Mediagazer: Is Internet Civility an Oxymoron? (Wall Street Journal)

1:25 PM ET, April 19, 2010

Top News:

Tweet Tweet Boom Boom — A new generation of tech entrepreneurs in the city is trying to overthrow old media and build a better New York—with the help of their iPhones. Are they dreaming? Definitely. But in a good way. — On any given day in New York City, there are usually close to a dozen …

Discussion: The Awl

Joe Coscarelli / Runnin' Scared: Talking Points Preview: Early Notes on New York Magazine's …

Bill Carter / New York Times:

For TBS and O'Brien, a Match Driven by Demographics — How did a channel like TBS — a cable channel without the prestige or marketing power of a broadcast outlet — manage to land Conan O'Brien's show? — Money and promises? No doubt. In the deal he made to move his late-night show to TBS …

Discussion: MediaWire Daily, Broadcasting & Cable, Company Town, The Wire, Signal vs. Noise and TVWeek.com

Nat Ives / AdAge:

WSJ Plans to Pull No Punches in Turf War With New York Times — But Readership Numbers, Ad Dollars Suggest Fight for Crown Will Be Uphill Battle — Sources and notes: Circulation figures are according to Audit Bureau of Circulations audit reports covering 12 months ended Sept. 27, 2009.

Discussion: Romenesko

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:

ProPublica's nonprofit's news gathering pays off for partners — Sheri Fink had a medical degree, a doctorate and a nose for news, along with a tendency to rush off to disaster zones from Kosovo to Iraq. What she didn't have was a steady paycheck to support her journalism.

Discussion: Romenesko and Editors Weblog

Noam Cohen / New York Times:

Link by Link: What Would Ellsberg Do With Pentagon Papers Today? — BEFORE Wikileaks, or even the Internet, there were just plain leaks. — Two weeks ago, Wikileaks.org released a classified video showing a United States Apache helicopter killing 12 civilians in Baghdad.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Richard Wray / Guardian:

Media consumption on the increase — Survey finds increase in number of hours public spends watching TV, playing video games and using the internet — People are watching more television, reading more news, playing more video games, spending more time updating their social networking profiles …

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Ken Auletta / New Yorker:

Will the iPad topple the Kindle? — On the morning of January 27th—an aeon ago, in tech time—Steve Jobs was to appear at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in downtown San Francisco, to unveil Apple's new device, the iPad. Although speculation about the device had been intense …

Discussion: Boing Boing and kottke.org

Miguel Helft / New York Times:

Facebook Seeps Onto Other Web Sites — SAN FRANCISCO — With about half of Facebook's 400 million users checking in daily, the social networking company has established itself as one of the Web's most popular destinations. — Now Facebook is intensifying its efforts to expand its empire beyond …

Discussion: MediaFile, Guardian, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, eMedia Vitals, Mashable!, State of the Fourth Estate, VentureBeat and GigaOM

David Kaplan / paidContent:

AOL's Self-Serve ‘Ad Desk’ To Be Focal Point For Display Efforts — Two months after dropping hints about a new ad platform, AOL (NYSE: AOL) is now opening up beta testing for Advertising.com's “Ad Desk,” a self-serve display sales option aimed at agencies and marketers.

Discussion: AdAge and NetNewsCheck Latest

Dominic Jones / IR Web Report:

Reuters' conflicted reporting on Google's earnings release practices — REUTERS, the news division of information services giant Thomson Reuters, has published an ill-informed, inaccurate and one-sided article about Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) announcement that it will use its website rather …

Discussion: Search Engine Land and Talking Biz News

Wall Street Journal:

Is Internet Civility an Oxymoron? — Unmoderated, anonymous comments on Web sites create more noise than wisdom. — For those of us tempted to hope that new technology might improve human nature, the Web has proved a disappointment. The latest online reality: comment sections so uncivilized …

Discussion: Romenesko and TEMPLE TALK

The Independent:

Stephen Glover: The future of the free press will rest on Murdoch making us pay — In a way, one can't blame Gordon Brown for saying that paywalls won't work. — In fact, to be precise, he seemed to be saying that they shouldn't work. In an interview last week with the Radio Times …

Discussion: Editors Weblog, FleetStreetBlues and Guardian

Richard Pérez-Peña / New York Times:

New Jersey Paper Allows Hockey Team to Cover Itself — Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed something truly unusual in Gannett's New Jersey newspapers. A new byline started appearing this month on articles about the New Jersey Devils hockey team, with a note under each piece stating that the author …