Mediagazer: ‘Social Network’: Natalie Portman was Aaron Sorkin's secret weapon (Adam Markovitz/PopWatch)

7:05 AM ET, October 2, 2010

Top News:

CNN ousts Rick Sanchez over Jon Stewart rant — Anchor fired after giving controversial radio interview — CNN issued a statement Friday announcing that anchor Rick Sanchez has been let go from the network after giving a radio interview in which he insinuated Jon Stewart was a bigot and CNN was “run by Jews.”

Discussion: Mediaite and Speakeasy, more at Techmeme »

Hunter Walker / The Wrap:

Rick Sanchez's Public Meltdown — Lashes Out at CNN, Jon Stewart, Jews — Rick Sanchez gave a radio interview on the day that he lost his coveted 8 p.m. timeslot. That was probably a mistake. — Angry about having being replaced by CNN's new “Parker Spitzer” talk show and the constant jokes …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Romenesko, newsfeed.time.com, Gizmodo, blogs.tampabay.com, Chickaboomer, Broadcasting & Cable, PopEater, Media Matters for America, B&C and Gawker

Stand UP!:

CNN's Rick Sanchez Calls Jon Stewart ‘Bigot’ — Cuban-American anchor Rick Sanchez came on Stand Up! with Pete Dominick today for a loose exchange on current events, media, and journalism. Throughout much of the interview, the discussion touched on race. To our surprise, at various points …

Nieman Foundation News:

Nieman Curator Bob Giles to Retire — Cambridge, Mass. - Bob Giles, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard for the past decade, will retire at the end of the academic year in June 2011. — “It is not easy to leave a great institution and the wonderful people who make it so …

Discussion: Romenesko and Media Nation

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Conde Nast Edges Further Into Selling Videos on Demand — You Don't Need the App Store to Try Charging for Content — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Conde Nast, which is trying to reorient its business away from an overwhelming dependence on ad pages, is moving further into paid content online …

Discussion: Crain's New York Business and paidContent

John Boitnott / VentureBeat:

Is it too late for a Digg comeback? — Social news aggregator site Digg.com is trying to work its way out of the traffic hole it created with its botched redesign attempt. Today it announced the return of several popular features from its previous version.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Beyond Search and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Antonio Regalado / Technology Review:

Guerrilla Webfare — How unauthorized video producers are “brand-jacking” companies and forcing them to rethink the way they market. — Fernando Motolese, a creator of viral videos, recently approached French food giant Danone (known as Dannon in the United States) with an unusual proposition.

Kelly McEvers / NPR:

In Iraq, Getting The Story Gets Tougher For Reporters … Baghdad is undergoing a kind of face-lift these days as officials spend hundreds of millions of dollars in preparation to host an Arab League summit next year. — Most of the hotels that are being gutted and redone …

Discussion: Romenesko, The Huffington Post, gary scott and Journalism and the World

Adam Markovitz / PopWatch:

‘Social Network’: Natalie Portman was Aaron Sorkin's secret weapon — In The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) models Facebook on Harvard's legendary final clubs, private groups made up of some of the school's most privileged students. But the clubs are as secretive as they are exclusive …

Discussion: The Marquee Blog, Hollywood Reporter and New York Magazine

Scot Hacker / Knight Digital Media Center feed:

Is Your CMS a Bottleneck to Innovation? — Hundreds of journalists have moved through KDMC's digital media training programs, in which we show them how to produce cutting edge news content in non-traditional formats, from video to map mashups, custom widgets to slideshows, social media integration to standalone multimedia packages.

Steve Buttry / The Buttry Diary:

You can compete and collaborate at the same time — Howard Owens is one of the smartest journalism entrepreneurs in the business. He launched The Batavian as a digital challenger to the Batavia Daily News in New York, and his small business is thriving. — I was interested yesterday …

Discussion: Lost Remote, Global Vue and The Solomon Scandals

Olga Kharif / Business Week:

Apple Takes Share from Google in Mobile Ads — Its new iAd network is quickly grabbing market share — In July the first advertisements placed through Apple's (AAPL) new iAd mobile network began to appear. Marketers use iAd to place interactive banner ads in iPhone, iPod Touch …