Mediagazer: C.P.B. Will Fund Local Reporting Projects (Elizabeth Jensen/Media Decoder)

4:30 PM ET, March 25, 2010

Top News:

Magazines' New Barker: iPad — Advertisers Gather Around as Publishers Tout Tablet Device's Bells and Whistles — A laundry list of open questions about Apple's iPad isn't keeping magazine publishers and advertisers from lining up for the launch of the tablet computer next week.

Discussion: MediaPost, Mobile Media, MarketingVOX, industry.bnet.com, Fast Company, Gadget Lab, CrunchGear, Digits, eMedia Vitals, TeleRead, Silicon Alley Insider, Gizmodo, MacRumors, Electronista and TechCrunch

Thomas Ricker / Engadget:

WSJ on iPad for $17.99 a month, magazines to be at or near newsstand prices? — The Wall Street Journal is running a piece that focuses on ad sales for the iPad. Pretty boring stuff except for a few nuggets related to the actual content we crave. Rupert Murdoch already confirmed …

Discussion: Digits and Canadian Magazines

Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:
Advertisers Show Interest in iPad

Discussion: Romenesko, paidContent, CyberJournalist.net and AppleInsider

Daniel Finkelstein / Times of London:

Former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev buys Independent for £1 — Alexander Lebedev, the ex-KGB spy, has finally bought The Independent and The Independent on Sunday for £1 after months of negotiations. — The move will make Mr Lebedev the owner of three British newspapers …

Daniel Farey-Jones / Media Week:

From £665m to £1: The changing shape of Britain's modern newspaper business — LONDON - It's been more than 300 years since The Daily Courant became the first recognisable regular British daily newspaper during the reign of Queen Anne in 1702. — Mastheads in ownership moves in recent years

Peter Kirwan / Wired.co.uk:

Why Lebedev's Indy should go digital — On current circulation trends, the last printed newspaper in America will be sold during early 2043. — Given our national love affair with newsprint, extinction might take longer in the UK. But it seems fair to predict that News Corporation …

Discussion: Guardian, Media Week, paidContent and Brand Republic

The Independent:
Independent titles sold to Lebedev family company

Discussion: Guardian and Media Week

Roger Ebert / Roger Ebert's Journal:

See you at the movies — Yes, Chaz and I are still going ahead with our plans for a new movie review program on television. No, Wednesday's cancellation of “At the Movies” hasn't discouraged us. We believe a market still exists for a weekly show where a couple of critics review new movies.

Discussion: Reuters, Broadcasting & Cable, The Huffington Post, From Inside the Box, rbr.com, TV Guide Magazine, ArtsBeat and New York Magazine

Hollywoodreporter / The Live Feed | THR:
Long-running review show ‘At the Movies’ canceled

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter, Tower Ticker, MTV Movies Blog, Company Town, The Wrap, ArtsBeat, Thompson on Hollywood, Tuned In, New York Magazine and Perez Hilton

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Newsonomics of online ad spending, and its costs — [Each week, our friend Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of the news business for the Lab.] — It's a complaint we've long heard in the newspaper industry …

Discussion: The Wire

PATRICK GOLDSTEIN / The Big Picture:

Variety to studios: Stop giving scoops to the competition! — Variety has been making a lot of news lately. Unfortunately, the news has been pretty much all bad. — In case you've just tuned in, the venerable trade paper has suffered one black eye after another in recent weeks.

Discussion: Romenesko, Movieline and LA Observed

Richard Perez-Pena / Media Decoder:

It's Official: 2009 Was Worst Year for the Newpaper Business in Decades — It's no surprise that 2009 was the worst year the newspaper business has had in decades, but the scale of the damage, shown in figures released Wednesday by the Newspaper Association of America, is stunning.

Discussion: FishBowlNY, MediaPost, Guardian, Nieman Journalism Lab, CJR, Reflections of a Newsosaur, The Next Web, Media News, paidContent and Silicon Alley Insider

Martin Langeveld / News after Newspapers:
“Velocity of ad decline is moderating,” NAA chief says of Q4 losses

Discussion: Guardian

Trevor Butterworth / Forbes:

The Race Between Technology And Journalism — Why the agile will inherit the media. — In their 2008 book, The Race Between Education and Technology, Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Laurence Katz argue that technological advancement was a major spur to educational attainment for the U.S. …

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:

GlobalPost embraces challenge of covering world news as U.S. papers trim bureaus — The morning after a powerful earthquake struck Chile, “Face the Nation” was frantically trying to find a journalist in the suddenly ravaged country. — With phone lines jammed and major news outlets caught flat-footed …

Discussion: Romenesko

Elizabeth Jensen / Media Decoder:

C.P.B. Will Fund Local Reporting Projects — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, looking to counter what it sees as a decline in local journalism and original reporting nationwide, said it is making funding available to set up seven regional reporting projects that will be collaborative …

Discussion: BusinessJournalism.org …, CPB, NetNewsCheck Latest, Romenesko, blogs.tampabay.com, MediaPost and Online NewsHour

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

TLC Acquires 'Sarah Palin's Alaska' — Discovery Communications' TLC cable channel has acquired “Sarah Palin's Alaska,” a documentary series about the former Alaska governor and her state. — Discovery is expected to announce the acquisition Thursday morning.

Discussion: New York Press, The Live Feed | THR, The Huffington Post, TV Tattle, Multichannel, Media News International, Variety, Vanity Fair, Moraes on TV, Company Town, MediaPost, Broadcasting & Cable, Chickaboomer, Tuned In, The Wire, The Wrap, New York Observer and PopEater

Jeff Sneider / The Wrap:

Exclusive: Knightley, Bana, Gere Join 'Emperor's Children' — Noah Baumbach ("Greenberg") has signed on to direct “The Emperor's Children” for Imagine Entertainment, sliding into the position that had previously been held by Ron Howard, who will now produce with partner Brian Grazer.

Discussion: The Yale Herald, The Awl, The Playlist, New York Magazine and Movieline

Dave Winer / Scripting News:

How big is a nugget-of-news? — I finally did a little project I've had on my to-do list for a long time. — The question is this. If Twitter is a news-delivery service, and I believe it is, what are the real dimensions of a nugget of news? — We've been living with the limit imposed …

Arn / MacRumors:

CBS.com Prepping HTML5 Video Playback for iPad — With the imminent arrival of the Apple iPad, it seems at least one major television network is updating their website to provide video playback support for new tablet device — without Flash. CBS.com's website began displaying a couple of strange …

Discussion: MediaPost, The Other Mac Blog, NewTeeVee, Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb and Gizmodo

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

TMZ Insider Sues Over Drugs, Alcohol in Newsroom — A former TMZ producer has filed a lawsuit against the site, claiming he was fired for complaining about alcohol and drug use by other staffers on the job after he returned from a medical leave for depression.

Discussion: Romenesko, The Wire and Gawker

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

Is Nikki Finke for Sale Again? — Amusing to learn that Nikki Finke says today she was offered, but rejected, the editor-in-chief job at the Hollywood Reporter. The reason she posted that at 5:22 a.m. (presuming the time stamp is credible, because who knows) is because I gave her the courtesy …

Discussion: Deadline.com

Doree Shafrir / Gawker:

How the Michelle ‘Bombshell’ McGee Story Got Made — Everyone was shocked when, last week, In Touch published a cover story about Jesse James' mistress Michelle “Bombshell” McGee. The surprise wasn't that James was having affairs, but that In Touch had gotten the story—and gotten it right.

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

SF Chronicle to launch expanded biz section with help from Bloomberg — The San Francisco Chronicle announced Wednesday that it would launch this Sunday an expanded business news section with the help of Bloomberg News called Business Report. — Business Report will be comprised …

Discussion: SYS-CON MEDIA, paidContent, Cision, San Francisco Chronicle and Romenesko

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Google Ads Will Now Follow You Across The Web — Advertisers are beginning to realize that ads on the Web have their own lifecycle. People who eventually click on an ad don't always click on it the first time they see it. Just like on TV or in print, they need to be bombarded by the same message before they take an action.