Mediagazer: The Fading Glory of the Television and Telephone (Pew Social & Demographic Trends)

Liz Shannon Miller / NewTeeVee:

Auto-Tune the News Hits the Billboard Top 100 — Online video stars The Gregory Brothers continue making strides towards world domination. Their latest hit Auto-Tune the News single, Bed Intruder, debuted at number 89 on the Billboard Hot 100 today. — Billboard uses a number …

Discussion: Softpedia News, PSFK, Techdirt, Trends in the Living Networks, Hit & Run, The Lede, All Things Digital, Gawker and Billboard.com The Feed

Virginia Heffernan / New York Times:

What ‘Fact-Checking’ Means Online — The day I became a fact-checker at The New Yorker, I received one set of red pencils and one set of No. 2 pencils. [FC: There used to be a training period before the pencils.] [[VH: O.K. for “the day I became a fact-checker” to designate end of training period?]]

Discussion: Romenesko and CJR

Jeff Bercovici / DailyFinance:

The Dumbest How-to Content From Demand Media — Do you know how to brush your teeth? How to buy beer? How to poison a gopher? How to belch? If so, you could be a contributor to Demand Media, one of a growing number of “content farms” that use large networks of freelancers to produce cheap reference content.

Discussion: The Wire, City Room and Romenesko

Gwen Ifill / Online NewsHour:

Unplanned Aberration: How Mosque Discussion Got Derailed — If the camera had continued rolling Monday night at the NewsHour after I completed a segment on the debate over the so-called Ground Zero mosque, you would have seen me beating my head against the anchor desk.

Discussion: Yahoo! News

Discussion: New York Times, New York Observer, Newsbook, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, The Daily Caller, The Daily Politics and Salon

Michael Shain / New York Post:

Not so fast — CNN is asking Larry King to postpone his final show — slated for fall — and stick around until the end of the year, The Post has learned. — British journalist and “America's Got Talent” judge Piers Morgan, who is widely thought to be King's replacement …

Discussion: Mediaite, The Wrap, New York Magazine, Inside Cable News, The Huffington Post, The Wire, Gawker and Chickaboomer

Sarah Rabil / Bloomberg:

Yahoo May Buy a Stake in Hulu Video Site, Stifel Nicolaus Says — Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) — Yahoo! Inc. may buy a “considerable” stake in Hulu LLC if the video website pursues an initial public offering, according to Stifel Nicolaus & Co. — Hulu, owned by three of the biggest U.S. broadcast networks …

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider

Dirk Smillie / Forbes:

The Highest-Paid Authors — Times may be tough for book sellers, but for Stephen King, James Patterson and Stephenie Meyer, the money keeps rolling in. — Publishers are feeling the heat, with hardcover sales weak and the rise of e-books promising to upend their business models.

Discussion: Ministry of Gossip, ArtsBeat, New York Magazine, New York Observer, The Second Pass and ResourceShelf

Nick Axelrod / WWD:

No News at the New York Times Magazine... Fashion at Google: Out or In?... NO NEWS AT THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: The proposals are in to executive editor Bill Keller (he received upward of 20 applications, according to sources), but that's as far as The New York Times has gotten in the process …

Discussion: Romenesko

The 48th New York Film Festival:

Film Comment September/October 2010: Revenge of the Nerd — The misanthropic soul at the heart of The Social Network, David Fincher's 21st-century moral tale — It was E.M. Forster, of course, who scripted that immortal, oft-abbreviated imperative: “Only connect, and the beast and the monk …

Discussion: The Wrap, Runnin' Scared, The Playlist, ScreenCrave.com, MTV Movies Blog, Awards Daily's Oscar Countdown and The Middletown Press

Dave Levy / State of the Fourth Estate:

Paywall Gets Added to the Oxford Dictionary of English (and Bromance, too) — Great news: the newest round of “words added to the dictionary” has surfaced. There are some choice additions this time around (are you telling me Chill Pill is only getting added now.

Amy Chozick / Wall Street Journal:

Revenge of the TV Writers — Annoy a television writer at your peril: You could wind up committing unspeakable crimes or dying a horrible death—in prime time. Settling scores with difficult stars, clueless executives and childhood enemies. — After several seasons of disappointing reviews …

Discussion: TVWeek.com, Gawker and New York Magazine

Scott Rosenberg / Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard:

Dr. Laura, Associated Content and the Googledammerung — I was on vacation for much of the last couple of weeks, so I missed a lot — including the self-immolation of Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Apparently Schlessinger was the last public figure in the U.S. who does not understand the simple rules …

Discussion: Romenesko and TPMDC

Brian Caulfield / Forbes:

Can Animals Save Mainstream Media? — Forget crime and celebrities. These websites know what really sells: critters. — SAN FRANCISCO — Can Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs save mainstream media? Probably not. — When it comes to making his own products a success, however …

Discussion: mediabistro.com

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

Brian Williams: Serious anchor and a jokester — Commentary: You'll find him on ‘30 Rock’ or ‘SNL,’ but not Facebook … NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams made his reputation as a self-assured anchor man who could discuss Iraq and Afghanistan in decisive tones.

Discussion: Speakeasy and Romenesko

Andrew Adam Newman / New York Times:

Now Playing: A Short Film Starring Branded Content — IN “Charley,” a nine-minute film by Dee Austin Robertson, a young couple visiting New York for a romantic weekend, Courtney and Ryan (played by Alexia Rasmussen and Brian McElhaney), are first seen through a glass door with an Ace Hotel sign painted on it.

Discussion: AdPulp

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Industry Insiders Say Online Video Advertising Is Reaching A “Frenzy Point” — With the flood, comes the feast. Advertising dollars are pouring into online video. Some of the largest online video ad networks are seeing revenue growth accelerating this quarter, and expect the fourth quarter to be even bigger.

Pew Social & Demographic Trends:

The Fading Glory of the Television and Telephone — One day you're the brightest star in the galaxy. Then something new comes along — and suddenly you're a relic. It's a turn of fate that awaits sports heroes, movie stars, political leaders. And, yes, even household appliances.

Discussion: TechCrunch and Economix, more at Techmeme »

Lucia Moses / Mediaweek:

Elle to Launch Customizable iPad App — Hachette Filipacchi Media's Elle won't be the first of the big fashion monthlies to come out with its own app for the iPad when it launches with its October issue in mid-September (Condé Nast's Glamour beat it by a month, having launched with its September issue).

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Disney, TWC talks escalate — Negotiations between Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner Cable over continued carriage of ESPN, ABC and other Disney channels are intensifying as both companies gird for battle. — ESPN President George Bodenheimer and Sean Bratches, the sports network's head …

Discussion: Light Reading and Company Town

Steve Buttry / The Buttry Diary:

Research shows Twitter's value in questioning rumors — Readers of this blog know that Twitter is one of the best tools for covering breaking news. — But if you listen to and read the Twitter haters, you also hear that Twitter is a place where false rumors spread rapidly.

Tom Keogh / Seattle Times:

‘This American Life’ host Ira Glass brings his radio stories to Seattle — It's a Monday morning and, no doubt all over the U.S., people have returned to work to find unexpected crises awaiting them. — Ira Glass, host and producer of public radio's immensely popular “This American Life” program, certainly has his share.

Ryan Lawler / NewTeeVee:

Studios Giving Up on DVD, Pushing VOD Instead — The time lag between DVD release dates and the availability of films on cable video-on-demand services has been drastically reduced over the past year, falling to just five days in the first half of this year, according to BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield.

Chris Tolles / TechCrunch:

When Attorneys General Attack — Earlier this year Topix CEO Chris Tolles got the call no one wants to get - that they were under investigation by a government entity. Two attorneys general, one of which was deep into his senate run, were leveling accusations of abuse at Topix.

Diana Marszalek / TVNewsCheck:

CNN's Switch To Oasis Troubles Stations — Not long ago, KPHO Phoenix producers used to air up to eight CNN Newsource stories a day in its newscasts. — “Now, they use virtually none,” says Ed Williams, director of engineering at the CBS affiliate. One, maybe two, CNN stories make it on air a week, he says.

Discussion: TVNewser

Wall Street Journal:

Violence in Mexico Takes Rising Toll on Press — MEXICO CITY—When unknown assailants recently lobbed grenades at the offices of Mexico's powerful broadcaster Televisa in Monterrey and Matamoros, the blasts were seen as a message to the country's media: Beware covering the drug war.

Chris Cameron / ReadWriteWeb:

Can Augmented Reality Help Save the Print Publishing Industry? — There's a memorable scene in the movie Minority Report where a man reads a futuristic newspaper with rich embedded multimedia updating live with breaking news. While we are a long way seeing anything like this in the hands …

Discussion: TeleRead, CJR, Mobile Marketer, Journalism.co.uk, TechCrunch Europe and MarketingVOX

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Hulu brouhaha — A top Hollywood producer lashed out against Hulu amid reports that the popular online hub for watching TV shows is preparing a $2 billion public offering, saying content providers will come away empty-handed. — Steven Levitan, who created ABC's hit comedy “Modern Family …