Mediagazer: The New Republic Adds Blogs, Claims Ad Success Amid Hybrid Pay-Free Site (David Kaplan/paidContent)

6:40 AM ET, July 2, 2010

Top News:

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Study: Newspapers stopped describing waterboarding as ‘torture’ during Bush years — Is waterboarding torture? If you picked up a major U.S. newspaper before 2004, the answer would likely be ‘yes,’ according to a new Harvard University study. — But in the post-9/11 world …

Discussion: The Plum Line, The Daily Dish, GroundReport.com, Daily Kos, FishbowlNY, Romenesko, The Huffington Post and Mediaite

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Hearst's Houston, San Antonio papers to work even more closely together — Memo to Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News staffs — It was about a year ago when Steve Swartz at Hearst Newspapers urged us to accelerate the rate of exchange between our two newsrooms.

Discussion: Editors Weblog and Hair Balls

Tim Adams / Business Week:

Tyler Brûlé, Media Maverick — Canadian-born Tyler Brûlé's magazine, Monocle, challenges just about every piece of received wisdom about what works in media these days — In a modest, terraced mews building beside Marylebone station in West London …

Bill Mitchell / Newspay:

Pay Walls Debut at Three Gannett Papers Testing ‘Journalism as a Service’ — Gannett stepped into the world of paid content today with what it termed “a small-scale test” at the Tallahassee Democrat, The Greenville (S.C.) News and The (St. George, Utah) Spectrum. — screengrab/Tallahassee.com

Discussion: paidContent

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

UK Times Goes Tentatively Paid From Friday At £1-A-Month — We've covered every step in Times Newspapers' conversion to paid websites - the initial plan, the confirmation, the blocking of stories from search engines and the launch in May of the two new websites behind a registration wall on a free preview basis.

Discussion: Guardian, Bloomberg, Media Week Customer Publishing, Editors Weblog, magCulture.com/blog, Company Town, Press Gazette, ResourceShelf, Jon Slattery and WebNewser

Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:

Groupon to Offer Exclusive Deals through Local Newspapers — The quickly growing deal-a-day site Groupon has entered in to a partnership with The McClatchy Company — owner of The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee and several other newspapers — to outsource exclusive Groupon deals to McClatchy websites in 28 U.S. markets.

Discussion: MarketWatch, paidContent, ReveNews and Old Media, New Tricks

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

Marc Lasry's Avenue Capital Is Among Newsweek Finalists, Drasner Would Be A ‘Tough’ Owner — Here's what we know as the 5 p.m. July 1 deadline for final Newsweek bids approaches. — Chris Ruddy's Newsmax Media is out, as are hedge funders Thane Ritchie and Phil Falcone.

Discussion: DailyFinance, FishbowlNY and Romenesko

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:
Newsmax Media, Two Others Are Out Of The Running For Newsweek

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Media Life Magazine, Folio, CNBC, New York Post, Media Research Center, Romenesko, The Wrap, New York Magazine and New York Times

Charles Arthur / Guardian:

Eric Schmidt talks about threats to Google, paywalls and the future — Google chief Eric Schmidt tells Activate summit that the future of newspapers is online - and mobile — Google chief executive Eric Schmidt says that the experience of reading news will move to digital devices quite rapidly …

Discussion: The Register, Telegraph, MacStories, Kirk LaPointe's … and 9 to 5 Mac, more at Techmeme »

Patrick Gavin / The Politico:

JOURNOS' FAVORITE JUNKET — There are plenty of perks to being a reporter: free notepads, the occasional expensed source lunch and that whole “front-row seat to history” thing. — But, for a privileged few, there's one bonus that beats all the rest: A week of drinking top shelf booze, free of charge.

Discussion: FishbowlDC

Will Richmond / VideoNuze:

Revision3 is Achieving Unaided Advertising Recall of Up to 99% — When Revision3, the independent network of online video programs, has surveyed its viewers, it has discovered that 99% of them are able to identify at least 1 of its advertisers. That incredibly high level of unaided recall …

Discussion: WebNewser

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Anderson Cooper ‘Very Happy at CNN’ with ‘No Plans to Leave’ — Anderson Cooper, reporting from the Gulf, has taken the time to email his staff about an online story earlier this week which claimed he was unhappy at CNN and ready to bolt the network. From The Wrap:

Discussion: The Wrap, UnBeige, FishbowlNY, GalleyCat and WebNewser

BBC:

China's Xinhua launches global English TV channel — China's state news agency Xinhua has launched a 24-hour global news channel in English. — Officials said CNC World would present “an international vision with a China perspective”. — The launch is being seen as an attempt by China …

Anton Troianovski / Wall Street Journal:
China Agency Nears Times Square

Discussion: Gawker, Guardian, Journalism.co.uk and The Wire

Ben / Westside Independent:

Proof that the New York Times is More Popular than the Wall Street Journal — Among Thieves — The Wall Street Journal is in a death-match with the New York Times to win the hearts and minds of New York's intellegentsia. But there is one crucial group to whom the Journal apparently doesn't appeal: thieves.

Discussion: New York Observer and Crain's New York Business

The Independent:

BBC's new pay policy ‘could spark media war’ — Corporation may never be the same again if it reveals stars' salaries — When Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, told a broadcasting seminar in London on Wednesday night that the BBC should publish details of the salaries paid …

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

Paper.li Lets You Read Twitter In Daily Newspaper Form, Raises More Funding — Exclusive - SmallRivers, a fledging Internet startup based out of Switzerland that has developed a Web app called Paper.li that basically lets you turn Twitter streams, tags and lists into daily online newspapers …

Discussion: paper.li, WebNewser and ReadWriteWeb

Jon Slattery:

FBU spokesman fights tabloid fire with fire — The good thing about blogs is the way they give you many different angles on a story, not just from journalists but from those dealing with them or the people they are writing about. — Francis Beckett (pictured) is currently handling media relations …

Discussion: Francis Beckett

Eric Alterman / The Nation:

A Conspiracy So Immense... There used to be a specter haunting the American media—a specter called “Journolist.” A by-invitation liberal Internet listserv that grew to 400 members, it was introduced to the larger public in a lurid March 2009 Politico cover story asking the question, “Proof of a Vast Liberal Media Conspiracy?”

Discussion: Romenesko and GalleyCat

Matt / WordPress.com News:

Phone Your Blog — A broken telephone I saw while wandering around Bangkok — It's happened to all of us. The night starts off innocently enough with a little gin and tonic, maybe a mojito, then next thing you know you're doing tequila shots with the bartender and the girl from Brazil …

Discussion: VentureBeat and The Next Web