Top News:
Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:
The Times to Host Political Polling Site FiveThirtyEight — The New York Times said Thursday that it would begin hosting the popular blog FiveThirtyEight and make its founder, Nate Silver, a regular contributor to the newspaper and the Sunday magazine. — Mr. Silver, a statistical wizard …
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Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Articles of incorporation: Nate Silver and Jim Roberts on the NYT's absorption of FiveThirtyEight — Big news today: Nate Silver and his wonderblog, FiveThirtyEight, are moving on up to The New York Times. Later this summer — probably in early August — FTE's statistictastic posts …
John Koblin / New York Observer:
Times Sends Journal Cease and Desist Letter Over Brand Campaign — A lawyer from The New York Times Company has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the marketing director at Dow Jones after a recent Journal advertisement used the same language as a recent Times ad. — “Not Just Wall Street.
The Atlantic Wire:
MEDIA DIET: Clay Shirky: What I Read — How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all? Do they have some secret? Perhaps. We are asking various friends and colleagues who seem well-informed to describe their media diets.
Discussion:
Fitz & Jen
Michael J. Miller / Forward Thinking:
AOL's Tim Armstrong: The Power of Local Journalism — Tim Armstrong , CEO of AOL, said he believes the next phase of the Internet is about content. And he told the audience at D8 that AOL is working on the “future of journalism.” — Armstrong stressed the importance and power of local journalism …
Holly Sanders Ware / New York Post:
Talking money — Call him Conan O'Mighty. — Cable powerhouse TBS, which landed comedian Conan O'Brien after his falling-out with NBC, has begun asking advertisers to pay top-shelf broadcast TV-level rates — and higher — for the comedian's one-hour show.
RELATED:
Sam Schechner / Speakeasy:
Basic Cable Dance-Off: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Stop By Conan …
Basic Cable Dance-Off: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert Stop By Conan …
Discussion:
The Wire
New York Times:
Bids Submitted for Newsweek Sale — Two magnates, a conservative publisher and the company that bought TV Guide for $1 have all raised their hands as potential buyers of Newsweek. — By the time the deadline to submit preliminary bids for the magazine expired Wednesday at 5 p.m. …
Discussion:
DailyFinance, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Romenesko, Mediaite, Tuned In, New York Magazine and New York Observer
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Leroy Stick / Street Giant:
the man behind @BPGlobalPR — My name is Leroy Stick and I am the man behind @BPGlobalPR. First, let me begin by explaining my name. — When I was growing up, there was a dog that lived on my block named Leroy. Leroy was a big dog with a disdain for leashes and a thirst for blood.
Rafat Ali / paidContent:
Nielsen Files For A Possible $1.75 Billion IPO — Nielsen, one of the biggest B2B media and measurement companies, has filed for an IPO, and hopes to raise as much as $1.75 billion. J.P. Morgan Securities and Morgan Stanley are the lead underwriters for it, but no word on share price range …
Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Is 70 percent of what we read online really by our friends? — Last month, we tweeted a remarkable stat: … Our source was this article citing a recent panel discussion at an SEO conference in New York. Here's how the stat was presented, in a piece in the newsletter Publishing Trends, as a product of Forrester Research:
Shira Ovide / Wall Street Journal:
Hearst to Buy iCrossing — Hearst Corp. finalized Wednesday the purchase of digital-marketing firm iCrossing Inc. for about $325 million, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest traditional media company to bulk up on its digital-marketing expertise.
Wall Street Journal:
‘Vanity’ Press Shakes Up Book Industry — Writer Karen McQuestion spent nearly a decade trying without success to persuade a New York publisher to print one of her books. In July, the 49-year-old mother of three decided to publish it herself, online. — Eleven months later …
Andy Medici / Poynter Online:
Strange Bedfellows: What Journalism Can Learn From Adult Entertainment — Let's role-play for a second. — Imagine you are working in an industry that has been battered by the recent recession and rapid advances in technology. Instead of paying for teams of professionals …
Jeff Jarvis / New York Post:
How not to save news — The Federal Trade Commis sion says it wants to save journalism. I'm not sure who asked it to. — In a just-released “staff discussion draft” of “potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism,” the agency only circles its wagons around old newspapers …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Exclusive: Microsoft U.S. Ad Sales VP Domeniconi to Depart, While Exec From MTV Arrives to Run Global Online Sales — According to sources, Robin Domeniconi (pictured here), Microsoft's VP for U.S. Advertising Sales, Publishing and Marketing, will be leaving the company.
Jessa Crispin / Need to Know | PBS:
A writer leaves journalism to find truth in fiction — Novelist Lorraine Adams had another life as a journalist. A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The Washington Post, she left the newspaper after 11 years and published her first and widely acclaimed novel, “Harbor,” in 2004.
Discussion:
Romenesko
Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The Newsonomics of commercial crowdsourcing — [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.] — There are no new ideas in the digital business …
Dan Trombetto / Folio:
Media Mavericks — A year in, The Christian Science Monitor's strategic shift is showing promise. — Today, most publishers are re-examining their business model, driven by the collapse in print advertising and a shift in their audience to new outlets. Many have gone online only …
Discussion:
MEDIA BEESWAX
Joe Pompeo / The Wire:
Beware, Wall Street: Roddy Boyd's New Blog, The Financial Investigator, Is Watching You — There's a brand new investigative journalism project focusing on Wall Street. — But it's not the product of a major news organization or non-profit. — It's just one journalist's blog …
Peter Kafka / D8 Conference:
Demand Media's Richard Rosenblatt and ProPublica's Paul Steiger Live at D8 — What's the future of the media business? Demand Media, the Google-savvy “content farm” that generates thousands of computer-assigned, low-cost Web items a day? Or ProPublica, a nonprofit that produces deep-dive …
David Kaplan / paidContent:
Fwix Moves Beyond News, Indexing ‘Everything’ Local — Hyperlocal newswire wants to do more than just aggregate news. Starting today, it will begin adding real estate listings, restaurant specials and other local info gathered from sites like Twitter and Foursquare in a single index.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Claire Kirch / Publishers Weekly:
Paris Literary Icon Launches Prize and Magazine — Shakespeare & Company Bookshop, the Paris literary icon originally founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919, and opened by George Whitman in 1951, is launching a literary magazine and literary prize. Both ventures will be officially announced …
Discussion:
Vanity Fair
The Independent:
PR stunt or the new journalism?: The titans of public relations are going direct to viewers and readers — It's easy to be cynical but it could be the future, says Ian Burrell — Public relations, to some the business of puff and fluff, is flexing its media muscles like never …
Laurie Sullivan / MediaPost:
Citysearch LLC Relaunches As CityGrid Media — IAC will relaunch an online media company Thursday that connects Web and mobile publishers with local advertising organizations. The strategy renames Citysearch LLC as CityGrid Media, which becomes the umbrella for local advertising network CityGrid …
Discussion:
paidContent
Alex Pham / Los Angeles Times:
Vevo's Rio Caraeff is king of online music videos — Recently launched Vevo became the No. 1 site for online music videos in April. Caraeff talks about his plans for turning a profit and about working with, rather than against, Google and YouTube. — If Rio Caraeff had his way, the phrase …