Mediagazer: Authors Guild Offers eBook Royalty Advice for Random House & HarperCollins Authors (Jason Boog/GalleyCat)

6:15 PM ET, March 19, 2010

Top News:

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

FT.com Takes Free Articles Away From Unregistered Users, Except Via Search — Now the Financial Times is getting really bullish about its web access model. In another tweak, it's now ensuring that no free articles are on offer to non-registered users. — In 2007, the site introduced …

Discussion: WebNewser and The Wire

Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:

Apple Swears iPad Partners to Secrecy — Developers must sequester the tablet computer in rooms with blacked-out windows, reflecting secrecy around a product that may mean billions of dollars in sales — Apple makes big demands of software developers who want an early crack at the iPad.

Discussion: Mashable!, All Things Digital, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Gizmodo Australia, Silicon Alley Insider, Online and Engadget

Laura Oliver / Journalism.co.uk:

Interview magazine: ‘The iPad is the future and we embrace it openly’ — For a device that's not even being sold yet - though we're told it is imminent in the US and UK - getting on the iPad has quickly jumped to the top of many news organisation's to do lists.

Discussion: GigaOM

Foster Kamer / Runnin' Scared:

WSJ's New Union Contract: Wage Freeze to July 2011! — As the Wall Street Journal hurries to ready Project Amsterdam, Rupert Murdoch's bid to rock the New York Times dead with a big, splashy color metropolitan section before he kicks the bucket, staffers at the Journal are burning the midnight oil.

Discussion: FishBowlNY, Media Decoder, Romenesko, IAPE 1096, The Wire, News Corp. Blog and New York Magazine

Michael Wolff / Newser:

Charge for News! Yes, Do It! C'mon! I Dare You. — Follow him on Twitter @MichaelWolffNYC — I'm in London at the Guardian's Changing Media Summit conference. — Guess the subject that has most often come up. Yes, yes, pay walls. The absolute determination on the part …

Discussion: CJR

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
@ CMS2010: A Dose Of Wolff: Rupe's Mad As Hell, Newspapers Are Over

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk and Guardian

Brian Aguilar / Wall Street Journal:

A History of Wall Street Journal Hedcuts — When job-seeking illustrator Laura Levy first met the team of Wall Street Journal hedcut artists in the early 1980s, she was struck by their peculiar task. — “I saw what these people were doing and I thought, 'they're insane,'” says Levy.

Discussion: New York Observer, The Stranger …, The Awl and Charles Apple

Matea Gold / Los Angeles Times:

Bill O'Reilly's indie instincts — In a time of political turmoil, can the Fox News commentator be seen as a moderate? — Fox News' top-rated host Bill O'Reilly has helped to make the network a ratings leader. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) — Reporting from New York

Discussion: Mediaite, Gawker, Romenesko and The Wire

Michael Corkery / Deal Journal:

A Guy Named Bob Wants to Buy Newsday — Who wants to buy Long Island's largest newspaper, Newsday? — Is it The New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger Jr.? How about News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch? — No, it is Robert “Bob” Toussie, a real estate developer and investor.

Discussion: Romenesko and FishBowlNY

Claudia Eller / Company Town:

Carl Icahn launches hostile takeover bid for Lions Gate [Updated] — One week after Lions Gate Entertainment rejected his bid to raise his stake in the studio, investor Carl Icahn is launching a hostile takeover bid for the entire company. [For the record, updated 9:41 a.m. …

Discussion: PR Newswire, Multichannel, MediaPost, Variety, Wall Street Journal, Crain's New York Business, Bloomberg, Home Media Magazine, NBC Los Angeles, Reuters, Financial Post, Deadline.com, Stocks To Watch Today and DealBook

Jason Boog / GalleyCat:

Authors Guild Offers eBook Royalty Advice for Random House & HarperCollins Authors — Today the Authors Guild wrote to individual members referring to letters that some authors have received from Random House and HarperCollins about eBook rights. According to the Guild, the publishers hope …

Discussion: Crain's New York Business, TeleRead and Publishers Weekly

Michael Mace / Insight+:

The future of publishing: Why ebooks failed in 2000, and what it means for 2010 — This post is adapted from a speech I gave at the O'Reilly Tools of Change publishing industry conference in February. — It's a great time for ebooks. There are at least six ebook reader devices on the market or in preparation.

Michael Calderone / The Politico:

Amanpour: A surprise - and a risk — In choosing Christiane Amanpour to host “This Week,” ABC defied the Sunday show conventions that have resulted in a succession of hosts who were male political journalists steeped in Washington culture. — Passing over more traditional choices …

Discussion: TVNewser, Company Town, Gawker, MediaPost, Michael Calderone's Blog, blogs.tampabay.com, Journalism and the World, Romenesko, New York Observer, Mediaite, The Wire and Tuned In

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

YouTube and Viacom Find Lots of Emails, but No Smoking Gun — The YouTube-Viacom documents released today are chock full of interesting morsels. Feel free to ignore most of them. — Because if you're trying to handicap the way the copyright lawsuit pans out, today's document dump won't do much to help you.

Discussion: USA Today, Lost Remote, Publishers Weekly, Viacom, The Atlantic Online, Silicon Alley Insider, Electronic Frontier Foundation, BBC, Technology & …, MediaPost, fierceonlinevideo.com …, DealBook, Media News and Associated Press

David Folkenflik / NPR:

ABC News Under Fire For Payment To Murder Suspect — text sizeAAA — ABC News is feeling the heat after revelations Thursday in a Florida court that it paid a woman on trial for killing her own child $200,000 for exclusive rights to family photos and video.

Discussion: TVNewser

John Koblin / New York Observer:

It's War! Kate Taylor Quits The Journal to Join The Times — Arts reporter Kate Taylor quit The Wall Street Journal today and is joing The New York Times. — Ms. Taylor, a veteran of the Sun, joined The Wall Street Journal's New York section only six weeks ago.

Discussion: The Wire

Mark Oppenheimer / New York Times:

The Optimist's Blogger — In February 2001, a Brown University graduate with the improbably suave name Lockhart Steele took up occupancy in a one-bedroom third-floor walk-up apartment on Rivington Street, near the intersection with Ludlow. The Lower East Side could still claim, just barely, to be a marginal neighborhood.

Colby Hall / Mediaite:

Truth Or Fiction: Did 30 Rock Call Comcast A Porn Company? — Last week's episode of 30 Rock featured a “truth is better than fiction” plot line that introduced the acquisition of NBC by a Philadelphia-based cable provider known as “Kabletown” (which parallels the real-life drama behind Comcast's efforts …

Discussion: The Wire

Robert Hernandez / Online Journalism Review:

For many, the local newspaper isn't dying - it's already dead — By Robert Hernandez: The doomsday scenario has been on everyone's mind, including some at SXSWi, since the revenue/circulation has dropped through the floor and the brilliant mind of Clay Shirky articulated “thinking the unthinkable.”