Mediagazer: Is the pen name mightier than the sword, or just a modern writer's flimsy foil? (Tawny Tipples/Washington Post)

7:30 PM ET, August 12, 2010

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / DailyFinance:

Dan Abrams's Mediaite.com Tests the Limits of Fair Use — The boundaries of fair use — the legal doctrine that allows for the republishing and rebroadcasting of copyrighted material in order to encourage free speech — are awfully hazy when it comes to the Internet.

Discussion: The Wire, New York Observer, NetNewsCheck Latest, Inside Cable News, Romenesko and MediaMemo

Colby Hall / Mediaite:

Aol Hypocrisy: When It Comes To Video Curation “Mediaite Has A Better Argument Than Aol” — Today Aol Daily Finance reporter Jeff Bercovici attacked Mediaite for the way we aggregate, curate and publish video clips from various television networks. The piece claimed that Mediaite “test(s) …

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

With Off-the-Record Lunch, Obama Extends a Hand — It may seem odd, but the journalists assigned to cover President Obama on a daily basis often have less access to him than the columnists, television personalities and feature writers who cover the president less frequently.

Discussion: New York Observer, FishbowlNY, Romenesko, Yahoo! News, Runnin' Scared, On Media's Blog, The Wire and New York Times

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Coupons Come to The Wall Street Journal — News Corp.'s SmartSource Moves Insert From Sunday Times to WSJ Weekend Edition — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The Wall Street Journal will start delivering coupons inside its Weekend Edition this Saturday, furthering its push to become a full-service newspaper …

Discussion: CJR, Romenesko, Gawker, New York Observer, The Atlantic Wire, FishbowlNY, Runnin' Scared, mediabistro.com and Talking Biz News

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

As E-Books Gain, Barnes & Noble Tries to Stay Ahead — In the movie “You've Got Mail,” Tom Hanks played the aggressive big-box retailer Joe Fox driving the little bookshop owner played by Meg Ryan out of business. — Twelve years later, it may be Joe Fox's turn to worry.

Wall Street Journal:
Barnes & Noble Expected to Announce Burkle Pact

Discussion: Law Blog, New York Times, DailyFinance and DealBook

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Newsday going on the offensive — Newsday is going on a hiring spree, pledging to add nearly 40 new editorial jobs and dramatically increase the amount of space devoted to local news. — “In a big step forward on boosting our local coverage, during the next six months we will hire 34 …

Discussion: Shaping the Future …, Romenesko, FishbowlNY, The Wire and Crain's New York Business

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:
Newsday doubles down on coverage as Patch arrives

Discussion: Long Island Business News, mediabistro.com, Romenesko, New York Observer and NYConvergence

BrauBlog:

Why did Jim Dolan and Lynn Casey invest a million bucks in BringMeTheNews? — It's not every day a year-old local news aggregator gets $1 million from investors — much less when it has just 100,000 monthly page views and three advertisers. — But that didn't stop Dolan Media president Jim Dolan …

Discussion: Lost Remote, paidContent, Romenesko, NetNewsCheck Latest and mediabistro.com

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Digg's Kevin Rose Talks About New Look, New CEO and How to Turbocharge an Old Web 1.9 Company! — Yesterday, BoomTown drove over to Digg's San Francisco HQ to pay founder Kevin Rose a visit. — The 33-year-old Rose is one of the iconic entrepreneurs of recent years, since Digg's founding in 2004 …

Discussion: GigaOM and Silicon Alley Insider, more at Techmeme »

Bill Grueskin / CJR:

The Write Stuff — Has Yahoo created an AP stylebook for the digital age? — The Yahoo Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World | St. Martin's Griffin | 528 pages, $21.99 — If you strolled by a copy editor's desk …

Discussion: Romenesko

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

EMarketer: Facebook Ad Sales to Hit $1.2 Billion This Year — Biggest New Driver? Self-Serve Ads Now Account for 50% of Social Network's Ad Revenue — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — With its more than half billion users and privately-held status, Facebook's revenue has long been a favorite guessing game …

Discussion: Lost Remote and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Joe Pompeo / Silicon Alley Insider:

Source: Publishers Are Shelling Out More Than $50K For The New York Times' iPad/iPhone App Platform — On August 2, The New York Times announced it is launching a new platform called Press Engine that other publishers can use to create their own iPhone and iPad apps based on templates developed by The Times.

Mike Shields / Mediaweek:

Internet Content Syndication Council Propose Content Guidelines — A group of Web content syndicators, which include the Associated Press, The Tribune Company and Procter & Gamble, believe that content quality—not to mention the actual utility of the Internet—is being seriously threatened.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Andrew M. Harris / Bloomberg:

Zell Can't Be Made to Pay for Tribune Pension Losses — Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) — Sam Zell can't be made to pay for Tribune Co. retirement fund losses, a judge ruled, rebuffing workers who claim the billionaire caused the company's employee stock ownership plan to lose value.

Discussion: MediaPost and Romenesko

Jim O'Neill / Online Video News:

Dyyno debuts turnkey streaming video service to Roku for businesses — Video portal provider Dyyno today rolled out a turnkey streaming video service to Roku for businesses and individuals, allowing them to stream live, VOD or linear TV channels to the living room.

Discussion: NewTeeVee and FierceTelecom

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Data-visualization duo turns down Knight funding over open source — Normally when you win a Knight News Challenge grant, there's not much of a question about what to do. You take the money! But for Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg of Flowing Media, winning in the 2010 competition prompted a tough decision.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Can JetBlue steward stretch 15 minutes? — Media, masses clamor for Steven Slater's story — NEW YORK — Last week, nobody knew Steve Slater. — Now, office water coolers, Twitter feeds, Facebook and chat rooms are buzzing with expressions of support and the question …

Discussion: MediaPost, Gawker, New York Observer, Risky Business and The Atlantic Online

John Gorenfeld / New York Observer:

With Its Horrifying Cover Story, Time Gave the War a Boost. Did Its Reporter Profit? — The maimed face of 18-year-old Aisha, her nose and ears cut off as punishment by her Afghan husband for fleeing his home, made the cover of Time magazine last week and changed the debate over the country's military involvement in Afghanistan.

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

CNBC Names First ‘Chief Revenue Officer’ — CNBC is creating a new position at the network: Chief Revenue Officer, and has tapped Tom O'Brien to fill the role. — CNBC president Mark Hoffman made the announcement in an email to staffers this morning. In it, he outlined why the channel was creating the position:

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, AdAge and Inside Cable News

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Did Thinking Like a Media Company Spell Doom For Yahoo? — Paul Graham, the founder of tech incubator Y Combinator, has posted some thoughts about the decline of Yahoo over the past decade, in which he describes the fatal flaws (as he sees them) that caused the company to become less relevant and allowed Google to dominate.

Discussion: Paul Graham and SmoothSpan Blog