Mediagazer: The Glitter's Gone From Celebrity Media Funds (The Wrap)

2:20 PM ET, October 14, 2010

Top News:

AOL, Firms Explore an Offer for Yahoo — AOL Inc. and several private-equity firms are exploring making an offer to buy Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, devising a bold plan to marry two big Internet brands facing steep challenges. — Silver Lake Partners …

Dana Davis Rehm / NPR:

Why Can't NPR Staff Go To ‘Rally To Restore Sanity’ Or ‘March To Keep Fear Alive’? — The answer is they can - if they are assigned to cover the events. — But news staff and others covered by NPR's ethics policy should not go. — We've received enormous attention from media …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Romenesko, mediabistro.com, FishbowlDC, Media Matters for America, Mediaite, Salon, New York Observer and The Huffington Post

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:

NPR: Love ya, but you're wrong — NPR has told its staff they may not attend the Stewart/Colbert rallies in Washington at the end of the month. I think they're terribly wrong here, following the journalistic worldview Jay Rosen calls the view-from-nowhere to its extreme and forbidding employees to be curious.

Discussion: Romenesko

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

A Surge in Ratings as First Miners Appeared — More than 10 million people were watching CNN, Fox News and MSNBC as the first of 33 miners was were rescued in Chile Tuesday night, marking the beginning of the end of a two-month ordeal for the men trapped underground.

Discussion: Romenesko, TVWeek.com, Variety, CNN, Media Buyer Planner, New York Observer, The Maynard Institute, New York Times, Broadcasting & Cable, The Hollywood Reporter and The Huffington Post

Jeremy / @JeremyLittau:

Chile is a story about journalism's failure — Jay Rosen, as usual, beat me to the punch with his thoughts this morning on the Chile mine story. This is why I tweet more than I blog; sometimes you just say it and fill in the gaps later. I did a bit of mini-ranting last night, at least.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Lost Remote, Jen Lee Reeves and Associated Press

Dominic Ponsford / Editor's Blog:

The News of the World's paywall and why, for Rupert Murdoch, the internet is so over — The Times' all-or-nothing paywall was a shock to the system - but the News of the World's paywall move today was even more extreme. — Both are examples of the fact that, for Rupert Murdoch the internet is so over.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Strange Attractor, paidContent and Editors Weblog

Oliver Luft / Press Gazette:

News of The World relaunches behind the paywall — News International has relaunched the website of the News of the World today as a paid-for site. — The new-look newsoftheworld.co.uk is the third News International site to adopt paid-for access following a similar move with digital versions …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Guardian, Media Week and Strange Attractor

Steve McClellan / Adweek:

NBC, Google Abort TV Ad-Sales Pact — The partnership launched amid much fanfare in 2008 — NBC Universal and Google have discontinued their ad sales partnership begun in 2008, the companies have confirmed. The split deprives Google's TV ad sales unit of one of its major alliances …

Discussion: Search Engine Land

Wayne Friedman / MediaPost:

NBCU, Google TV Ads Sever Partnership — Google TV Ads has taken a big blow, losing marquee NBC Universal cable networks as clients for selling TV ad time. Others might be on the rocks as well. — The deal between Google TV Ads and NBC has been in effect for two years …

Discussion: AdAge, WebNewser and The Next Web

The Wrap:

The Glitter's Gone From Celebrity Media Funds — Sticking a marquee name at the top of a private equity firm may open doors when it comes to raising money, but it turns out that having Bono as the name on the door doesn't bring big returns. Especially when the U2 frontman has been dubbed “The Worst Investor in America.”

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter Online:

How Amanda Hess, TBD Showed Commitment to Accuracy When Responding to Correction — TBD reporter Amanda Hess knows what a difference the letter “n” can make. — In the original version of her blog post about HIV-positive black gay men last Friday, Hess reported that “one in three black men who have sex with me is HIV positive.”

Discussion: TBD All News, The New Republic and Romenesko

Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:

Justin.TV and Chief Business Officer Part Ways, One Week After VP of Product Departs — David Aufhauser, the chief business officer of the live-streaming video service Justin.tv, has just announced that he's “transitioning out” of the company this month. The departure comes roughly one week …

Discussion: NewTeeVee

Suw / Strange Attractor:

Are journalisms start-ups being appropriately funded? — If you've been paying close attention, you might be aware that myself, Kevin and our friend Stephanie Troeth are working on a journalism start-up called NoThirty. Kevin and I have been thinking of ideas for a journalism project …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Apple's Ping Wants Rock ‘n’ Roll, but No Sex and Drugs — Ping may never move beyond the “interesting idea, executed poorly.” But it might! And in any case, it's Apple, so if you're a music act you ignore it at your own risk. — Which means those acts need to create a “profile” for Steve Jobs's social network.

Discussion: Inquirer

Liz Shannon Miller / NewTeeVee:

Blip.tv Predicts Best Quarter Yet for Web Creators — Blip.tv is predicting its best quarter ever for fourth quarter 2010, with sponsors for the next few months including EA Games, Samsung, Reebok, Kraft, Starbucks, Canon, American Express and Microsoft, and profits for web series creators will be bigger than ever.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / Networking Blog:

Netgear gets back into Internet video with Roku — Everyone knows Netgear as, along with D-Link and Cisco's Linksys, as one of the leading SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) and home networking companies. What's less well known is that, like D-Link with its Boxee Box, Netgear would like to compete …

Josh Tapper / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Does investing in print help the bottom line? Discouraging evidence from the San Francisco Chronicle — The Globe and Mail is the latest newspaper to double down on print — investing big money in a new, glossy, full-color format aimed at making the value of news-on-paper more clear.

Discussion: The Snitch and Romenesko

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

White House Meeting for Black Journalists Doesn't Stay Off-The-Record for Long — The White House is usually quite good at keeping a muzzle on the media after one of its off-the-record sessions with President Obama and senior members of his administration. — But not this week.

Discussion: New York Observer and The Awl

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Digital Natives: More different than you think — This column originally was published in Editor & Publisher Magazine and is being reprinted with permission. To subscribe to the magazine so you can see the full array of industry coverage when it first appears in print, click here.

Discussion: TeleRead

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

Big media wants more piracy busting from Google — Filmmaker Ellen Seidler shows how a visit to a site that offers her pirated movie also displays ads via Google. — (Credit: Ellen Seidler) — When it comes to fighting online piracy, some music and film industry executives think Google could be doing more to help.

Discussion: Relevant Results, hypebot, Techdirt, The Next Web, PlagiarismToday and ClickZ