Mediagazer: Hulu's sharp decline in viewership underscores inconsistency … (Dawn C. Chmielewski/Los Angeles Times)

7:40 PM ET, July 27, 2010

Top News:

John Cook / Yahoo! News:

Leaked files indicate U.S. pays Afghan media to run friendly stories — Buried among the 92,000 classified documents released Sunday by WikiLeaks is some intriguing evidence that the U.S. military in Afghanistan has adopted a PR strategy that got it into trouble in Iraq: paying local media outlets to run friendly stories.

Discussion: Romenesko, Journalism and the World and Mother Jones

C.W. Anderson / Nieman Journalism Lab:
When do 92,000 documents trump an off-the-record dinner?

Discussion: Washington Post, The Atlantic Online, The Nation, Mother Jones, New York Times, NPR, Hot Air and Editors Weblog

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
WikiLeaks Rolled Dice to Raise Its Profile

Discussion: Guardian, Digits, techPresident, Computerworld, Daily Kos, Reuters, J-Source, CNET News, The Politico, Christian Science Monitor, The Huffington Post, Beet.TV and Media Decoder

Joel Meares / CJR:
WaPo, Time, and Others Play Catch-up on WikiLeaks

Discussion: New York Observer, Time, Los Angeles Times, Swampland and THE WEEK

Fred Kaplan / Slate:
No one who's been paying attention should be surprised by the …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Guardian, New York Times, Fast Company, Gawker, Online NewsHour, Danger Room, George Brock, ProPublica, Open Culture, CJR, The Nation, Politics Daily, The Caucus and Law Blog

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Ex-Washington Post blogger David Weigel joins Slate — Journalist David Weigel, who resigned from the Washington Post last month after a leaked-email controversy, is joining Slate as a political reporter. — “I'm thrilled to be joining Slate, thrilled to be working with writers I've read …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, New York Observer, On Media's Blog, National Review, Gawker and Politics Daily

Justin Osofsky / Facebook Developers:

Working with Media Organizations to Build Social News — Small blogs to major media organizations focus on producing great content and surfacing it to the right people. Facebook Platform offers the ability to supplement this content by making the experience more social …

Discussion: The Next Web, Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard, Romenesko, Online Journalism Blog, Fast Company, Mashable!, Editors Weblog, The Wire and The Wrap

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Facebook launches a “Facebook + Media” page — Last night, Facebook unveiled a project that it's had in the works for a while: a media page devoted to journalists, developers, and other “media partners.” Facebook + Media is dedicated, it says, to “helping news, TV, video, sports …

Discussion: Hacks and Hackers …

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

'FT's paywall helps us understand users' — The Financial Times has enjoyed another profitable six months, with total content revenues from print and online up 14% year on year. — Online sales showed record growth, meaning that FT.com subscription revenue in the first six months of this year was 48% ahead of the first half of 2009.

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Dominic Ponsford / Editor's Blog:
The paywall debate: At the Financial Times there is no debate, it works

Discussion: Press Gazette

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Redstone gifted rocker with his own stock — THR EXCLUSIVE: Mogul gave shares to Barbarellas singer — NEW YORK — Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone gave the lead singer of a girls' band some of his own company stock as a personal gift, according to a copy of the regulatory filing obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

Discussion: MediaPost

Daniel Frankel / The Wrap:

The Twitter Effect Isn't What Hollywood Thought — The Twitter Effect. — The term entered the lexicon last summer after Universal's Sacha Baron Cohen comedy “Bruno” tumbled more than 36 percent in its first 24 hours in theaters. — One year later, the social media trend …

Discussion: MediaPost

Patricia Sellers / Fortune:

Steve Jobs' mark on ABC's Lost — How the Apple CEO may have changed the course of the hit ABC show with one comment back in 2005. — by Patricia Sellers, editor-at-large — from left to right Carlton Cuse, Barry Jossen, Damon Lindelof, and Anne Sweeney

Dawn C. Chmielewski / Los Angeles Times:

Hulu's sharp decline in viewership underscores inconsistency in measuring size of online audience — Contradictory data from competing measurement firms make it hard for advertisers to determine which websites should get their business. — Keith Richman, chief executive of Break.com …

China Real Time Report:

GQ China Pulls July Issue … The Chinese edition of GQ quietly recalled its July issue the day after it hit the newsstands to remove an unflattering feature on rich Chinese young people, but no one can say why. — On Friday, a news article discussing the recall was quickly taken …

Discussion: Gawker, International Media, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine and The Wire

Amy Wicks / WWD Media Headlines:

Deborah Needleman New Editor in Chief of WSJ Magazine — Deborah Needleman has been named editor in chief of WSJ. and editor of a new weekly Saturday lifestyle section in development, slated for fall. During the past few months, Needleman has served as a consultant for the new weekend section.

Discussion: New York Observer, industry.bnet.com, MinOnline, The Huffington Post, The Wrap, Romenesko, BusinessJournalism.org …, The Wire and Media Decoder

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Discovery Promotes Digital Media Head Campbell — Discovery Communications (NSDQ: DISCA) is giving corporate development exec Bruce Campbell some additional responsibilities as chief development officer and general counsel. At the same time, Campbell will be handing over his duties …

Discussion: Variety, Discovery Communications …, Guardian and MediaPost

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

Boston Screamer: News nabs Convey to pummel Post — Kevin Convey's office at the Boston Herald isn't far from downtown Boston, but its windows look southeast, across a freeway, toward Southie, the longstanding Irish and white ethnic Boston enclave that, in the past two decades, has rapidly gentrified.

Discussion: Media Nation

Richard / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Recording Industry Giant Tries to Undermine ‘Safe Harbor’ Rules for Online Video Sites — San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of nonprofit groups have asked a federal appeals court to protect the “safe harbor” rules for online video service providers …

Discussion: NewTeeVee

Joe Mandese / MediaPost:

Clients Weigh In On Nielsen Plan To Give Less ‘Weight’ To Internet Households — Nielsen will huddle with clients this morning to discuss a controversial plan to begin mathematically adjusting its TV ratings estimates this fall based on several new factors, including the number of households …

Mark Fitzgerald / EditorandPublisher.com:

New ABC Publisher's Statement Will Count ‘Branded Editions’ and Nonpaid ‘Verified’ Circulations — CHICAGO — The Audit Bureau of Circulations' board approved sweeping changes in the way newspapers report circulation. — Among the changes: Newspapers that publish so-called “branded editions” …

Discussion: Romenesko, Newsonomics and paidContent

Emma Rosenblum / New York Magazine:

What the Times' Mean Snooki Profile Says About Celebrity Journalism — Cathy Horyn's “Sunday Styles” profile of Jersey Shore mascot Snooki has been getting attention as an unnecessarily nasty takedown of a somewhat oblivious target. Jezebel's Hortense Smith calls it “the cruelest profile I've seen …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, FT Alphaville, PopWatch, tag me with a spoon, Salon and Most Recent Home Page Posts …

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

Why Fair Use is Not Just Acceptable, It's Essential for the Future — The Library of Congress added a number of ambitious new exceptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's prohibition of breaking copyright technologies today, most notably concerning iPhone jailbreaking and unlocking.

Discussion: Ars Technica, TeleRead, DailyFinance and Gizmodo

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:

Value-added journalism — I asked Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, whether his paper should have started Wikileaks. I wondered whether the Guardian was looking at WIkileaks the way it looked at HuffPo when it started (that is, ‘darn, we should have thought of that, so we will’ ... and it started CommentIsFree).

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Study: Most Brands Still Irrelevant on Twitter — Marketers Are Certainly Tweeting, but Users Are Barely Listening — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Attention brands: Twitter users aren't talking to you or about you. In fact, they barely know you exist. — That's one of the conclusions …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

If Your Music Business Model Is To Make Money On Live Shows, Make Those Live Shows Experiences To Remember — In talking about various business models for musicians these days, we've never suggested that concerts are the only (or even the best) way to make money. However, they certainly are one way that can work.