Mediagazer: Twitter Plus TV Creates “Social Viewing” (Mathew Ingram/GigaOM)

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 …

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

Nick Summers / New York Observer:
Blank Slate: Jacob Weisberg Was a Web Pioneer. …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, The Awl and Romenesko

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, Business Wire, Broadcasting & Cable, The Wire, Talking Biz News, Mediaite, Gawker, The Huffington Post, main page collection, Politics Daily, Indecision Forever 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 and DealBook

Discussion: the nytpicker, Romenesko and New York Observer

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

Discussion: All Things Digital and MinOnline

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.

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 »

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: The Awl, New York Observer and Romenesko

Michael Oneal / Chicago Breaking Business:

Tribune judge OKs more than $40M in bonuses — The judge in Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy case approved more than $40 million in 2010 incentive bonuses for 635 operating managers and executives Wednesday. — But based on the company's projected performance through the end of the year …

Discussion: Romenesko

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,” …

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

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

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 …

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

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 …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

When Good News Is Bad News: Google Reportedly Fires Raise Leaker — Some corporate memos are confidential. — And some memos are “confidential"-meaning there's no real expectation that they'll stay within the family. — You'd assume that Eric Schmidt's memo to “Googlers” announcing big raises falls in the latter category.

Discussion: CNNMoney.com, Gawker and Fortune, more at Techmeme »

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

CEO Expects TV Networks To Block Boxee Box, Plans Payment Platform To Win Them Over — TV is coming to the Web and there is nothing that can stop it. Just ask Avner Ronen, the CEO of Web TV startup Boxee. Later tonight, he will announce the general availability of his Boxee Box …

Discussion: Co.Design, more at Techmeme »

David Schlesinger / Reuters:

Our need to be in the midst of danger — Below is the keynote speech Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger delivered today to the International News Safety Institute — Death came screaming out of the sky on July 12, 2007. — Two Apache helicopter gunships operating more than 500 metres away …

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