSW, and Building a 21st Century Business — So, how was your week? Mine's been interesting. In case you haven't heard, I interviewed Twitter CEO Evan Williams at the keynote at this year's South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference on Monday in Austin, Texas.

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider

Jay Rosen / PressThink:

How the Backchannel Has Changed the Game for Conference Panelists — The bar's been raised. Use of the backchannel—years ago it was IRC, today it's Twitter—lets the audience compare notes and pool their dissatisfaction if the program misfires. Here's what we did to avoid that at SXSW.

Motoko Rich / Media Decoder:

Unexpectedly, Barnes & Noble Names a New Chief Executive — In a surprise move, Barnes & Noble named William Lynch, president of the company's Web division, as chief executive, replacing Steve Riggio, who will remain as vice chairman. — The appointment seems to indicate that the company …

Discussion: Crain's New York Business, paidContent and GalleyCat

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Why Are Russians Spending Like Mad To Save Journalism? — Haven't they read the mess newspapers are in? More money than sense? — Either way, at this rate, perhaps Russia's growing oligarch set could be a viable strategic alternative, for hard-pressed European papers, to the reality of industry change and economic malaise.

Discussion: Business Week, Guardian and Editors Weblog

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Behind the scenes of the Capital Business launch — TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE — The Washington Post announced Monday that it would launch Capital Business, a weekly business newspaper, next month. The paper will initially be delivered on Mondays within the Post. — Dan Beyers was named editor of Capital Business.

Lisa de Moraes / Washington Post:

Reality show contestants willing to kill in French experiment — American reality TV has left a trail of corpses, but we can still say this: No one appears to have been executed on any of the U.S. shows. — That's apparently not the case in France, where, according to a new French documentary series …

Juliana Rotich / MediaShift Idea Lab:

Crowdsourcing Crime Information In Kenya — Hatari.co.ke is is a website that allows anyone in Nairobi, Kenya, to submit reports about crime and corruption in the city. ("Hatari" means “danger” in Swahili.) It will provide the growing city and its inhabitants with a repository …