Mediagazer: Yes, People Still Read, but Now It's Social (Steven Johnson/New York Times)

10:55 AM ET, June 21, 2010

Top News:

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Le Monde on The Brink — Within two weeks, the French newspaper Le Monde will run out of cash. By this Monday at noon, candidates to the takeover of the most prestigious French daily will have disclosed their offers. By June 28, the staff will vote and make the final decision for the fate of the 66 years-old paper.

Discussion: Guardian, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg

Reuters:

France Telecom approves bid for Le Monde stake: source — (Reuters) - France Telecom's (FTE.PA) supervisory board has approved the firm's participation in a joint bid with two other investors for a stake in Le Monde, a source close to the matter said on Sunday.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and DealBook

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:

Increasingly, nonprofits fill a need for investigative reporting — In a seventh-floor conference room festooned with framed articles and journalism awards, Managing Editor Gordon Witkin leads the morning discussion of stories his staff is pursuing. — Their latest scoop …

Discussion: Romenesko

Roy Greenslade / Guardian: The Times's paywall song - will you still read me when I'm free no more

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Google's Newspass: Is the King of Free About to Help News Providers Get Paid? — On Thursday, word seemed to quietly leak out, in Italian no less, that Google would soon unveil a one-click payment system for content called “Newspass.” — According to the newspaper La Repubblica, Google …

Discussion: Pursuing the Complete …, New York Observer, The Money Shot, Press Gazette, Search Engine Watch and Guardian

Adriano Farano:
Newspass, Is Google Murdoch's best friend?

Discussion: MediaPost

Martin Fackler / New York Times:

Ink Gushes in Japan's Media Landscape — TOKYO — For years, the online newspaper JanJan News mounted a scrappy challenge to Japan's blandly conformist press, offering articles written by readers who took on taboo subjects like whaling and the media's collusion with the government.

Discussion: Guardian

David Carr / New York Times:

Larry King's Endgame at CNN — At the beginning of June, CNN's Larry King celebrated 25 years in the same slot on the same network — a remarkable achievement in a come-and-go business — and was joined over a week by Bill Gates, LeBron James and the leader of the free world to mark the occasion.

Discussion: Mediaite, Romenesko, The Huffington Post, Company Town, Beehive City, Inside Cable News and New York Magazine

David Teather / Guardian:

Big media's losses on social networks hit £1bn — Facebook is still a winner but Bebo, MySpace and Friends Reunited show the high price of investing in fickle trends — The media industry has now lost $1.5bn (£1bn) on investments in the social networking craze after AOL sold Bebo …

Discussion: Noted

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Local Broadcasters Are Fearful of an NBC-Comcast Deal — Comcast, the nation's biggest cable provider, has long played hardball with competitors and content providers. Now that it is seeking control of NBC Universal in a $30 billion transaction, those competitors are piping up …

Discussion: Free Press

Steven Johnson / New York Times:

Yes, People Still Read, but Now It's Social — “THE point of books is to combat loneliness,” David Foster Wallace observes near the beginning of “Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself,” David Lipsky's recently published, book-length interview with him.

Discussion: /Message, Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day and San Francisco Chronicle

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

On Web Video, Captions Are Coming Slowly — The actress Marlee Matlin shimmied her way onto “Dancing With the Stars” two years ago, memorably using sign language to tell viewers to “read my hips.” But when Ms. Matlin, who is deaf, went to ABC.com to watch a replay of the show …

Discussion: Beet.TV

Eric Pfanner / New York Times:

What's Murdoch's Aim With Latest Deal? — PARIS — What is Rupert Murdoch up to? That question comes up anytime the chief executive of News Corp. makes an acquisition, no matter how small. So last week, as the company proposed its biggest deal yet, the possibilities, for Murdoch-watchers, were particularly intriguing.

Discussion: The Wire

Dylan Stableford / TheWrap.com:

Portal Predicament: No One Hangs Around Anymore — Before the Internet could finish off newspapers, the pillars of the digital age are already suffering their own slide. Portals Yahoo!, MSN and AOL — for years the largest source of traffic on the web — are seeing recent dropoffs in visitors …

Discussion: Romenesko

Charlie Wells / San Francisco Chronicle:

Public Press started online, now turns to print — On Tuesday, the San Francisco Public Press will do something that few Web-based news outlets have done before: go to print. — The Press, a nonprofit news source that started covering local issues online in 2009, will release …

Discussion: Romenesko