Mediagazer: Soon-To-Be SNL Host Betty White Won't Do Nudity Or “Dope Jokes” (Steve Krakauer/Mediaite)

9:15 AM ET, April 29, 2010

Top News:

Phila. Newspapers sold to lenders — NEW YORK - Brian P. Tierney, CEO of Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., announced Wednesday afternoon that the company that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News has been sold to its senior lenders for $135 million.

Discussion: Newsonomics, Reflections of a Newsosaur, CBS3.com, Romenesko, The Biz Blog, Associated Press, Richard Prince's Journal-isms, Ethical Martini, DailyFinance, Poynter Online, National Media, paidContent, rbr.com, FishbowlNY, Media Decoder and Fitz & Jen

Gillian Reagan / The Wire:
Bankrupt Philadelphia Newspapers Sell For $135 Million

Discussion: Romenesko

New York Times:

Director Is Elected at Times Co. — Carolyn Greenspon, a fifth-generation member of the family that controls The New York Times Company, was elected as a director. — Ms. Greenspon, 41, a psychotherapist, was approved by shareholders to serve on the board at the company's annual meeting on Tuesday.

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Have Money? Arthur Sulzberger Wants A Deeper Relationship

Discussion: The New York Times Company, Comments on and The Wire

Gillian Reagan / The Wire:
Arthur Sulzberger Jr.: NYT's Metered Paywall Is About Building …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Media News International, The Daily Beast and Romenesko

Tim Wu / Slate:

Don't Prosecute Gizmodo for the iPhone That Walked Into a Bar … - The Senate Tries To Get Goldman Sachs To Admit They're a Bunch of Jerks- Now Doulas Are Assisting During Abortions as Well as Childbirth- The Incredibly Unfair Trial of Muslim Activist Syed Fahad Hashmi- Troy Patterson: Is Happy Town the Next Lost?

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider, Daring Fireball, All Things Digital, CNET News and Journalism.co.uk

CNET News:
Gizmodo considers suing police after iPhone raid

Discussion: LAW.com, Beyond 140, Oddly Together, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Guardian, Salon, bizjournals and Bits

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

U.S. Subpoenas Times Reporter Over Book on C.I.A. — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is seeking to compel a writer to testify about his confidential sources for a 2006 book about the Central Intelligence Agency, a rare step that was authorized by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Discussion: Media Decoder

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter Online:

How News Organizations Hope to Benefit from Facebook's New Features — Facebook's new plugins, which help integrate the social networking site with the rest of the Web, have presented news organizations with an opportunity to think more creatively about how they can use social media to meet their audiences' needs.

Discussion: CyberJournalist.net, Digits, PR Newswire and TechCrunch

Reuters:

Why reporters are down on Obama — One of the enduring storylines of Barack Obama's presidency, dating back to the earliest days of his candidacy, is that the press loves him. — “Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me,” Obama joked last year at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Discussion: Mediaite, Salon, Gawker, Media Matters for America, Hot Air, Romenesko, New York Observer, The Politico, CJR, Ben Smith's Blog, Strupp and Chickaboomer

Matea Gold / Company Town:

ABC News concludes wrenching round of cuts with fewer involuntary layoffs than expected — A brutal round of cuts at ABC News came to a close this week when executives laid off 22 employees Tuesday, a far smaller number than they had expected. — The final tally was less than anticipated …

Discussion: Romenesko, Media Decoder, TVNewser, Mediaite and New York Magazine

Michael Cieply / Media Decoder:

More Members of Congress Oppose Trading of Movie Box-Office Futures — Political opposition to a pair of proposed exchanges that would trade futures contracts keyed to the movie box office grew on Wednesday, as 10 members of the House of Representatives sent the Commodity Futures Trading Commission …

Discussion: The Wrap and Company Town

Gawker.TV:

Jon Stewart Slams Apple Over Its Handling of Gizmodo Case — Tonight on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart gave his take regarding Gizmodo's iPhone exclusive and the subsequent police raid on Jason Chen's home. Speaking directly to Apple and Steve Jobs, Stewart didn't hold back his criticism of them.

Discussion: Mashable!

Meg James / Company Town:

Fox likes its Fuel after all — Fox is hanging on to its Fuel. — Late last year, media conglomerate News Corp. tried to sell its tiny Fuel TV cable channel to Viacom Inc. The rationale was that the extreme sports channel geared toward young guys between 13 and 34 might make a better fit within Viacom's youth-centric MTV universe.

Discussion: Multichannel, MediaPost and TVWeek.com

Steve Krakauer / Mediaite:

Soon-To-Be SNL Host Betty White Won't Do Nudity Or “Dope Jokes” — After a lengthy Facebook campaign, Betty White will host Saturday Night Live on May 8. — We asked the 88-year-old about the campaign on a conference call this afternoon in which she spoke about the pressure of SNL, “dope jokes” and nudity.

Discussion: ArtsBeat

Motoko Rich / Media Decoder:

Scott Turow Elected President of the Authors Guild — The lawyer and the queen of teenage lit are in the house! — Scott Turow, the author of “Presumed Innocent” and the coming sequel, “Innocent,” has been elected president of the Authors Guild, a trade group that represents writers …

Cyn / All Things CNN:

Michael Ware leaves CNN — We won't be seeing any more of Michael on CNN... In addition to having taken a break recently in order to work on his book, it is no secret that he has been grappling with PTSD, brought on from the hellish years he worked in Baghdad.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Wire, Gawker, TVNewser, Mediaite and New York Magazine

Jeremy Caplan / Digits:

The iPad and the Future of Text — Digital text is at a crossroads, and the iPad's momentum could nudge it in one of two directions. — Down one path lies a world in which words are increasingly digitized in iPad-like e-readers that function like locked glass boxes.

Discussion: TeleRead

blogs.journalism.co.uk:

Coders meet journalists; journalists meet coders — Do journalists need to learn to code? Probably not, but those who can are likely to find themselves quickly snapped up by news organisations with interactive and data teams. — I have no grand hopes of learning to code properly …

Discussion: Journalistopia

cyber.law.harvard.edu:

A Tale of Two Blogospheres: Discursive Practices on the Left and Right — Authored by Yochai Benkler, Aaron Shaw, Victoria Stodden — Abstract — Discussions of the political effects of the Internet and networked discourse tend to presume consistent patterns of technological adoption and use within a given society.

Discussion: The Nation, Berkman Center and ResourceShelf

Joe Pompeo / Silicon Alley Insider:

Yahoo! News Hires Newsweek's Former White House Correspondent Holly Bailey (YHOO) — Yahoo! News has recruited yet another high profile journalist. — We hear that Holly Bailey, a former Newsweek White House correspondent, has taken a job as senior politics writer for Yahoo's politics, national affairs and media blog, The Newsroom .

Discussion: New York Observer

Felix Gillette / New York Observer:
Jamie Mottram, Sportif Yahoo Bloglord, Pushes ‘Portal Power’

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider and Romenesko

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

More Publishers Trying Outsourced Journalism — Established News Shops Running Articles From Pool of Freelancers for as Little as $5 a Story — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — More major media companies are looking for ways to find cheap content. Thomson Reuters, Cox Newspapers and Hachette Filipacchi …

Discussion: Center for Sustainable …

Michael Rowland / ABC News:

News executive's drinking raised in ugly court battle — The unfair dismissal claim launched by sacked News Limited editor Bruce Guthrie was never going to be pretty, and events in Victoria's Supreme Court over the past few days have shown how ugly it is going to be.

Discussion: Sydney Morning Herald and Crikey