Mediagazer: Tribune says it has about $1.6 billion in cash on hand (Jim Romenesko/Romenesko)

9:55 AM ET, August 27, 2010

Top News:

Three more leave listing Newsweek — Newsweek continues to hemorrhage talent following the magazine's sale to 91-year-old audio-equipment tycoon Sidney Harmon, with as many as three top editors heading for the exits this week, The Post has learned. — In the latest high-profile departure …

Discussion: On Media's Blog

Matthew Lynch / WWD:

Newsweek Editorial Director Steps Down — Newsweek editorial director Mark Miller has resigned, several sources have told WWD. — Save for a yearlong stint with ABC News in the 1990s, Miller had been with the magazine in almost every conceivable editorial capacity since joining as a summer intern in 1985.

Discussion: Romenesko, The Wrap, Silicon Alley Insider, New York Observer, FishbowlNY and On Media's Blog

Ben Fritz / Company Town:

Blockbuster tells Hollywood studios it's preparing for mid-September bankruptcy — After dominating the home video rental business for more than a decade and struggling to survive in recent years against upstarts Netflix and Redbox, Blockbuster Inc. is preparing to file for bankruptcy next month …

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, The Next Web, Gizmodo, Variety, The Wrap, New York Observer and DailyFinance

Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:

USA Today shaking up staff in ‘radical’ overhaul — SAN FRANCISCO — USA Today, the nation's second largest newspaper, is making the most dramatic overhaul of its staff in its 28-year history as it de-emphasizes its print edition and ramps up its effort to reach more readers and advertisers on mobile devices.

Discussion: Newspaper Death Watch, Gannett Blog, The Wire, New York Observer, On Media's Blog, PR Newswire, paidContent and readingarefun.wordpress.com

Eric Kohn / Speakeasy:

Heeb Magazine Suspends Print Edition, Goes On-Line Only … This morning, “Heeb” publisher and editor-in-chief Josh Neuman announced on the magazine's website that the snarky Jewish publication has ceased production of its print edition. This should come as no surprise to anyone following …

Discussion: Romenesko and FishbowlNY

Joshua Neuman / Heeb Magazine:
So Much for Controlling the Media

Discussion: New York Observer, The Wrap, Gawker, New York Press and New York Magazine

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:

Yahoo Revs Up Its Local Content Efforts — Over the last year, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) has talked repeatedly about the importance of both local content and local advertising. But, while the company has announced local ad partnerships with Gannett (NYSE: GCI) and direct marketer Valassis …

Discussion: Lost Remote, more at Techmeme »

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:
Yahoo readies San Francisco news site

Discussion: MediaMemo and HyperlocalBlogger

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:

Marc Ambinder says he would've outed Ken Mehlman earlier if he'd had proof — Marc Ambinder, the political junkie who writes for the Atlantic, says he suspected, like everyone else in town, that Ken Mehlman was gay. — In fact, years before the former Republican Party chairman acknowledged …

Discussion: Romenesko, Mediaite and The Atlantic Online

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:
How Ken Mehlman's ‘open secret’ stayed hidden

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, The Politico, Think Progress, NY Daily News, Romenesko and LA Observed

Miguel Helft / New York Times:

Charges Settled Over Fake Reviews on iTunes — SAN FRANCISCO — Savvy Internet users know that glowing online reviews of things like books or restaurants can't always be trusted. But federal regulators are giving notice that if you stand to gain financially from the review you are writing, you should be up front about it.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Techdirt, DailyFinance and Andy Beard, more at Techmeme »

John Mayer / one forty plus:

Huffington Post FULL OF S**T? (Yes!) — Ahh, Huffington Post, the internet Death Star. The world's first spectator banking website. Come watch a site's intelligence move in and out like bellows of accordion depending on whether or not there's ad dollars to be sucked out of any willing orifice.

Discussion: PopEater, The Huffington Post, Gawker, The Wrap, Mediaite, Billboard.com The Feed, New York Observer, Just Jared and The Atlantic Wire

Tim Carmody / Epicenter:

5 Myths About Philadelphia's ‘Blogging Tax’ — Philadelphia: ‘Proclaim LIBERTY throughout the land,’ by Tony the Misfit/flickr. Used gratefully via a Creative Commons license — The city of Philadelphia has been under fire on the web for what's been called a “blogging tax,” …

Discussion: Guardian

Mike McGregor / Business Week:

Hard Choices: Lauren Zalaznick on Rebranding Oxygen — The president of NBC Universal Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks talks about shaking up Bravo and creating her own empire — In November 2007, NBC Universal acquired the Oxygen Network. I had been running NBCU's Bravo unit for three years …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Google Goes Hunting for a Music Boss — Anybody want to run the music division of the world's biggest media company? Because Google is hiring: The search giant is casting about for an executive to run its music service, which doesn't actually exist yet. — Industry sources tell me Google …

Discussion: Media Maverick, Neowin.net and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Washington Post WH reporter heads to NY Times — The White House press corps may look a bit different when President Obama returns from Martha's Vineyard, with a couple of changes in the past two days. — Michael Shear, a White House reporter for the Washington Post, is joining the New York Times …

Discussion: Romenesko and New York Observer

Ian Shapira / Story Lab:

From rumor to reporting: The Washington Times story — This week, a major story about The Washington Times broke, but news coverage of the change in ownership at the faltering paper began and ended in two vastly different places. Let's take a look, step by step, at how the story …

Discussion: Press Gazette, Romenesko and FishbowlDC

David Kaplan / paidContent:

LoveFilm Adds MGM Movie Library; Aims To Be More Than 'Europe's Netflix' — LoveFilm, which is often regarded as the “Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) of the Europe,” has struck a major deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios that gives its streaming rental service access to hundreds of classic movies and new home video releases.

Discussion: TechCrunch Europe

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Tribune says it has about $1.6 billion in cash on hand — There's been a lot of media speculation lately regarding our Chapter 11 process — and the temptation is to let it distract us from the things that matter most: focusing on our business and serving our customers and communities.

Discussion: paidContent

J. David Goodman / City Room:

311, 411, 911: Could They All Be Blogs? — So now there's this: 311, the blog. — Yes, the municipal complaint hot line, already on Twitter, now has its own platform for informal writing, an opportunity for a city bureaucracy that responds to 18.7 million urban gripes in a given year to …

Discussion: Gawker, Runnin' Scared, Silicon Alley Insider and East Village Feed

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

One For The Time Capsule?: FT Big-Ups The Print Network — The FT had already clicked “undo” on one Pearson (NYSE: PSO) exec's recent assertion the paper will scale down its print distribution in the next few years. — Now it's positively coming out batting for dead trees.

The State:

GoGamecocks.com moving to membership model — In anticipation of college football season, we have rewritten the playbook for GoGamecocks.com. In the coming days, we will begin charging a modest membership fee to access a new and improved GoGamecocks.com web site.

Discussion: Romenesko

Janko Roettgers / NewTeeVee:

Cisco's ExtendMedia Purchase: TV Everywhere And Beyond — Cisco doubled down on TV Everywhere today, announcing the intent to acquire Massachusetts-based ExtendMedia in order to bolster its IP video delivery infrastructure. The company said in a press release that ExtendMedia's video CMS will be …

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog and TechCrunch