Mediagazer: Amateur blogosphere, RIP (Chris Bowers/Open Left)

8:35 PM ET, June 6, 2010

Top News:

Does the Internet Make You Smarter? — Amid the silly videos and spam are the roots of a new reading and writing culture, says Clay Shirky. — Digital media have made creating and disseminating text, sound, and images cheap, easy and global. The bulk of publicly available media …

Discussion: Hillicon Valley, Kirk LaPointe's …, Gizmodo and Rough Type

Martin Moore / MediaShift Idea Lab:

The Future of News: Not So Bleak, Not So Rosy — What's the future of news? I'm tempted to say “not very much” since no one really knows too much about the future of news right now. You know this is true because senior news folk have given up on the doom and gloom stuff and are starting to talk about …

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Mediocrity is king — Last week, the Huffington Post reached a new apex. Viewed from France, where ads are localized, its home page carried a remarkably tasteful ad: a farting application for the iPhone (see below). As prudery still rules in American media, you'll notice that the farter's exhaust aperture has been blurred.

Discussion: Beyond Search

Chris Bowers / Open Left:

Amateur blogosphere, RIP — Today the New York Times announced that it will incorporate fivethirtyeight.com into the NYT website: … Only five years ago, the progressive political blogosphere was still predominately a gathering place for amateur (that is, unpaid or barely paid) …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb

New York Times:

Other Voices: What Exactly Is a Blog? — Re “A Private Room With a Narrow View” (May 30), about a reporter's blog after looking around the room where the late jazz musician Hank Jones lived: — Your column left mostly unanswered several questions that really should be addressed …

Discussion: Gawker, Runnin' Scared and The Public Editor's Journal

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Upfronts: Two Down, Three to Go — Two of the five big television networks that broadcast in English have completed their sales of commercial time for the coming season in what is called the upfront market. — Fox Broadcasting, part of the News Corporation, and CW, owned by the CBS Corporation …

Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:

Bravo Will Make You a Reality Star (if the Web Agrees) — THE new Bravo reality show “Bethenny Getting Married?” is ready to tape, and its star, an outspoken brunette named Bethenny Frankel, is right on time. She walks into Fig & Olive, an airy Manhattan restaurant, and exchanges cheek kisses with Bravo producers and cameramen.

Discussion: New York Magazine

Mike Henry / AdAge:

What a Toddler Can Tell You About the Future of Media — Just Put One in Front of an IPad, Take Notes, and Say Goodbye to Passive Media — Anyone pondering the future of television programming and related business models had better talk to my son Carson.

Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Online:

PDF10: Truth Telling and Shaming — I don't know why people assume that fact-checking and truth-telling are easy. I think they are hard. They involve choices — more so than fact-checkers care to admit sometimes. But a measure of doubt should not ever prevent a journalist from noticing …

Rupal Parekh / AdAge:

Ten Questions With @BPGlobalPR — Leroy Stick: 'This Isn't a PR Nightmare, It's an Actual Nightmare' — Leroy Stick has a beef not just with BP, but with the PR industry as well. After posting a manifesto explaining his assumed identity and his purpose, we reached out to the man claiming …

Peter Lauria / The Daily Beast:

Sex War at MTV — Blogs and Stories — Viacom's frisky chairman, Sumner Redstone, is forcing MTV to produce a show about a sexy but talentless all-girl band. Peter Lauria on how the Electric Barbarellas may drive out his CEO. — A few weeks ago, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone …

Brian Moylan / Gawker:

British Newspaper Has Given Up on Writing Headlines Entirely — The cover of yesterday's British newspaper Times & Citizen never bothered to replace the filler text for its main feature story headline. We know things are rough out there, but here's what happens when you let the copy editors go.