Mediagazer: Don Meek to head reorganized, rechristened Tribune Digital (Phil Rosenthal/Tower Ticker)

12:50 PM ET, November 2, 2010

Top News:

Washington Post Sponsors Election Day Trending Topic on Twitter — It's a pretty safe bet that the election will be a hot topic on Twitter on Tuesday, and The Washington Post plans to capitalize on users' interest by sponsoring an election-related trending topic.

Discussion: New York Observer, GalleyCat, newsfeed.time.com, Journalism.co.uk, paidContent, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM, The Next Web, Tech Daily Dose and The Atlantic Online

Jodiolson / Twitter Blog:
U.S. Midterm Elections 2010

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Nieman Journalism Lab, MediaMemo, GigaOM, CNN, Gothamist, A VC, Lost Remote and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

Edmund Lee / AdAge:
Twitter Begins Publishing Ads in Users' Streams

Discussion: HootSuite blog, Twitter Blog, The Next Web, VentureBeat, GigaOM, eMedia Vitals, paidContent, ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Editor of Daily Variety Is Pushed Out — The editor of Daily Variety has been pushed out after less than a year on the job. — Leo Wolinsky, a Los Angeles Times veteran who was hired by Daily Variety last year to help it survive in the rapidly changing Hollywood media market, confirmed that he was let go on Monday.

Discussion: Romenesko, New York Magazine and LA Observed

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Bang! Publishers Say Giant Web Ads Have “Stopping Power” — Bigger really is better! — So say Web publishers who have been running supersized, don't-you-dare-look-away-from- me ads for the past year. — Even better, the ad sellers insist-they have scientific proof to back up their claim.

Discussion: MediaPost and mediabistro.com, more at Techmeme »

Phil Rosenthal / Tower Ticker:

Don Meek to head reorganized, rechristened Tribune Digital — Tribune Co. is renaming its Tribune Interactive division Tribune Digital, in a reorganization that places Don Meek, who had been chief revenue officer for the company's publishing and interactive operations, in charge as executive vice president.

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

O'Donnell receives most coverage of 2010 candidates — Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell didn't get too much national media coverage before upsetting the Republican establishment and winning the Delaware primary in September. But since then, O'Donnell's been all over the news …

Discussion: Romenesko, Ezra Klein, Ben Smith's Blog and http://www.fosterkamer.com/

Jenna Sauers / Jezebel:

How Justin Long Affably, Reasonably Ended An Internet Flamewar — After a critic panned his movie, and cruelly joked about his looks, Justin Long derided her on national television. But when the critic wrote back, Long left her what must be the kindest, humblest comment in an Internet fight, ever.

Discussion: newsfeed.time.com, The Life and Times …, New York Magazine and Movieline

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

A Gold Mine in Attack Ads on Local TV — In Waco, Tex., $350 will usually buy 30 seconds of advertising time on a local evening newscast. But not this week. — In a scene being repeated in markets across the country, the Democratic congressman who represents Waco and the surrounding region …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Zucker the ‘Good Guy’ Honored and Roasted — “Some would say this lunch has a kiss of death about it.” — So said the NBC anchor Brian Williams at the Center for Communication's annual Frank Stanton award luncheon Monday in Manhattan, where the outgoing chief executive of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker, was being honored — and roasted.

Discussion: Company Town and Speakeasy

Laura Oliver / Journalism.co.uk:

News International publishes paywall figures, claims 105,000 online customers — Tweet — News International has released its first figures for subscriptions to the Times and Sunday Times websites since introducing a paywall to the sites five months ago.

Discussion: paidContent:UK, Guardian, BBC, paidContent, blogs.independent.co.uk, BBC, Beehive City, The Next Web, GigaOM, Jon Slattery, Boing Boing, THINQ.co.uk and Media News, more at Techmeme »

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Media Guardian retreats from B2B territory — The appointment of Dan Sabbagh as the new head of the Guardian's media and technology team coincides with its retreat from seeking to compete with established trade players such as Press Gazette, Broadcast and Media Week.

Vinny Minchillo / AdAge:

What Internet Election? Why Online Advertising Didn't Matter In 2010 — Online's a Fine Place to Start, but TV Is the King of Results — Remember 2008? The battle for the presidency was waged via Facebook and the campaigns battled over Google search terms. This was supposed to be the future of political advertising.

Discussion: MediaPost

Katie Manning / The Georgetown Dish:

Bob Woodward admits to starting a rumor during the Q&A Cafe — Bob Woodward answers questions from the Georgetown Dish — Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Bob Woodward joined “Q&A Cafe ” host Carol Joynt on Friday at the Ritz-Carlton in Georgetown where he admitted to starting …

Ben Fritz / Company Town:

Disney merges television distribution into home entertainment [updated] — Walt Disney Studios is shaking up its distribution group in a move that brings television sales together with DVDs and digital for the first time. There will be an unspecified number of layoffs along with the shift …

Discussion: paidContent

Bill Mitchell / Newspay:

Winners of Poynter's Entrepreneurial Journalism Prize Announced — Two ventures focused on civic affairs — I-News and Localocracy — have been selected as winners of the Poynter Promise Prize, an incubation project in entrepreneurial journalism run by The Poynter Institute and funded by the Ford Foundation.

Discussion: I-News Network

Skrentablog:

Anatomy of blekko's press launch … After the Wall Street Journal broke our press embargo 5 hours early, someone on Hacker News asked why we were launching the site on a Sunday afternoon. — But if you want to be in the Monday morning press, a writer's story needs to be done and ready by Sunday.

more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

So, How Do Networks Decide to Call a Race? — During election night,. you can be certain that every network will, at some point or another, call a race for a candidate. How do they decide when to call it, and who to call it for? — That is where Sheldon “Shelly” Gawiser comes in.

Discussion: GalleyCat

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Breitbart, ABC News spar over his election night role — Andrew Breitbart says it will be “quite a statement” if he spends seven hours at an ABC News-Facebook digital town hall event Tuesday and doesn't get to offer his political analysis during the network's election night television broadcast.

Discussion: Big Journalism, The Wrap, Salon, The Plum Line, Romenesko and TPMDC

Efowler / Wesleyan Media Project:

An Uptick in Negativity: Last Few Weeks Provide Confirmation - 2010 Campaign Most Negative in Recent History — Republicans Using Pure Attack Ads More Often; Dem Attack Ads Still More Personal — (MIDDLETOWN, CT) - In just the last few weeks a large uptick in negative ads has pushed …

Discussion: Front Row Washington and KnightBlog

Caroline McCarthy / The Social:

Reddit head leaves Conde Nast for Hipmunk — Christopher Slowe, a five-year veteran of Reddit who has been in charge of the Conde Nast-owned social news site since the departure of its founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian last year, announced on Monday that he's leaving his post.

Discussion: paidContent, TechCrunch, SAI and EW.com

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

CNN's Newest Hire on Replacing Larry King and Beating Fox News — Piers Morgan. Image by thisiscow via Flickr — If CNN manages to pull up out of the slump it's been in, it will be in large measure because of what it does at 9 p.m., where British television personality Piers Morgan …

Discussion: MarketWatch, Romenesko and TVNewser

Barbara Levin / Turner Newsroom:
Jonathan Wald Named Executive Producer of CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight

Discussion: Mediaite, Media Decoder, New York Observer and Broadcasting & Cable

Gary Levin / USA Today:

Oprah Winfrey prepares to venture out on her OWN — After delays, management shake-ups and a renegotiation of her on-air commitment, Oprah Winfrey is ready for her cable close-up. — The Oprah Winfrey Network premieres at noon ET/PT on New Year's Day with a weekend lineup of sneak previews …

Discussion: Company Town