Mediagazer: Katie Couric, On the Move (Howard Kurtz/The Daily Beast)

5:40 PM ET, October 26, 2010

Top News:

Nikesh Arora / The Official Google Blog:

$5 million to encourage innovation in digital journalism — Journalism is fundamental to a functioning democracy. So as media organizations globally continue to broaden their presence online, we're eager to play our part on the technology side—experimenting with new ways of presenting news online …

Discussion: MediaMemo, MediaFile, Knight Foundation, Romenesko, KnightBlog, The Atlantic Online, paidContent, mediabistro.com, Guardian, TechCrunch, JNews, Mixed Media, ReadWriteWeb and The Next Web

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Google donates $5 million for news innovation to Knight Foundation and new international efforts — Google and news organizations have had a rocky time of it. To overdramatize the situation only slightly: Google insists that it cares about journalism as a necessity of our shared democracy …

Discussion: rbr.com, New York Magazine, SAI, KnightBlog and The Next Web

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Politico, Seeing a Market Need, Adds a Paid News Service — To the rapidly growing field of Washington reportage, add one more entrant: Politico Pro. — Politico, the Web site and free daily publication that brought a 24-7 cable news sensibility to political reporting …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, The Wire, AdPulp, Editors Weblog, New York Observer, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine and coverawards.com, Thanks:eldon

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

Fox Warns Cablevision: Stop Telling Customers to Steal Our Content — The nasty fight between Fox and Cablevision over fees just got nastier. — On Tuesday, Fox sent Cablevision a cease-and desist-letter demanding the company stop encouraging its customers to steal copyrighted material.

Discussion: NY Daily News, Media Money …, paidContent, rbr.com, Hillicon Valley and NYConvergence.com

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Claims of Good Faith, and Bad, in Cable Dispute — The high-stakes feud between the News Corporation and Cablevision reached the point of filing grievances before the Federal Communications Commission on Monday, with each side trying to prove that it had been bargaining in good faith — while charging that the other side had not.

Discussion: Multichannel, rbr.com, Company Town, Gothamist, paidContent and Broadcasting & Cable

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Conde Nast Magazines Can Finally Sell Their Own Websites — Most Ad Sales Handled by Conde Nast Digital and CondeNet Before That Now Belong to Publishers — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Conde Nast, the publisher of magazines from Vogue to The New Yorker, is integrating many of the digital operations …

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: Yahoo Courts Former News Corp. Digital Exec Ross Levinsohn As U.S. Head — He's baaaaaack. — Former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, that is, who is the top candidate to replace Hilary Schneider as Yahoo's U.S. head, according to several sources close to the situation.

Discussion: SAI

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Katie Couric, On the Move — The CBS anchor is nearing the end of her contract—and signs point surprisingly to her staying put. Howard Kurtz talks to her about her salary, her next move—and her love of the campaign trail. — Katie Couric is feeling liberated.

Discussion: TVNewser, Gawker, Romenesko, Chickaboomer and The Wire

Steve Myers / Poynter Online:

George Packer's 5 Tips for Reporting on Anything — The New Yorker's George Packer has written about disaffected voters in Ohio and beleaguered homeowners in Florida; the massive city of Lagos, Nigeria, and the cloistered, oppressed country of Burma. He has described the dangerous predicament …

Discussion: Romenesko and New York Observer

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

The Perfect Content Companion For iPad + Instapaper, Longreads Gets A Website — I've been in love with the simple bookmarking service Instapaper for a few years now. The release of the iPad has made it even better. You see, my daily routine now involves using the Instapaper app on the iPad …

Discussion: MarkArms, New York Observer, Brooks in Beta and The Awl, Thanks:markarms

Dumplings from this Panda!:

Did Digg game its own system to benefit publisher partners? — Digg recently published a blog post titled “Digg's Algorithmic Mystery Tour” on October, 15th. While a Digg blog post is a normal thing, a post about the algorithm was very surprising to me. Why did Digg, which never bothers …

Discussion: TechCrunch and WebNewser, more at Techmeme »

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

BoingBoing Slows Original Video Production, Focuses on Curation — SAN FRANCISCO — BoingBoing, the popular blog about technology and culture, has dialed back significantly from producing original daily packages to presenting mostly other's videos, says David Pescovitz, co-editor, in this interview with Beet.TV

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Paul Thomasch / Reuters:

Comcast launches new web video service, stepping up fight — * Movies, TV shows available from over 90 media partners — Comcast Corp. (CMCSA.O), the largest U.S. cable operator, on Monday rolled out a service that allows its subscribers to watch an array of television shows and movies on a personal computer or laptop.

Discussion: Media Buyer Planner and MediaPost

Nielsen Wire:

Nielsen estimates 362,000 Britons behind the Times paywall — Matthew Dodd, SVP, Research & Analytics, EMEA — As newspapers grapple with monetizing their content online, a recent Nielsen study found that one in five UK visitors to the Times of London and the Sunday Times websites …

Discussion: paidContent

Emma Heald / Editors Weblog:

I from the Independent has arrived: affordable, concise, but will it complement or replace its parent paper? — The Independent's new daily i launches today. Billed as the first quality daily to launch in Britain in 25 years, it aims to provide a full news service “in a way that is fully accessible …

Discussion: Press Gazette, BBC, Bloomberg and Media Week

Nat Worden / Wall Street Journal:

‘Monday Night Football’ Goes Online for Subscribers — Time Warner Cable Inc. and ESPN are planning to serve up a bold cable-TV experiment in making programming available online behind a paywall, starting with this week's “Monday Night Football.” — The two companies say they will make …

Discussion: Flood Magazine and Digits

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

AP boss to staff: I've strived to keep your pension plan intact, but... AP Staffer: — I want to let you know about some changes in your pension plan that we are proposing as we negotiate a new contract with union employees. Under our proposal, the AP defined benefit pension plan …

Mike Green / The Huffington Post:

Latoya Peterson: Media, Entrepreneurship and Birth of a New Nation — At the intersection where social media and entrepreneurship meet technology and racial issues, you will find Latoya Peterson hard at work changing American society. — The 27-year-old African American entrepreneur …