Mediagazer: Jonathan Franzen: Great American Novelist (Lev Grossman/Time)

2:36 AM ET, August 13, 2010

Top News:

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) …

Discussion: Inside Cable News and MediaMemo

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

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: Yahoo! News, Romenesko, Runnin' Scared, New York Observer, FishbowlNY 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, New York Observer and Gawker

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 …, FishbowlNY, Romenesko and The Wire

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

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

New York Times:

Net Neutrality Issue Divides Media Companies — In an emerging battle over regulating Internet access, companies are taking sides. — Facebook, one of the companies that has flourished on the open Internet, indicated Wednesday that it did not support a proposal by Google and Verizon …

Discussion: Google Public Policy Blog, Mercury News, TIME.com, Post Tech, Epicenter, Bits, A VC, On Media's Blog and Free Press, more at Techmeme »

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.

Discussion: DailyFinance and DealBook

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

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

Jack Shafer / Slate:

The Tabloidy Goodness of TBD.com … - Donald Duck Groped a Woman? Don't Forget the Bum Sex-Abuse Rap Against Tigger.- The Four Most Common Clichés in Movies About Divorcées- Should I Let My Kid Volunteer at an Animal Shelter? - The Awesome Comic Book That Gave Us Scott Pilgrim …

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: FierceTelecom and NewTeeVee

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

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Cable Firms Eye Tablet Space — Comcast, Verizon and Others Plan New Apps; Licensing Content Slows Process — More TV shows and movies may be coming to tablet computers like Apple Inc.'s iPad—for those who pay to watch. — At least seven of the ten largest subscription-TV providers …

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.

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: Romenesko, Lost Remote, paidContent and mediabistro.com

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

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 »

Lev Grossman / Time:

Jonathan Franzen: Great American Novelist — A raft of sea otters are at play in a narrow estuary at Moss Landing, near Santa Cruz, Calif. There are 41 of them, says a guy in a baseball cap. He counted. They dive and surface and float around on their backs with their little paws poking …

Discussion: GalleyCat, Jacket Copy, The Book Bench, New York Observer and ArtsBeat

David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:

Apple iAd partners say they're happy with early results — Apple's iAd mobile advertising platform is getting favorable reviews from the companies whose advertisements were the first to run on the new system, including Dove soap-maker Unilever and Nissan. App makers like Dictionary.com …

Discussion: The Wire and Silicon Alley Insider