Mediagazer: Radio Days: Brian Lehrer on the connection between 'user engagement … (Gillian Reagan/Capital New York)

11:45 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, Deadline.com, New York Magazine, NY Daily News, USA Today, The Wire, 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 Daily Fix, New York Times, Geekosystem, Best Week Ever, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post and PopWatch, more at Techmeme »

Sports Illustrated:
ESPN's LeBron circus good for TV ratings, bad for sports media

Discussion: Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal and Romenesko

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

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

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: E-Media Tidbits

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

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 …

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 and NetNewsCheck Latest

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Rewired:

Google woos studios, guilds in Sun Valley — Attention movie studios: Google's YouTube is open for business with you and other content partners. — That was a key message from the Google top management team here Thursday as chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt (pictured) and co-founders Larry Page …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

The Huffington Post:
Warren Buffett Interview In Sun Valley: Buffett Reveals His …

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

Steve Myers / Poynter Online:

Live Chat Friday: 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 the e-mails to JournoList that led to his resignation, but about whether and how journalists …

Discussion: Esquire

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, Mashable!, PC World, Go Rumors, Fast Company, CrunchGear and Gizmodo

Globe and Mail:

Lisa LaFlamme to replace Lloyd Robertson at CTV — Lisa LaFlamme will replace Lloyd Robertson as anchor of CTV National News, the network announced on Friday. — Ms. LaFlamme, who began her broadcast career at a Kitchener-Waterloo affiliate in 1988, is currently national affairs correspondent for CTV News.

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 …

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

Gillian Reagan / Capital New York:

Radio Days: Brian Lehrer on the connection between ‘user engagement’ and ‘listener support’ — One of the great things about local radio, according to Brian Lehrer, the 57-year-old, glasses-wearing host of an eponymous WNYC talk show for the past 21 years, is its smallness.

Emma Barnett / Telegraph:

Channel Five pulls out of Project Canvas — Project Canvas, which is also co-owned by ITV, Channel 4, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva, is due to go on sale next year and be marketed as YouView. Five, which has been put up for sale by its parent company RTL, is the smallest broadcaster out the shareholder group, in terms of size and revenues.