Mediagazer: Slate's Traffic Is Gangbusters, Except When It's Not (Nick Summers/New York Observer)

Slate's Traffic Is Gangbusters, Except When It's Not — Slate Group chairman Jacob Weisberg wrote a memo to his staff today in response to this week's Observer cover story, a look at how the 14-year-old site is faring against new and ferocious competition. He takes exception to our piece …

Nick Summers / New York Observer:

Blank Slate: Jacob Weisberg Was a Web Pioneer. But He Doesn't Much Care for What Works on the Web Now. Can Slate Recover? — Slate, the Web site, is 14 years old, an eternity on the Internet. During that span, its New York offices have moved nine times.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, The Awl and Romenesko

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Weisberg: NYO wrong; Slate's ‘going gangbusters’ — Slate Group editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg's note to staff about today's New York Observer story — You may have seen the story about Slate that's up on the New York Observer website today. I wanted to take a minute to respond …

Discussion: Mediaite and New York Observer

Joe Flint / Company Town:

Lou Dobbs joining Fox Business Network — Just about a year to the day that he left CNN, Lou Dobbs is returning to cable news, this time as host of his own show on News Corp.'s Fox Business Network. — Fox Business Network is expected to announce that it has signed Dobbs as early as Wednesday afternoon.

Discussion: Romenesko, Media Decoder, Broadcasting & Cable, Business Wire, Gawker, Talking Biz News, Mediaite, The Wire, The Huffington Post, Indecision Forever, main page collection, Politics Daily and TVNewser

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

NY Times Editor on the ‘Beauty’ of Readers' Ignorance — Gerald Marzorati, center, with Marc Jacobs (L) and Paul Krugman. Image by Getty Images via @daylife — The New York Times cultivates an image as the preferred read of the intellectual elite, but at least one of the paper's higher-ups seems …

Discussion: Romenesko and New York Observer

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Sorkin talks Dealbook's changes and business journalism — TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE — New York Times business reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin founded the Dealbook blog and daily e-mail back in 2001, when such dissemination strategies for business news were in their infancy.

Discussion: www.wnyc.org

Discussion: the nytpicker, Romenesko and New York Observer

Alan Rusbridger / Poynter Online:

Openness, Collaboration Key to New Information Ecosystem — In 2009 you could smell the fear. As banks crashed and the recession hit, even the grandest media companies trembled a little. We had all known for some time that the revolution we're all living through would at some stage get really tough.

Ryan Kearney / TBD All News:

Why did Gawker publish, then retract, a gruesome murder photo? — Recently, Gawker did something unusual: It removed a photo that was upsetting people. The photo showed the body of Christopher Jusko, a 21-year-old graffiti artist who was stabbed to death in New York's East Village on Oct. 25.

Discussion: New York Observer, The Awl and Romenesko

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Schools Chief Has Much in Common With Boss — Cathleen P. Black earned a reputation in publishing as a tough-minded chief executive who never left her employees guessing what she wanted. A student of management, she wrote a book about strategies for success in the corporate world.

Discussion: nyc.gov, Capital New York, This Just In, Styleite, Salon, Media Decoder, Mixed Media and The Atlantic Online

Discussion: All Things Digital and MinOnline

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Talking Points Memo's first developer talks startup life, jumping to ProPublica and data journalism — What's it like being the only in-house techie at a news startup? Talking Points Memo's first developer Al Shaw says “it's kind of like being a reporter....you have to be a generalist,” …

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Playboy Goes Geo-Local With Scout App, Even as Iconic Media Company Attempts Turnaround — How about some check-ins at the Playboy Mansion? — That's not exactly on the menu for a new mobile application being launched by the iconic adult-oriented media company today, called Scout (although BoomTown wishes it were).

Discussion: New York Observer

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

‘The Onion’ Strikes Comic Gold With Biden Spoofs — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has never smashed a Whac-A-Mole game in a drunken fit. He has never invoked Freedom of Information laws to find out a female federal employee's work schedule. And to the best of anyone's knowledge …

Discussion: New York Observer, The Awl, Splitsider and The Atlantic Online

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Twitter Plus TV Creates “Social Viewing” — Although television has become more fragmented thanks to the web, millions of people still tune in for certain shows, including the Emmys and the MTV Video Music Awards. The real-time conversation that Twitter allows makes it a perfect companion for those events …

Discussion: WebNewser, more at Techmeme »

Jeff Israely / Nieman Journalism Lab:

An idea and a brand come together as Worldcrunch — [Jeff Israely, a Time magazine foreign correspondent in Europe, is in the planning stages of a news startup — a “new global news website.” He details his experience as a new news entrepreneur at his site, but he'll occasionally be describing the startup process here at the Lab.

Discussion: Editors Weblog

ProPublica:

Read the Leaked P.R. Plan to Spin Our Dialysis Investigation — Update (2:39 p.m.): Kidney Care Partners released an official statement. — The umbrella group Kidney Care Partners (KCP), an advocacy and lobbying organization for dialysis providers, patient groups, drug companies and others …

Discussion: MinnPost and LA Observed

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Romenesko, MinnPost and mediabistro.com

Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:

Lost and Heroes producers: Hollywood still trapped in the past — Lost and Heroes seem like two compelling examples of how a vibrant online fanbase can help fuel success on television, but when Carlton Cuse (an executive producer on Lost, pictured center) and Tim Kring (the creator of Heroes …

Post by Venkat / Technology & Marketing Law Blog:

Twitter Clarifies Usage Rules, but AFP Still Claims Unbridled Right to Use Content Posted to “Twitter/TwitPic” — Twitter recently issued new guidelines regarding use of the “Twitter” and “Tweet” marks, and use of the underlying tweets by users and third parties as well: “Guidelines for Use of the Twitter Trademark.”

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb

Media Week:

The Times and Sunday Times attract 75% of online audience from UK — News International's paywall around sites for The Times and The Sunday Times has created a more affluent and more engaged digital audience, with a significantly larger UK bias than any other newspaper, according to chief marketing officer Katie Vanneck.

New York Post:

Camera-ready — Tweet — Celebrity chef Rachael Ray is tapping Liz Vaccariello, a former editor-in-chief of Prevention with a made-for-TV smile, to be the new editor-in-chief of her namesake magazine, as it gears up to fight a slew of rivals. — The foodie wars are increasingly going multimedia.

Amy Garmer / KnightComm:

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action — The Knight Commission recognized that people need tools, skills and understanding to use information effectively, and that successful participation in the digital age entails two kinds of skills sets: digital literacy and media literacy.

Discussion: KnightBlog

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

ESPN's Skipper: iPad is not print's savior — Commentary: It's all about finding medium's best use of content — NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — John Skipper understands the iPad — and a good deal of ESPN's future rests in his hands. — Skipper, ESPN executive vice president for content …

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Eisner's Studio and AOL Pair Up for Web Series — In a deal to be announced Wednesday, Michael D. Eisner's Web studio, Vuguru, will produce half a dozen scripted Web video series for AOL. — The partnership is the latest attempt by AOL, which has been struggling, to infuse its home page and its Web sites with original video.

Discussion: TVWeek.com, The Huffington Post and WebNewser