Mediagazer: Rupert Murdoch Still Needs Allies for His Digital News Crusade (Peter Kafka/MediaMemo)

2:40 PM ET, May 19, 2010

Top News:

Stephanie Clifford / Media Decoder:

Jill Abramson Temporarily Steps Aside as Managing Editor to Focus on Digital Side — In an unusual and temporary management shuffle, Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news at The New York Times, will step aside for six months to focus on digital operations and strategy.

Discussion: Romenesko, New York Observer and New York Magazine

Jim Romenesko / Poynter Online:

NYT memo re Jill Abramson — Jill's Big Adventure Colleagues: Beginning June 1, Jill is going to take a six-month detour from the traditional Managing Editor role to run the news part of the Website and to fully immerse herself in the digital part of our world.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

David Carr / Media Decoder:

48 HR Magazine Experiment Big Hit, Except for That Part About the Lawyers — It's the kind of story that would warm the cockles of any old MSM hack: Young, talented journalists in San Francisco decide to use all manner of digital technology and the networked wisdom of the crowd powered by social media to produce ... a magazine.

Discussion: Mediaite, Make Work Meaningful, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, The Snitch and Boing Boing

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Cable Bombast and Ratings Lead CNN Anchor to Quit — Once again, a star anchor is leaving CNN. This time it is Campbell Brown, and she is leaving with an extraordinary amount of candor. — In a heartfelt statement on Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Brown said she was leaving on her own accord …

Discussion: The Wire, Mediaite, TVNewser, Wonkette and PopEater

Steve Krakauer / Mediaite:

Campbell Brown Leaving CNN After Network Grants Release From Contract (UPDATE) — Mediaite has learned CNN has granted anchor Campbell Brown's request to be let out early from her contract. — She has agreed to stay on and anchor the 8pmET hour until a replacement is found. Updated with statements.

Oliver Luft / Press Gazette:

Witherow: Paywall needed for Times 100m ed costs — John Witherow, editor of the Sunday Times, last night admitted the move to restrict access to his newspaper's online content was “a big gamble” but necessary to help meet Times Newspapers' £100m editorial costs.

Discussion: paidContent, Beehive City, Guardian, Editors Weblog and Journalism.co.uk

Media Week:

Guardian editor forecasts ‘vault of darkness’ for The Times — LONDON - Alan Rusbridger and John Witherow sparred over their respective free and paid-for online journalism models last night, but were united in saying their current printing presses will be their last. — Alan Rusbridger: paywalls ‘a vault of darkness’

Discussion: bbc.co.uk, The Wire and Lost Remote

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Rupert Murdoch Still Needs Allies for His Digital News Crusade — Within the next two weeks or so, we're supposed to hear about Rupert Murdoch's digital news subscription service-the one he has been trying to put together for many months. — One problem: That service is supposed …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, New York Observer and Free Press

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

Yahoo's Buy of Associated Content Makes It a Publisher, Syndicator, Wire, Ad Rep...and More — So what indeed is Yahoo? CEO Carol Bartz has been trying to paint the new picture of it not being in Google's space, but being different. Not a search company, to be sure, a media company of some sort …

Discussion: The Praized Blog, paidContent, Romenesko, Kirk LaPointe's … and Silicon Alley Insider

Edmund Lee / AdAge:
Yahoo Buys Associated Content for $100 Million

Felix Gillette / New York Observer:

Three Birds, a Billionaire and the Hyper-Local Future of News — On the morning of Monday, May 17, a Web site called DNAinfo.com published a story about a rooster named Napoleon Bonaparte and two hens, named Lucy and Apple. The story was a classic nugget of neighborhood reporting …

Discussion: Romenesko and Collective Talent

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Bloomberg EIC Winkler clamps down on Twitter posts — TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE — Bloomberg News editor in chief Matt Winkler is not happy with how some of the organization's journalists are phrasing their breaking news posts on Twitter. — In his weekly notes to the staff, Winkler recently slammed some specific Twitter posts.

Discussion: Romenesko and Cision

Reuters:

Twitter expects hundreds of advertisers — (Reuters) - Twitter, the rapidly expanding microblogging service, plans to have hundreds of advertisers using its new ad system in the fourth quarter as the company ramps up plans to become a self-sustaining, profitable business.

Discussion: MediaFile

New York Observer:

Si It Isn't So! Condé Considers Move Downtown — Si Newhouse is intent on finding Condé Nast a new home. — Only 11 years after Condé Nast moved into 4 Times Square, Mr. Newhouse has stepped up a three-year-long real estate search and is setting his sights on, of all places, lower Manhattan.

Discussion: Romenesko

Poynter Online:

WP's Vick named Time Jerusalem bureau chief — We're delighted to announce that Karl Vick is our new Jerusalem bureau chief. A gifted writer and reporter, Karl joins us from The Washington Post, where from 1998 to 2007 he covered most every major global conflict — and many minor ones, too.

Matthew Belloni / Hollywood Reporter:

NIKKI FINKE IN TALKS FOR HBO PAYDAY — EXCLUSIVE: HBO is trying to make a deal with litigious showbiz blogger Nikki Finke. The network is negotiating an arrangement with Finke to bless “Tilda,” its planned comedy about a Hollywood blogger very much like Finke.

Discussion: FishbowlLA, Romenesko, Gawker, LA Observed and New York Magazine

Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:

Blip.TV Raises Another $10 Million For TV Network Of The Future — Web video startup Blip.TV just closed a $10.1 million financing round to build out a sort-of “TV network of the future.” — Canaan Partners, which sold Associated Content to Yahoo yesterday for roughly $100 million, led the round.

Discussion: TechCrunch, MediaMemo, paidContent and PE Hub Blog

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:

Google: we want to work with publishers — Search giant's bosses say they want to collaborate on paywalls and subscription tools - and have held talks with Rupert Murdoch — Google's plans to help prop up the flagging newspaper publishing industry include building paywall …

John Gapper / John Gapper's Business Blog:
Google is agnostic about charging for news

Discussion: Marketing News and Financial Times

Tim Elfrink / miaminewtimes.com:

Posner Plagiarizes Again — Disgraced Miami Beach author Gerald Posner is desperate. He apparently whitewashed an account of his serial plagiarism on his Wikipedia page, then threatened Miami New Times with a lawsuit for writing about it. And now he's retained an 83-year-old lawyer infamous …

Discussion: mediabistro.com and Gawker

Gawker:

A $20 Million Bid to Buy Perez Hilton — Gawker has learned that Avid Life Media, the owner of sites including HotorNot.com and Ashley Madison, has partnered with two prominent gossip bloggers to put in a $20 million bid to acquire PerezHilton.com. — Avid Life's spokesperson, Steph Davis …

Discussion: New York Observer and Deadspin

bizjournals:

Brown Publishing proposes sale — Brown Publishing Co. has proposed to a New York bankruptcy court that its assets be sold to a recently formed company owned by its CEO Roy Brown, general counsel Joel Dempsey, and CFO Joseph Ellingham. — Terms of the proposed sale are outlined …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Huffington talks convergence, and “monetizeable free” — We wrote Monday about The Washington Post taking a page from The Huffington Post in building blog networks on the content-for-exposure-not-cash model. But the borrowing isn't all going in one direction.

Discussion: Romenesko, eMedia Vitals, FishbowlLA and Washington Life Magazine

New York Times:

Advertising: Fall Lineups Are Escapist but Not Oblivious — FOR more than two years, the state of the economy has been Topic A on television, from morning shows like “Today” to talk shows like “Oprah” to news shows like “60 Minutes.” But there is one time period from which discussions of the recession …

Wall Street Journal:

Amazon Branches Out with Publishing Arm — Amazon.com Inc. said it plans to launch a publishing imprint that will produce English-language translations of foreign-language books. — The imprint, AmazonCrossing, will acquire rights to books and hire writers to translate them into English …

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Zuckerman considers making Newsweek bid — With the first-round deadline less than two weeks away, real estate magnate Mort Zuckerman, owner of the Daily News and US News & World Report, is now said to be considering a bid for Newsweek. — While Zuckerman has converted US News to a monthly from a weekly …

Discussion: New York Magazine and The Wire

Mike Fleming / Deadline.com:

Docu On Jimmy Breslin & NYC Newspapers — UPDATE: Former flackmeister Dan Klores has spent the last decade making documentaries on New York-centric subjects. So, natch, he'll next focus his camera on Gotham's Jimmy Breslin. Klores will begin work in September on Breslin: The Great One …