Mediagazer: Catfish and the Death of Online Anonymity (Adrian Chen/Gawker)

1:55 PM ET, September 24, 2010

Top News:

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Zucker Announces Departure From NBC — Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, told the company's employees in an e-mail Friday morning that he would step down from his position upon the completion of the takeover of NBC by Comcast. — The fate of Mr. Zucker …

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Jonathan Klein to Leave CNN — Jonathan Klein, the president of the beleaguered CNN/U.S. cable channel, is being replaced by Ken Jautz, the president of the tabloid-friendly sister channel HLN. — Mr. Jautz's title will be the executive vice president of CNN/U.S. Scot Safon …

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

CNN's Klein: ‘I Got Shot’ — CNN president Jonathan Klein didn't come into work this morning. — “I didn't want to put people in an awkward situation,” he told me. Two days ago, he learned he was out of a job. — On Wednesday afternoon, CNN Worldwide president Jim Walton …

Discussion: The Wire, Romenesko and Inside Cable News

Brooks Barnes / Media Decoder:

Disney's Internet Chief Resigns — The Walt Disney Company's top Internet executive, Steve Wadsworth, resigned late Thursday following a difficult tenure in which Disney's Web strategy underwent repeated retrenchments. — Mr. Wadsworth, whose title was president of the Disney Interactive Media Group …

Discussion: rbr.com, paidContent, Company Town and Hollywood Reporter

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

As another magazine charges for access, where's the proof of paywall success? — The great paywall debate centres on the decision of big publishers to charge for access. So most of the noise has been generated by Rupert Murdoch's online paywalls at The Times, Sunday Times, and now the News of the World.

The Wall Blog: Readers react negatively as UBM puts building mag behind paywall

The Wall Blog:

Has the Times paywall killed its blogs? — I wrote last week that I don't have a problem with The Times paywall just its implementation. One of its biggest failing appeared to be shutting its once popular blogs behind the paywall. — I've suspected it is doing them no good and a couple …

Discussion: Harry's Place

Tim Glanfield / Beehive City: The Times lose another 120,000 online readers behind paywall

Michael Miner / Chicago Reader:

Net News in Chicago: Still Poor, Still Striving — No one's getting rich. Hardly anyone's getting paid at all. — So we're told by The NEW News 2010, the second annual survey by the Community Media Workshop of what it calls “the Chicago area's online news ecosystem.”

Discussion: Romenesko

Arianna Huffington / Guardian:

Leonard Downie's downer — Old media sniping about the Huffington Post as a ‘parasite’ aggregator just shows they don't get the new link economy — Once again, some in the old media have decided that the best way to save, if not journalism, at least themselves, is by pointing fingers and calling names.

Discussion: New York Observer, The Wire, WebNewser and Cision

eMarketer:

The Continued Rise of Blogging — More than half of web users will read blogs this year — Social networks and microblogs have in recent years nudged blogging off the social media pedestal. For some consumers, who have more communication tools at their fingertips than they did a few years ago …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, HyperlocalBlogger and Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Pete Wells / Diner's Journal:

Gourmet Is Reincarnated, This Time as an iPad App — Tonight, with the introduction of an iPad app, Condé Nast continues its attempt to prove that there is life after print for Gourmet. — The new product, described in press materials as “an innovative app and digital content experience …

Discussion: Poynter Online, WebNewser, Gourmet Live, Grub Street New York, Gizmodo and Spiersblr

Richard Lawler / Engadget:

Netflix, NBC Universal content deal brings Battlestar Galactica, SNL and more to Watch Instantly — Just in case a throwaway mention of a streaming-only subscription for US customers wasn't enough, an agreement adding plenty of recognizable content from NBC to its Watch Instantly service …

Discussion: Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Splitsider, PR Newswire, NewTeeVee, VideoNuze and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Jason Fell / Folio:

Hearst Turns Inward for New Business Ideas — Launches internal project soliciting plans for ‘high-potential’ ventures. — One of the biggest players in consumer magazine publishers is looking inward for inspiration. — As Hearst gears up to launch its mobile application think tank the App Lab …

Discussion: Romenesko

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Saudi Arabians Will Soon Need A License To Blog — According to The Media Note, Saudi Information and Culture Ministry spokesman Abdul Rahman Al-Hazza announced last night Saudi time that all Saudi Arabian web publishers and online media, including blogs and forums, will need to be officially registered with the government.

Discussion: Gearlog and Fast Company, more at Techmeme »

Media Week:

Trust green lights BBC Magazines sell-off — The BBC Trust has rubber-stamped the sale in principle of a majority stake in BBC Magazines, putting brands such as Radio Times in play. — BBC Magazines: longstanding title Radio Times — The trust cleared the way for a sale in principle …

Discussion: Guardian, Variety and Press Gazette

Andrew Clark / Guardian:

Andrew Clark — When film-makers use real-life stories, like Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg's, blurring fact and fiction means we get factionalism — Gazing down from billboards across New York, the pale, furrowed face of a computer geek in deep concentration is adorned by the words: “Punk.

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, New York Magazine and George's Bottom Line

Ed Yong / Not Exactly Rocket Science:

Should science journalists take sides? — Tonight I took part in a debate at the Royal Institution of Great Britain entitled “Should science journalists takes sides?” The event was chaired by Fiona Fox of the Science Media Centre and panellists included myself, Mark Henderson from the Times …

Discussion: Argo, the Blog

Nat Worden / Wall Street Journal:

Apple TV Splits Networks — Top Media Executives Question Whether 99-Cent Rentals Hurt Pay Model — NEW YORK—Media executives gathered this week at a conference here sounded a note of caution on Apple Inc.'s 99-cent digital-rental service for TV shows amid a division in the industry on whether to participate.

Discussion: Online Video News and Digits

Emma Heald / Editors Weblog:

How do Yahoo and others compare to traditional news producers? — One of Yahoo's top journalists for its news blog The Upshot has quit, reportedly saying that Yahoo's ‘corporate conservatism’ got in the way of his attempts to report the news. According to Daily Finance's Jeff Bercovici …

Guardian:

Film Power 100: the full list — You just want the raw facts? Without any fancy interactivity? You've come to the right place — • Datablog: download the full list as a spreadsheet — 1) James Cameron — Director: Avatar, Titanic — 2) Steven Spielberg

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Women & Hollywood, newsfeed.time.com and Deadline.com

Steven Church / Bloomberg:

Philadelphia Inquirer Lenders Outbid Raymond Perelman for Newspaper Owner — Philadelphia Inquirer lenders won a bankruptcy court auction for the newspaper and its sister publication with a high bid of $105 million, outbidding Raymond Perelman, father of billionaire Ronald Perelman.

Discussion: Philly.com, DealBook and Shaping the Future …

Adrian Chen / Gawker:

Catfish and the Death of Online Anonymity — The new documentary Catfish, which follows a New York 20-something's strange relationship with online strangers, might seem to be about the cloak of anonymity provided by the Internet. It's not. It's about the new impossibility of being anonymous online.

News & Tech:

Hearst: Ad campaign ‘mission accomplished’ — Nearly five months after publishers Condé Naste, Hearst Magazines Meredith Corp., Time Inc. and Wenner Media launched the ad campaign “Magazines, The Power of Print,” the campaign seems to be working based on information from syndicated research firm GfK MRI.

Steven Bertoni / Money Talks:

Tribune Insider Denies Eisner Rumors — “The name Michael Eisner has never been uttered in any board conversation.” … That's what a Tribune director recently told me over the phone. He says the company has no bad opinions of the famous former Disney chief, just that the Tribune board has no idea where the rumors are coming from.