Mediagazer: So Sorry To Do This! Rain Check? Flakiness Epidemic Sweeps Digital New York (Leon Neyfakh/New York Observer)

12:45 AM ET, September 16, 2010

Top News:

John Boudreau / Mercury News:

Apple to announce subscription plan for newspapers — Apple is expected to announce soon a new subscription plan for newspapers, which hope tablets like the iPad will eventually provide a new source of profit as media companies struggle with declining print circulation and advertising revenue.

Ryan Chittum / CJR:
The Mercury News's Thinly Sourced Apple Scooplet

Discussion: TUAW

Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:

DEMO: The secret of Groupon's success is ... good writing? — Among startups, there's a tendency to emphasize product technology, rather than fuzzier skills and qualities that don't “scale”. But chief executive Andrew Mason said today that the success of his popular social buying site Groupon …

Discussion: GigaOM and Tech Trader Daily

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Gilt City Exits Beta With Limits Around Local Expansion — Online luxury discount shopper Gilt Groupe has fully launched its local project Gilt City in six markets yesterday. Don't expect a big expansion beyond that anytime soon. While the social shopping space has gotten very crowded since Gilt …

Discussion: TechCrunch

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

The news is, that pitch was paid for — (WJBK Fox 2 Morning News / September 14, 2010) — When spokespersons for hire promote products on local TV news shows. — With summer ending, local television news stations recently rolled out their back-to-school features.

Discussion: MediaPost, B&C, Tower Ticker, AdPulp, The Awl and Romenesko

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Newsweek departures continue: Hosenball heads to Reuters — Investigative reporter Mark Hosenball becomes the latest high-profile Newsweek staffer to leave since the magazine was sold last month. He's joining Reuters as a money and politics reporter after 17 years with the weekly magazine.

Discussion: Romenesko, The Wrap, On Media's Blog and New York Observer

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Twitter as broadcast: What #newtwitter might mean for networked journalism — So Twitter.com's updated interface — #newtwitter, as the Twittery hashtag goes — is upon us. (Well, upon some of us.) — The most obvious, and noteworthy, changes involved in #newtwitter are (a) …

Discussion: Search Engine Land, AdAge, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable!, blogs.ft.com and SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog, more at Techmeme »

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
You're a Media Company Now, Twitter — Good Luck

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, PC World, TeleRead and MediaMemo

Mark D. Fefer / Seattle Weekly:

On the Advice of the FBI, Cartoonist Molly Norris Disappears From View — Her work won't be in Seattle Weekly anymore, or anywhere else. — You may have noticed that Molly Norris' comic is not in the paper this week. That's because there is no more Molly. … The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully.

Discussion: Hit & Run, Mediaite and Hot Air

Jack Shafer / Slate:

Murdoch's Watergate — Every journalist suffers from subpoenas envy. As powerful as the pen may be, reporters covet the power that courts and Congress have to command individuals and organizations to give testimony and produce evidence. So whenever the power-thresher of a prosecution …

Discussion: CJR, PopEater and Guardian

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

CNBC Gets Bloggy With NetNet: An Interview With John Carney — It's been four months since CNBC hired John Carney as a senior editor for its website. — Since then, Carney has been writing up a storm for CNBC.com and appearing regularly on air. But what the network really hired …

Discussion: CNBC and Talking Biz News

Ed Christman / Billboard.Biz:

Exclusive: Sources Detail Google's Proposal For A Music Service — Google is circulating a proposal among major record labels for a long-anticipated music service that would include an a la carte digital download store and a subscription-based cloud-based locker, according to industry sources.

Discussion: GigaOM, Epicenter, Erictric, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, DailyFinance, MediaMemo, Engadget, paidContent, mobile-ent.biz and Music Ally, more at Techmeme »

MediaShift Idea Lab:

PRX Story Exchange, Spot.us Bring Crowdfunding to Public Radio — Story Exchange (formerly Story Market) is a way for local public radio stations, producers, and listeners to pitch, find and fund documentaries and stories on important local issues. We're also one of this year's winners of a Knight News Challenge grant.

Zeke Turner / New York Observer:

Petty Crime Charges Don't Stick to Journal Reporter Doug Belkin — All of the charges against Doug Belkin, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested while covering the Rod Blagojevich trial in July, were dismissed yesterday by a magistrate judge in U.S. Federal District Court.

Discussion: Romenesko

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Condé Nast chief: up to 40% of magazine sales could be on iPad — Nicholas Coleridge reveals publisher will launch paid-for applications for December issues of UK Wired and Vogue — Nicholas Coleridge, the managing director of Condé Nast UK, has predicted that in the future …

Discussion: Media Week, Media Buyer Planner, New York Observer, New York Post and Press Gazette

Jim O'Neill / Online Video News:

Brightcove President David Mendels on consolidation, profitability and the future of the OVP segment's 800-pound gorilla — David Mendels has been COO and President of online video platform Brightcove since Jan. 1, but has had a seat on the management team since last Oct. 1, a seat he originally thought would be a temporary one.

Elizabeth Holmes / Wall Street Journal:

The Importance of Tweeting Oscar — The Invisible Style Setters Who Dish Personal Details and Plug the Brand for Their Designer Bosses — Sushi makes her crave chocolate. She spent a summer wielding power tools and drinking Rolling Rock beer. And more than 14,300 people follow her on Twitter.

Discussion: NYConvergence

Leon Neyfakh / New York Observer:

So Sorry To Do This! Rain Check? Flakiness Epidemic Sweeps Digital New York — “I'm on my way to something I was supposed to be at an hour ago,” said the fashion journalist Zandile Blay on Monday night. “It's Fashion Week and I've basically missed every single show I had, with the exception of one.”

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

The Future Is Now: Online Ad Platform Predicts Future Prices — Ad Network Takes Risk on Future Display Prices in Bid to Unlock TV Ad Dollars — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Despite digital media's virulent growth, it's still TV that drives the billion-dollar advertising budgets for most major corporations …

Kassia Krozser / Booksquare:

Rethinking the Publishing Company — I think we all know what the publisher of today looks like. The hierarchy and positions have become comfortable, established. Sort of like really nice flannel pajamas. That's not to say nothing ever evolves; I mean, who wears the same pair of pajamas forever?

Media Week:

X Magazine a ‘genuine alternative’ for upmarket women — Natasha Sundharawipata, publishing director of X Magazine at Fremantle Media Enterprises, tells Media Week why the new weekly X Factor spin-off will compete in the most lucrative part of the magazine market

Discussion: Press Gazette

Dorian Benkoil / Poynter Online:

paidContent's Rafat Ali Describes Grim View of Online News' Prospects — In 2002, after unsuccessfully trying to get a reporting job, Rafat Ali launched paidContent.org, a blog about the business of media. The site gained a following, then sponsorships, and became a leading voice in the industry.

Discussion: Poynter Online and Editors Weblog

David Cohen / mediabistro.com:

AP Timeline Reader Is the Result of Experiments with HTML5, Internet Explorer 9 — The Associated Press experimented with HTML5 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 and came up with Timeline Reader, which allows it to offer news stories in a chronological, timeline format.

Discussion: paidContent, ap.org and TechNet Blogs

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Spanfeller Media Group Gets Ready To Unveil The Daily Meal — Spanfeller Media Group is finally pulling up the curtain on the name of its first content site, a food vertical called The Daily Meal. The site will launch on Oct. 15 and will be run by one-time Saveur editor and Gourmet columnist Colman Andrews.

Discussion: Romenesko, Folio, FishbowlNY, Silicon Alley Insider, MediaPost and Eater National

Stuart Elliott / New York Times:

Newspaper Group Offers a Guarantee to Marketers — NEWSPAPERS are joining media like television and magazines in guaranteeing some results for advertisers. — The Newspaper National Network, which is owned by 25 major newspaper publishers and the Newspaper Association of America …

Discussion: Romenesko, mediabistro.com and New York Observer

Sinead Carew / MediaFile:

Yahoo Chief slams Apple's iAd — You might think from listening to most of the world's iPhone, iPad, i-everthingelse enthusiasts that Steve Jobs and Apple can do no wrong, but not everybody is in agreement. — In a bout of clear anti-i sentiment, Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo …

Discussion: Tech Trader Daily