Mediagazer: Murdoch and the Meaning of the Times' Paywall (Clay Shirky)

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Olbermann Apologizes to Viewers, But Not to MSNBC — 6:15 p.m. | Update In an aggressive statement questioning the legitimacy of his two-day suspension from MSNBC, Keith Olbermann addressed his viewers Monday night, saying that they were responsible for his scheduled return to the air on Tuesday …

Discussion: Mediaite, Romenesko, Inside Cable News, Salon and TPM LiveWire

Olbermann, Impartiality and MSNBC — MSNBC, worried that its reputation as a fair broker of the news hung in the balance, sent Keith Olbermann to the woodshed on Friday for an unpaid suspension because he had donated $7,200 to some of the Democratic politicians he had championed on his hit show “Countdown.”

Discussion: Mixed Media, live.washingtonpost.com, Broadcasting & Cable, msnbc.com, Company Town, Runnin' Scared, TVNewser, Inside Cable News, The Daily Beast and DailyFinance

Steve Krakauer / Mediaite:
Keith Olbermann Will Return To MSNBC Tuesday

Discussion: PopEater, Show Tracker, New York Times, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, TPM LiveWire, Wall Street Journal, Gawker and New York Magazine

Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Online:

I Am a Blogger No Longer — This is my final blog post for The Atlantic. Five years ago, as a way to boost the competitive metabolism of The Hotline, Chuck Todd hired me away from ABC News to create “Hotline On Call.” I was to be the first political reporter working for a mainstream news …

Discussion: The New Republic and The Daily Dish, Thanks:taylorbuley

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Salon Names New Editor — Salon, the Web site that helped pioneer online journalism before many newspapers and magazines had even thought about the Internet, is changing editors. — Joan Walsh, the noted commentator who has been editor in chief of Salon since 2005, is stepping down to write a book.

Discussion: New York Observer, MediaPost, GalleyCat and The Huffington Post

Betsy Rothstein / mediabistro.com:

WaPo Rips Off Two Stories; Media Writer Says it Doesn't Matter — This weekend WaPo ripped off two media stories from other media outlets without crediting those sources. One was the MSNBC Keith Olbermann suspension story, which was broken by Politico's Simmi Aujla on Friday morning.

James McQuivey / paidContent:

Why The Book Business May Soon Be The Most Digital Of All Media Industries — Consider it an inauguration of sorts, a celebration of the e-book industry becoming a member of the major media club just as digital music and online video have before them. When you influence a billion dollars, people have to take you seriously.

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Boxee Goes Hunting for Big Bucks — Boxee, which makes software that makes it easy to watch Web video on your TV, celebrates a big milestone this week, when the first Boxee-branded hardware starts shipping to consumers. The start-up is celebrating with an event at New York's Irving Plaza.

Discussion: GigaOM

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Huffington Post Adds Divorce Section — There are the society pages, the wedding pages, and now the divorce pages. — Courtesy of Arianna Huffington and Nora Ephron, two women whose own marriages dissolved in public fashion, The Huffington Post is set to begin on Monday a section devoted exclusively …

Discussion: New York Observer, NPR Topics, The Hairpin and Editors Weblog

Brian Morrissey / Mediaweek:

Web Awash in Ads as Supply Outstrips Demand — The problem for Web publishers is a textbook case from Economics 101: Supply is far outstripping demand. — Lesson 1: U.S. ad impressions hit 1.3 trillion in the third quarter, a 22 percent increase from a year earlier, according to comScore.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

Lacey Rose / Moneywood:

Meet The Man Who Lured Conan O'Brien To Cable — Steve Koonin — Image by Getty Images via @daylife — Turner Entertainment Networks president Steve Koonin staged the biggest coup of his career when he snagged late night's Conan O'Brien out from under Fox's nose earlier this year.

Discussion: New York Times and The Wire

Discussion: MediaMemo

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Bad News for Liberals May Be Good News for a Liberal Magazine — Other than perhaps the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, there were few places as despondent on election night as the Manhattan offices of The Nation, the 146-year-old journal of fiery leftist opinion.

Discussion: Hit & Run and Mediaite

Kim France / Slate:

Is Shampoo Worth $140 a Tub? — As Lucky's editor, I got all the beauty products I wanted for free. Here's what I'll use now that I have to buy my own. — After 10 years as the founding editor-in-chief of Lucky magazine, I became, one Wednesday not so very long ago, Lucky's former founding editor-in-chief.

Clay Shirky:

Murdoch and the Meaning of the Times' Paywall — It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. — In early July, News Corp placed its two London-based “quality” dailies, the Times and Sunday Times, behind a paywall, charging £1 for 24 hours access, or £2 for 2 weeks (aftsmaller an introductory £1 for the first month.

Ethan Smith / Wall Street Journal:

Disney CEO Turns Slump Into a Springboard — While many of his peers hoarded cash during the downturn, Robert Iger, chief executive of Walt Disney Co., doubled down, investing in entertainment businesses, theme parks, new technology and other infrastructure and counting on the weak economy to keep a lid on construction costs.

Discussion: Splash Page

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Energy-efficient journalism — urban planning for news — I came across a great story in The Economist last night — a look at emerging systems of urbanism, part of the magazine's “Special Report on Smart Systems.” In cities large and small, eastern and western, established and nascent …

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Gibbs threatens to pull Obama from India talks after press dispute — Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is known for sparring with White House reporters, making for what often seems an antagonistic mood in the press briefing room. — But during President Obama's trip to India …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Washington Post:

The Washington Post comes to iPad — WASHINGTON — Today The Washington Post introduced its new App for iPad, now available on the App Store. It combines The Post's trusted reporting and analysis with innovative social media and sharing capabilities and award-winning multimedia to provide an immersive news experience for iPad users.

Discussion: Mobile Media, Poynter Online, Editors Weblog, BlogPost and Gizmodo

Simon Owens / The Next Web:

How does Gawker determine whether it will pay for a scoop? — It seems that every time a blog under the Gawker Media banner breaks a major, internet-consuming story — whether it's an iPhone prototype, nude pictures of Brett Favre, or a first-person account of a 25-year-old's sleepover …

Discussion: CJR, Thanks:zee

Adam Sternbergh / New York Magazine:

Jimmy Fallon's good humor. — The most frequently leveled criticism of Jimmy Fallon is that he laughs too much. He laughs before jokes, after jokes, during jokes. He is TV's most inveterate cracker-upper since Harvey Korman and Tim Conway on The Carol Burnett Show, or since Paul Lynde's reign …

Discussion: Splitsider

Dan Frommer / The Wire:

Blip.TV Soars Past 100 Million Views For The First Time — Blip.TV, the online video startup, just reached an impressive milestone: The company did more than 100 million video views in a single month for the first time in October — specifically, 113 million views.