Mediagazer: Newspaper Wants Readers to Pay to Comment (Frederic Lardinois/ReadWriteWeb)

7:30 PM ET, July 9, 2010

Top News:

Darren Rovell / CNBC:

Reporter Jim Gray Paid By LeBron Entity, Not ESPN — As Jim Gray has told it, it was his idea to make LeBron James' free agent plan an hour special. He took the idea to James' marketing agent Maverick Carter of LRMR, who then worked with William Morris Endeavor to put the package together in front of ESPN executives.

Discussion: Charles Apple, New York Observer, New York Magazine, Deadline.com, The Wire, NY Daily News, USA Today, Z on TV, SBNation.com and Soup

John D. Sutter / CNN:

Cavs owner's letter mocked for Comic Sans font — Editor's note: NBA.com and CNN.com share the same parent company, Turner Broadcasting Services Inc. — (CNN) — Dear computer users: If you're ever going to write a fuming letter, think twice before setting the font to the oh-so-mockable Comic Sans.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, The Daily Fix, The Awl, New York Times, Best Week Ever, TechCrunch and PopWatch, more at Techmeme »

Sports Illustrated:

ESPN's LeBron circus good for TV ratings, bad for sports media … Author and LeBronologist Buzz Bissinger described it as TV's equivalent of waterboarding. New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro called it an “awful night for Cleveland, worse night for sports, worst night for ESPN.”

Discussion: Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Romenesko

Mike Reynolds / Multichannel:
Sun Sports Should Rise With LeBron Addition

Discussion: The Big Picture, TVbytheNumbers, Media Decoder, MediaPost, Tower Ticker, Romenesko, CJR, MediaMemo, Moraes on TV, Company Town, Speakeasy, Gothamist, Relevant Results and ChicagoNow

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

YouTube Starts $5 Million Fund to Finance Original Videos — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — In a cautious move into the original content business, search titan Google announced that its YouTube property has created a $5 million fund to help finance more original videos.

Discussion: YouTube Blog, Bits, paidContent, TechCrunch, NewTeeVee, ReadWriteWeb, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Erictric, VentureBeat, Hollywood Rewired, All Things Digital and MarketingVOX, more at Techmeme »

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Journalists Worried About Content Farms Are Missing The Point: The Web Has Always Been Filled With Crap — There's been a lot of fretting lately in the journalism field about the rise of so-called “content farms.” These are operations like Demand Media or Associated Content …

Discussion: Poynter Online

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Yahoo Media Chief Jimmy Pitaro Talks About the Upshot of Content's Future — Whilst in Santa Monica, Calif., this week, BoomTown stopped in at the YahooPlex for a quick chat with the Internet giant's Jimmy Pitaro, who is VP of media. — The focus was a high-profile blog called The Upshot …

The Huffington Post:

Warren Buffett Interview In Sun Valley: Buffett Reveals His Surprising Web Habits (VIDEO) — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — The Oracle of Omaha may not have an iPod, iPad, or Facebook account, but, excluding email, he spends more time on the computer than Bill Gates and says YouTube has won him over.

Discussion: SocialTimes.com, MediaMemo, YouTube Blog and New York Magazine

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Rewired:
Google woos studios, guilds in Sun Valley

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Steve Myers / Poynter Online:

Chat Replay: The Future of ‘Objective’ Journalism after David Weigel's Departure from the Post — David Weigel's departure from The Washington Post has sparked a lot of conversation — not only about his e-mails to JournoList that led to his resignation, but about whether and how journalists …

Discussion: Esquire

Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:

Newspaper Wants Readers to Pay to Comment — Earlier this year, the Sun Chronicle, a small Massachusetts-based newspaper, closed down comments on its website after discussions in the paper's comment section got out of hand. Now, in order to “encourage intelligent and meaningful conversation …

Discussion: Techdirt

Business Wire:

Salon.com Boosts Readership and Revenue in Second Quarter 2010 — Readership Climbs 20% and Revenue Jumps 40% as New Projects Attract Readers and Advertisers — Companies: — Related Quotes — SymbolPriceChange — 0.15 — SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—New partnerships …

David Folkenflik / NPR:

As ‘Truth-O-Meter’ Spreads, Politicians Wince — Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst woke up the other day to find the newspaper had declared on the front page that he was dead wrong. — To be precise, the Austin American-Statesman said Dewhurst had made statements about kidnapping in Phoenix that were FALSE.

Discussion: Editors Weblog and The Texas Tribune

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

Condé Nast Traveller Blends Location and Augmented Reality in New iPhone Apps — Condé Nast Digital Britain recently unveiled a series of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, dubbed Condé Nast Traveller City Guides. There are four separate apps for Barcelona, New York, Paris and Rome priced at $9.99 each.

Discussion: MEDIA BEESWAX

Ryan Lawler / NewTeeVee:

New Apple TV Will Push 99 Cent Streaming TV Rentals — Apple is about to get a lot more serious about its “hobby” with the next release of its Apple TV set-top box, as sources say that the software company will look to push a new streaming rental service that will offer up individual TV episodes for 99 cents.

Discussion: Ars Technica, PC World, Mashable!, Go Rumors, Fast Company, CrunchGear and Gizmodo

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Pentagon Reinstates Banned Guantánamo Reporter — After weeks of sparring with the media over First Amendment issues, the Pentagon has agreed to allow a Miami Herald reporter it expelled from Guantánamo Bay in May back onto the naval base. — Carol Rosenberg …

Discussion: Romenesko

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

One Week Of Hulu Plus: Glee-Full But Not Giddy — Is Hulu Plus worth $10 a month? It all depends on the programming you like to watch, how much of it you want to access and how often. I've been using the long-anticipated subscription service from the joint venture of Disney (NYSE: DIS) …

Discussion: NewTeeVee