Mediagazer: Under threat from Mexican drug cartels, reporters go silent (Tracy Wilkinson/Los Angeles Times)

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:

AOL's Patch Aims To Quintuple In Size By Year-End — Patch, which has already established itself as the biggest network of neighborhood blogs in the country since being acquired by AOL last summer, plans to accelerate its growth dramatically. Patch President Warren Webster tells us the company …

Discussion: Romenesko, NetNewsCheck Latest, Media Week, Springfield Patch, Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Patch, Wellesley Patch, Chatham Patch, Morristown Patch, Fairfield Patch, Merrick Patch, Port Washington Patch and Garden City Patch

AOL CEO Armstrong Aims for 500 News Websites in Local-Ad Bet — Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) — AOL Inc. is betting on the success of Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong's vision for community news and advertising as it plans to start 400 more local-news websites by the end of the year.

Discussion: TechCrunch, MediaMemo, Newsonomics, Forbes, Reuters and Associated Press, more at Techmeme »

Janko Roettgers / NewTeeVee:

ComScore: Four Out of Five Videos on Hulu Are Ads — Hulu has been taking a dive in comScore's monthly video metrics since the market research company recalibrated the way it is measuring online video last month. However, comScore's new reporting methodology reveals that Hulu reigns supreme in ad viewing …

Discussion: TechCrunch, msnbc.com, Dow Jones Newswires and Beet.TV, more at Techmeme »

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

Google CEO Suggests You Change Your Name to Escape His Permanent Record — Google CEO Eric Schmidt has a great way of making public statements that are at once frank, unorthodox, thought provoking - and a little frightening. This weekend The Wall St. Journal ran an interview with Schmidt …

Discussion: danah boyd, Google Watch, The Register, Preston Gralla's blog, Google Operating System, Digital Daily, broadstuff, The Atlantic Wire, TechCrunch, MarketingVOX, Gawker and Asa Dotzler, more at Techmeme »

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

News outlets split in describing mosque — There is no mosque being built on the site of Ground Zero. It's a simple fact, but one that news consumers can be forgiven for missing as they her hourly cable news updates and scan the headlines about a growing—and increasingly heated …

Discussion: Salon, The Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, History Eraser Button, TPMDC, Gothamist and Gawker

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Gawker's Next Redesign Thinks Big-Like Big-Screen TV — For better or worse, Nick Denton's Gawker Media leads the way for a lot of online media. So it's worth checking out what he has up his sleeve, which happens to be in plain view: A super-sized redesign of his nine-blog network.

Discussion: Romenesko and New York Observer

Reuters:

Nielsen plans to raise $2 billion in IPO: filing — (Reuters) - Private equity-owned Nielsen plans to raise up to $2.01 billion through an initial public offering, more than the $1.75 billion it was originally aiming for, it said in a U.S. regulatory filing on Monday.

Discussion: DailyFinance

Mark Milian / L.A. Times Tech Blog:

AP decides not to LOL — The Associated Press almost shared a page with LOLcats. — Pet Holdings Inc., which owns a network of blogs that post pictures of felines with silly captions, and videos of men getting hit in the groin on its Fail Blog, had been wrapped in rather lengthy negotiations …

Discussion: Romenesko, Techdirt and Gawker, more at Techmeme »

Robinsloan / Twitter Media:

Four ways to use Fast Follow — The mobile team here at Twitter has rolled out a new feature called Fast Follow, and its genius lies in its simplicity: text “follow [account]” to 40404 (Twitter's U.S. shortcode) and you'll immediately start getting that account's tweets via SMS—without ever signing up for Twitter.

Discussion: InsideTheCBC.com

Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:

Aisle by Aisle, an App That Pushes Bargains — It's like the most persistent sales clerk you've ever encountered. — Major retailers are working with a new smartphone application that tracks and offers promotions to shoppers as they move from outside the store, to counters, to cash registers …

Discussion: AdPulp, more at Techmeme »

Tracy Wilkinson / Los Angeles Times:

Under threat from Mexican drug cartels, reporters go silent — Journalists know drug traffickers can easily kidnap or kill them — and get away with it. — Placards with pictures of slain journalists are seen this month at a Mexico City rally by journalists protesting the violence they face.

Discussion: Guardian, New York Observer, Romenesko, The Daily Dish, Gawker and Journalism and the World

John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:

Rumored $99 iTV Could Pave Way for $2,000 Apple-Connected Television — “The problem with innovation in the TV industry is the go-to-market strategy. The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set-top box for free. So no one wants to buy a box.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Mercury News, NewTeeVee and parislemon

Patrick / Clicker Blog:

It's SHOWTIME (Literally) on Clicker.com!! — In celebration of tonight's premiere of The Big C, starring Laura Linney, and the new Season 6 of Weeds, Showtime has teamed up with Clicker to offer some EXCLUSIVE awards for fans who tune in and check-in, either directly on Clicker.com or using our new Clicker Mobile on Android devices.

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Who's Going to Sell Hulu to Wall Street? — Can Hulu really go public? — Yes, say sources talking to the New York Times who imagine the video site launching an IPO “as soon as this fall.” — And it's not the first time we've heard the idea: Some of Hulu's network owners have been murmuring privately about an IPO for a while.

Discussion: Media Week, TechCrunch, Guardian, PE Hub Blog, MediaPost, MediaPost, Company Town and PC Magazine

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Guardian launches governmental pledge-tracking tool — Since it came to office nearly 100 days ago, Britain's coalition government — a team-up between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats that had the potential to be awkward and ineffective, but has instead (if The Economist's current cover story …

Discussion: Fast Company

Speakeasy:

'I'm Still Here' Trailer Debuts: Is Joaquin Phoenix Pulling a Fast One on Audiences? … Big public meltdown or huge practical joke? Or something in between? Audiences will soon find out if Oscar-nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix, who spent most of 2008 attempting to jump-start a hip hop career …

Discussion: The Wrap

MediaShift:

Experts Weigh Pros and Cons of Social Media — OurBlook.com has been conducting an ongoing interview series on the current and future role of journalism and social media. In previous posts for PBS MediaShift, I shared some of the insights we've gathered about the future of journalism …

Claudia Eller / Company Town:

David Ellison raises $350 million to co-fund movies with Paramount — In an era when outside movie capital is tough to come by, David Ellison, the 27-year-old son of Oracle founder and Chief Executive Larry Ellison, has raised $350 million to co-finance movies with his studio partner Paramount Pictures.

Discussion: Deadline.com, PE Hub Blog, The Wrap and The Huffington Post

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

The Washington Post Worries About New Rules for Kaplan — The Washington Post Company said on Monday that its reliable profit center, the Kaplan Higher Education division, may come under serious pressure if new federal rules meant to rein in the for-profit college business go into effect.

Discussion: Washington Post, Associated Press, Scocca, On Media's Blog and Romenesko

Andrew Alderson / Telegraph:

Soccer star gags tabloid story — A leading Premier League footballer has won a High Court injunction to prevent the publication of claims about his private life, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. — He was successful on Friday in blocking disclosures in a tabloid Sunday newspaper.

Discussion: Jon Slattery, The Independent and Daily Mail

Gregory Ferenstein / CNN:

How web journalism can make people seem hateful — Editor's note: Gregory Ferenstein is an author and educator who writes about the intersections of technology, business and politics. He is a fellow at the University of California Center for the Study of Democracy.

Terry Ann Knopf / CJR:

The O'Reilly Factor — How the Fox host used raw corporate power to crush a critic … It was a balmy Saturday—a perfect night for champagne toasts. Some 450 people from the local television industry gathered in the Grand Ballroom at the Boston Marriott Copley Place, many of the men in tuxedos, the women in strapless gowns.

Discussion: TVNewser and On Media's Blog

Joe Flint / Company Town:

David Madden tapped to head Fox Television Studios — David Madden, the top creative executive at Fox Television Studios — the News Corp.-owned production company responsible for some of the cable industry's highest-rated dramas — has been tapped as president of the unit.

Discussion: B&C, MediaPost, Variety, The Wrap and Broadcasting & Cable