Mediagazer: Faisal Shahzad Facebook mixup highlights hazards of Web journalism (Matthew Shaer/Christian Science Monitor)

1:40 PM ET, May 5, 2010

Top News:

Washington Post Co. to Sell Newsweek — Chairman Donald E. Graham cites multi-year losses. ‘We are exploring all options to fix that problem,’ he said. — Newsweek Web Exclusive — The Washington Post Co. announced today that it has retained Allen & Company to explore the possible sale of NEWSWEEK magazine.

Discussion: MediaMemo, Romenesko, Mediaite, Washington Post, Gawker, rbr.com, The Wire, MarketWatch, Newsbroke, Deadline.com, The Politico, On Media's Blog, Guardian, mediabistro.com, New York Magazine, Gothamist and Ben Smith's Blog

Choire / The Awl:

Jon Meacham Putting Together Bid for ‘Newsweek’ — In today's meeting, at which the announcement was made that Newsweek was being put up for sale by the Washington Post Company, the magazine's editor Jon Meacham said that he will be lining up financiers and trying to make a bid to buy the magazine himself.

Discussion: National Media, paidContent, FishbowlNY and Romenesko

Jeff Bercovici / DailyFinance:

‘Newsweek’ Is For Sale, But Buyer Will Be Hard to Find — The Washington Post Co. (WPO) has decided it no longer wants to own Newsweek. Will anyone else feel differently? — Ahead of its quarterly earnings announcement, set for Thursday, the company revealed it has retained the services …

Discussion: Paste Magazine

Juli Weiner / Vanity Fair:

Washington Post Co. to Sell Newsweek; “Mood's Not Bad Here, Surprisingly!” Says Anonymous Newsweek Employee — Today, the Washington Post Company, which has owned Newsweek since 1961, announced that it will try to sell the struggling magazine ... just like it does every week.

Discussion: Media Week, Economy Watch, Bloomberg, FOXBusiness.com, CBC News, This Just In and Reuters

Rafat Ali / paidContent:

Newsweek by Some-Really-Crazy Numbers — Peeking through Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) Company's 2009 10K is instructive, if you want to know the current state of Newsweek. Or even the future. At minimum, it is going one way: down. Here are some numbers, in excruciating detail:

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Time Inc. Publishes Good News: Ad Dollars, Subscription Revenue Up — Maybe the magazine business really did touch bottom last year. At least at Time Warner's giant Time Inc. unit: The publisher says ad revenue and subscription dollars actually increased in the first three months of 2010.

Discussion: Crain's New York Business, FishbowlNY, eMedia Vitals, Broadcasting & Cable, Guardian, New York Observer and Romenesko

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent: Ad Recovery At Time Inc., Turner Helps Time Warner Beat Street

Matthew Shaer / Christian Science Monitor:

Faisal Shahzad Facebook mixup highlights hazards of Web journalism — Earlier today, bloggers at the Huffington Post published a photo from Faisal Shahzad's Facebook page. One problem: They got the wrong Faisal Shahzad. — It was a testament to the hazards of reporting in the digital age.

Discussion: WebNewser, Romenesko, Gawker and The Huffington Post

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

CBS News and CNN Are Back in Partnership Negotiations — CBS News and CNN are in advanced negotiations about signing a news-gathering partnership, according to executives familiar with the discussions. The talks revolve around how the two news divisions can combine operations in a bid to cut costs and expand audiences on both sides.

Discussion: Media Decoder, TVWeek.com, Company Town, DailyFinance, New York Times, B&C, Mediaite, MediaPost, Tuned In, New York Observer, The Wire, LocalNewser and Lost Remote

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:
Full-fledged CNN, CBS News merger would be difficult to consummate

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, paidContent, rbr.com and Media Network

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

News Corp.'s Fabled Subscription Plans a Month Away — Remember Rupert Murdoch's plan to convince other media companies to join him behind a pay wall and offer their stuff only via subscription? It's still around, in some form. We'll hear more about it in “three to four weeks” Murdoch said today during News Corp.'s earnings call.

Discussion: Strupp, paidContent, Company Town, Variety, CJR, MediaPost, Press Gazette, Media Money …, paidContent, Crain's New York Business, Broadcasting & Cable, Media Matters for America and The Huffington Post

Joe Pompeo / Silicon Alley Insider:
Murdoch: ‘Any Idea About Us Spending $30 Million On A [Newspaper] War Is B.S.’ (NWS)

Discussion: Company Town, Associated Press and The Wire

Paul Boutin / VentureBeat:

Newsy raises $2M for honest-to-God mobile video journalism — Newsy, a startup formed in 2008 and based in Columbia, Missouri, announced this morning that the company has raised $2 million from undisclosed angel investors. The money, president Jim Spencer wrote in a prepared statement …

Discussion: NewTeeVee, LocalNewser, Newsy Blog, paidContent, TechCrunch and WebProNews

CNET News:

Media ask for Gizmodo court records in iPhone probe — The justifications police gave for searching the home of a Gizmodo editor in the criminal investigation of an iPhone prototype should be public, CNET News is preparing to tell a judge this week. — A group that also includes …

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Digits:

News Websites Discuss Life Without Google — The Web 2.0 Expo kicked off in San Francisco on Tuesday with a discussion that would be unthinkable without social media: How Web publishers can be successful without Google. — The panel, moderated by the Journal's Jessica Vascellaro …

Mark Cuban / NewTeeVee:

The Future of TV: Why NewTeeVee Is Wrong — Editor's note: Mark Cuban published a post on his blog yesterday titled The Future of TV is......TV in which he proclaimed that consumers don't want over-the-top video, but instead want to watch cable TV and VOD on their new, shiny HDTVs.

Discussion: MediaMemo

Wall Street Journal:

Google Readies Its E-Book Plan — Google Inc. plans to begin selling digital books in late June or July, a company official said Tuesday, throwing the search giant into a battle that already involves Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. — Google has been discussing its vision …

David Johns / Open:

Introducing Version 3 of the Times Newswire API — More than a year ago, we opened a veritable floodgate of information by releasing the Times Newswire API. Now, we've added new functionality to help you channel that flood. Version 3 of the Newswire API allows filtering by sections and sources …

MediaShift:

OurBlook Roundup: Journalism Will Survive in Digital Age — OurBlook.com is a website that gathers opinions from today's top leaders in the hopes of collaboratively finding tomorrow's solutions. It is funded by Paul Mongerson, a retired CEO who has a long history of philanthropy in the journalism world.

Felix Gillette / New York Observer:

High Tide at ‘The Atlantic’ — In the winter of 2009, David Bradley, the owner of the Atlantic Media Company, and Justin Smith, one of his top executives, met for a late-night dinner at Kinkead's restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue to plot the opening gambits in a Beltway media war.

Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:

Fending Off Microsoft, Google Invests In TV Ad Startup Invidi (GOOG, MSFT) — Update: Invidi just put out a press release confirming the news: — INVIDI Technologies Corporation, the leader in advanced addressable advertising solutions for television, announced today it has secured …

Discussion: MediaMemo, NewTeeVee, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and TechCrunch

John Gapper / John Gapper's Business Blog:

The New York Times gets down and dirty — ‘, Assanka. $(this).parents(’.falconpostactions'), “, ‘Share’, 530)”>Share — There is nothing quite so entertaining - or so illogical these days - than an old-fashioned newspaper war such as the one that Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, New York Times and Newser

Mark Fitzgerald / Editor and Publisher:

Community Publisher GateHouse Media Reports Q1 Loss — But Actual Gain in Print Classified Revenue — CHICAGO GateHouse Media in the past couple of years has not generally been the place to look for good news about the newspaper industry. After a blockbuster initial public offering …

Discussion: Fitz & Jen

Newsdesk / Tower Ticker:

Bloomberg's Jim Kirk named CNC managing editor — Jim Kirk, who left the Chicago Tribune 17 months ago to oversee Bloomberg News' Washington bureau coverage of the White House and Congress, is heading home to become managing editor of the nonprofit Chicago News Cooperative.

Discussion: blogs.vocalo.org, Chicagoist, Chicago Reader and Romenesko

Joel Johnson / Gizmodo:

48 Hours, 1,000s of Contributors, 1 Magazine — Can you make a magazine in a weekend? Of course you can. But can you make it good? That's the question 48 Hour Magazine is trying to answer, using online media tools to make an old-school rag in two days.

Discussion: 48 Hour Magazine and nhpr.org