Mediagazer: How Ken Jautz plans to boost CNN ratings (Georg Szalai/Hollywood Reporter)

3:45 PM ET, September 28, 2010

Top News:

Tim Armstrong: We Got TechCrunch! — I'm very pleased to announce that we have acquired TechCrunch. Details are in the press release below, and I'm sure founder Michael Arrington will have a few words to say as well. This is a great complement to our continued investment in world class content.

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Why AOL Bought TechCrunch — Tim Armstrong Explains Why AOL Decided to Buy This Time Rather Than Build — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — AOL CEO Tim Armstrong told Ad Age today that he wants a “build-first” culture at his company, in which the growth is sparked internally, like the world's oldest startup.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
We Nailed It! AOL Has Bought TechCrunch

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider and The Wrap, more at Techmeme »

journalists.org:

Finalists for the 2010 Online Journalism Awards announced — Finalists for the 2010 Online Journalism Awards, many pushing the envelope of innovation and excellence in digital storytelling and distribution, were announced today by the Online News Association and its partner, the School of Communication at the University of Miami.

Discussion: Lost Remote, Journalism.co.uk, Romenesko, West Seattle Blog, Salon and ProPublica

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Exclusive: Here's a Deal That Is Happening-AOL Buying Web Video Distributor 5Min — Here's a deal we can confirm: AOL is buying Web video start-up 5Min Media. — The price for the deal is between $50 million and $65 million, sources close to the situation said. AOL (AOL) plans to announce the deal Tuesday morning.

Discussion: MediaPost, AdAge, Online Video News, New York Observer, Deal Journal, The Huffington Post, paidContent, VC Cafe and Silicon Alley Insider

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Confirmed: AOL Buys Video Syndication Company 5min (For $65 Million)

Discussion: Business Wire, MediaMemo, Online Video News and NewTeeVee, more at Techmeme »

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Why I am Not a Journalist: A True Story — The short answer is: I wanted to be, but I screwed it up, so I couldn't be. — Discovering journalism in college saved me. At the time (1976) I was on a track that would have led to an assistant manager's job at an Applebees.

Discussion: CJR, Romenesko and Media Nation

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Huffington Post fires back at ex-blogger Fowler — The Huffington Post is firing back at Mayhill Fowler, one of the site's many unpaid bloggers, who scored a major political scoop during the 2008 presidential campaign. — Huffington Post spokesman Mario Ruiz took issue with Fowler's decision Monday …

Discussion: Gawker, DailyFinance, LA Observed and Romenesko

Mayhill Fowler:
Why I Left The Huffington Post

Discussion: Mediaite, Romenesko, LA Observed, The Huffington Post and Ben Smith's Blog

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Analyst: NBC Network Is Worth ‘Negative $600 Million’ — USA's estimated value: $11.7 billion. — NEW YORK — USA Network is the most valuable part of NBC Universal at $11.7 billion, but the NBC network is worth a negative $600 million, according to Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Harrigan.

Discussion: Company Town, NewTeeVee, TVbytheNumbers and Mediaweek

David Kaplan / paidContent:

AOL's Project Devil Aims To Update The Banner Once And For All — Just in time for the first day of New York City's Advertising Week, AOL (NYSE: AOL) sought to get a jump on attention getting news with its latest effort to build a better advertising business.

Discussion: Burst Media Company Blog

Joe Pompeo / The Wire:

TheWeek.com Staffs Up With Radar Refugees — For years, The Week didn't concern itself much with the web. It's a publication, after all, that already performs the same basic function as most blogs and aggregators — curating and contextualizing the news cycle; only it does so in print, and on a weekly basis rather than a daily one.

Discussion: Romenesko, mediabistro.com and Most Recent Home Page Posts …

Dan Zak / Washington Post:

‘The Wire’ writer David Simon among MacArthur genius grant winners — David Simon bristled as he listened to the voice mail. A lawyer in Washington wanted to talk about a “personal matter.” Expecting a lawsuit or subpoena or worse, Simon dialed her back after a lunch in Baltimore two weeks ago.

Discussion: New York Observer, New York Times, Reuters, New York Press, TV Tattle and New York Magazine

Associated Press:

Pioneer Iran blogger sentenced to 19 years prison — TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian court sentenced the founder of one of the first Farsi-language blogs, credited with sparking the boom in Iranian reform bloggers, to more than 19 years in prison for his writings, a news web site reported Tuesday.

Discussion: The Firewall and Reuters

James Hibberd / The Hollywood Reporter:

Another Twitter feed gets CBS comedy deal — Exclu: Call it “$#*! My Roommate Says.” — CBS is developing two new comedies, including a project based off a Twitter feed produced by social-media master Ashton Kutcher. — Following on the successful launch of its Twitter-inspired comedy “$#*!

Discussion: PopWatch, Vanity Fair, Gawker, Splitsider, Mediaite, From Inside the Box, MediaPost Raw, WebNewser, Movieline, New York Magazine and TV Tattle

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

How Ken Jautz plans to boost CNN ratings — Calls Piers Morgan, Eliot Spitzer ‘excellent communicators’ … The Hollywood Reporter: What has been the biggest problem for CNN, and how do you fix it? — Ken Jautz: The biggest issue is to improve our primetime ratings.

Discussion: The Wire, Mediaite and Inside Cable News

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

CBS, NBC upset PBS at News & Doc Emmys — Nominated Letterman extortionist loses to ‘60 Minutes’ — NEW YORK — In an upset at Monday night's 31st annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards, CBS News with seven honors and NBC News with six wins plus a CNBC award edged out usual frontrunner PBS, which earned five awards.

Discussion: TVNewser, TVWeek.com and Romenesko

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Authors Feel Pinch in Age of E-Books — Author John Pipkin worries about the e-book business model: 'I've had to rethink my plans in terms of supporting my family full time as a writer.' — When literary agent Sarah Yake shopped around Kirsten Kaschock's debut novel “Sleight” this year …

Jack Shafer / Slate:

The Op-Ed Page's Back Pages — Upon turning 40 years old last week, the New York Times op-ed page threw an 18-page party for itself in its print edition (Sept. 26) and staged a weeklong—Sept. 20-27—celebration on the Web. As self-lionizing shindigs go, the Times affair was fairly sedate.

Discussion: New York Times

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: Yahoo Exec Churn Continues, With Media Head Pitaro Ready to Bolt — Last week at a Goldman Sachs investment conference, voluble Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz tried to minimize the impact of the recent spate of significant executive departures at the Internet giant.

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider, paidContent and Tech Trader Daily

Lucia Moses / Mediaweek:

Condé Nast Creates Award, Perk for Business-Savvy Editors — Historically, Condé Nast editors have worked in a rarified world where they were encouraged to put out the best quality magazines possible, without regard to costs. — Now come new signs that editors are being encouraged to adopt a business mind-set.

Sue Zeidler / Reuters:

Disney's ABC looks inside and outside for ABC News chief — * Looks for person with technology experience — * Considers internal and external candidates — Will Silicon Valley digerati shape the destiny of Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N) ABC News? — That's the question that Anne Sweeney …

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

There Are Stories Out There On Twitter, Flickr, YouTube — Build Them With Storify — The main reason I love services like Tumblr and Posterous is that they make personal blogging simple. While you certainly still can write long-winded pieces about whatever you want, you can also just use …

Discussion: VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Indie Radio God Nic Harcourt Gets a New Gig: Picking Videos for “The Live Buzz” — For a certain kind of music fan, Nic Harcourt is a rock star. Even though he doesn't play any instruments. — From 1998 through 2008, Harcourt was the driving force at KCRW, the super-influential public …

Steve Pond / The Wrap:

IMDb CEO on Growing Pains — and Turning 20 — Back in 1990, Col Needham, a frequent user of the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies, began combining user-posted lists to create a searchable database of actors, actresses and directors. It might not have seemed like much at the time …