Mediagazer: Patch Editors Respond To Claims Of Sweatshop-Like Workload (Joe Pompeo/Silicon Alley Insider)

3:45 PM ET, August 6, 2010

Top News:

David Kaplan / paidContent:

WaPo's Online Newspaper Revs Turn Sharply Up, But Ask Later About Newsweek — In its next to last quarter as the owner of Newsweek, the Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO) isn't releasing details about the magazine's performance in Q2, though it did likely improve slightly based …

Discussion: Romenesko, The Wire, On Media's Blog and NetNewsCheck Latest

Washington Post:
The Washington Post Company Reports Second Quarter Earnings

Discussion: Washington Post and FishbowlNY

Joe Pompeo / Silicon Alley Insider:

Patch Editors Respond To Claims Of Sweatshop-Like Workload — We got a big response to our item yesterday about AOL's rapidly expanding hyperlocal venture, Patch, including some additional insight into what it's like to be a Patch editor, one of whom had said many of them work 70-hour weeks …

Discussion: Media Nation, Romenesko and Boston Globe

Jack Shafer / Slate:

Unsolicited Advice for Sidney Harman — Upon purchasing Newsweek from the Washington Post Co. — With your purchase of Newsweek, you've now joined the ranks of the vanity mogul, that restless breed of fat cat who, upon consulting his net worth, decides that he'd like to burn tens of millions …

Discussion: On Media's Blog and Romenesko

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter Online:

Coffeeshop Newsrooms Yield Stories, Sources, Understanding of Journalism — The next time you visit your favorite coffee shop, consider how it would look if it were transformed into a “news café” — a place where journalists would work on stories and interact with patrons to find ideas …

Martin Peers / Wall Street Journal:

Media Industry Risks Getting Caught on Video — The cable-TV industry likes to talk about growth in terms of households connecting and disconnecting to their services. But the biggest disconnect of all may be in the industry's thinking. — Thursday, Time Warner Cable reported weak subscriber growth …

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Time Magazine Runs Same Animal Story In 1993, 1999 And 2010 — Time really, really, really wants to know if animals can think: so much that it's done three separate cover stories on the issue. — This week's cover of Time features a story that looks “inside the minds of animals.”

Discussion: Gawker and New York Magazine

Chris Herring / Wall Street Journal:

Family Sues Metro Over Use of Boy's Photograph — A 10-year-old boy from Brooklyn and his parents are suing Metro International, alleging that the media company's New York paper published a photo falsely suggesting that the child was involved in gang violence.

Discussion: Gawker

Kate Kaye / ClickZ:

Breaking Media CEO Jonah Bloom Leaves — Breaking Media CEO Jonah Bloom, former editor of AdAge, has left the startup, which has aimed at carving hyper-niches in the digital publishing world. Bloom and the colleague he came on board with, Breaking Media Executive Editor Matt Creamer …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, paidContent and AdScam/The Horror!

Dean Goodman / Reuters:

Beatles and iTunes deal still at impasse: Yoko Ono — LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Don't hold your breath waiting for Beatles songs to go on sale at iTunes or other online retailers, Yoko Ono said on Thursday. — The Fab Four have long resisted the allure of digital downloads …

Discussion: PC Magazine, MediaMemo, CNET News, CrunchGear and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Dave Morgan / MediaPost:

Location-Based Web Services Will Devastate Local Media Scene — I know the last thing that local media companies need is another Web-driven disruption in their markets, particularly one that could take a big chunk out of their revenues in the next few years.

Jason Fell / Folio:

The Week Continues Upward Trajectory — Rate base to increase; Web site makes up more than a third of profits. — The Week has been a bright spot in consumer magazine publishing since it launched in 2001, and was one of the only magazines to continuously increase its advertising pages through much of the economic recession.

Raffi Khatchadourian / The New Yorker Blog:

Chasing WikiLeaks — Marc Thiessen draws upon my article in The New Yorker to make his case against Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks, and to argue that American “military assets” could be used “to bring Assange to justice.” Using the military for this purpose would be a terrible idea.

Discussion: Gawker, New York Times, Techdirt, Danger Room, Threat Level, Beyond Search and The Huffington Post

Andrea Pitzer / Nieman Storyboard:

Vanity Fair's Bryan Burrough on writing narrative: “people are dying to put down your article” — In what might be the only performance of Texas stand-up comedy about narrative writing, Vanity Fair writer Bryan Burrough recently offered practical tips for long-form storytelling to a Mayborn Conference audience.

MediaShift:

Facebook Launches Media Page But Resists Revenue Sharing — Facebook is the alpha dog of social networks, and it's also becoming a top dog when it comes to referring traffic to news sites. That became clear in February when Hitwise found that Facebook was referring more traffic to news and media sites than Google News.

Guy Adams / The Independent:

How CNN went from breaking records to yesterday's news — Twenty years ago, a billion people watched the channel's coverage of the first Gulf war. Now it's a different story — The place was the Al-Rashid hotel in downtown Baghdad. The year was 1991.

USA Today:

USA TODAY hosts Mashable Summer Tour Event and Syndicates Mashable Content — As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Mashable's Summer Tour will be heading to the DC-area tonight. USA TODAY will serve as host for the event and we're looking forward to having the team from Mashable, and their guests, at our headquarters.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Mary Elizabeth Williams / Salon:

Favre's dirty pics: A lesson in shady journalism — Deadspin betrays source Jenn Sterger while covering the QB's alleged explicit e-mails. What can we learn from this? — Deadspin source Jenn Sterger — I don't want to alarm you, but you should probably go ahead and assume that anything you e-mail …

Discussion: Deadspin, Bleacher Report and Page2Live.com

Carl DiOrio / Hollywood Reporter:

Hollywood happy kids willing to pay for content — Young consumers helping boost digital revenue — These kids are all right. — There's a spreading sense of optimism in Hollywood regarding young consumers' willingness to pay for digital content: Although members of the so-called Napster …

Discussion: Techdirt and Noted

Josef Adalian / New York Magazine:

Whitney Port to Act in Web Series — We still don't know if MTV will order another season of The City, but star Whitney Port is staying busy as she awaits the network's verdict. Vulture hears Port has been cast in Hollywood Is Like High School With Money, a new scripted …

Discussion: Styleite and TVWeek.com

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Hyperlocal Gets Highbrow In Public TV Online Video Joint Venture — A large part of success is making the right connections early on. That lesson isn't lost on the start-up Capital New York, a literary and cultural online-only news mag that is solely focused on the Big Apple.

Discussion: NYConvergence