Mediagazer: Melinda French Gates Leaves the Board of The Washington Post Company (Washington Post)

2:27 AM ET, November 13, 2010

Top News:

New Details Emerge on Newsweek-Beast Merger — Tina Brown met separately with the staffs of The Daily Beast and Newsweek today, just hours after a merger between the two very different publications was completed. Details of the combined entity, to be known officially as The Newsweek Daily Beast Company, are beginning to emerge.

Discussion: Mediaweek, mediabistro.com, Thompson on Hollywood, Folio, Politics Daily, Guardian, Mixed Media and TechCrunch

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Newsweek CEO First Casualty of Deal with Daily Beast — Tweet — No sooner did the ink dry on the Newsweek-Daily Beast merger, than it claimed its first casualty in what could be a tumultuous marriage between print and the Web. — Newsweek CEO Tom Ascheim — the Washington Post Co. holdover …

Discussion: Telegraph, Los Angeles Times and The Week Magazine

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast: Inside the New Beast — As The Daily Beast and Newsweek combine …

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:
Newsweek and Daily Beast Have a Deal

Mark Milian / CNN:

Yahoo to expand its blog network Monday — (CNN) — As countless print- or TV-based news organizations continue their descent, the future of the news business still seems curiously bright. — Just sniff around online for a look at the multitude of startups and internet giants throwing their bets on the table.

Discussion: Romenesko and New York Observer

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Twitter Takes the Newsroom — The media's in trouble. The microblogging sensation is on fire. Can Biz Stone's latest gambit help prop up a financially crippled industry? Howard Kurtz reports. — Biz Stone, the funny and engaging co-founder of Twitter, had an unusual message …

Discussion: AllTwitter, KnightBlog and Romenesko

Hillary Busis / Mediaite:

Did NY Mag Rush Their James Frey Feature Online Only After Learning Of WSJ Scoop? — Readers of both NYMag.com and the Wall Street Journal's website may have noticed that in the wee small hours of the morning, both publications posted similar but competing articles about author James Frey …

Discussion: io9 and New York Magazine

Suzanne Mozes / New York Magazine:
James Frey's Fiction Factory

Discussion: AdAge, GalleyCat, New York Observer, Boing Boing and Wall Street Journal

Ted Koppel / Washington Post:

Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news — To witness Keith Olbermann - the most opinionated among MSNBC's left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money-generating hosts - suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates seemed like a whimsical …

Discussion: Romenesko, Mediaite and TVNewser

Wall Street Journal:

Comcast to Reorganize, Streamline Executive Suite at NBC Universal — Comcast Corp.'s chief operating officer Steve Burke plans to announce a major reorganization of NBC Universal as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter, bringing in some new talent while expanding the role of several existing executives.

Discussion: paidContent, Company Town and GigaOM

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter Online:

Chat Replay: Can You Judge Wired by its Covers (and Coverage) of Women & Tech? — In an open letter to Wired this week, reader Cindy Royal criticized the magazine for featuring a cover image of a woman's cleavage for a story about breast tissue regeneration.

Discussion: Romenesko, BlogPost, The Huffington Post, Change The Ratio and Journalism.co.uk

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

As Funding Talk Swirls, Tumblr Lands A Director Of Product — Earlier today, a Business Insider report indicated that Tumblr has landed a “very big and competitive” new round of funding from Sequoia Capital. We're still looking into that, and they're not commenting, but here's one thing …

Discussion: New York Observer, more at Techmeme »

SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Tumblr Lands “Very Big And Competitive” Round From Sequoia

Discussion: VentureBeat and VatorNews, more at Techmeme »

Washington Post:

Melinda French Gates Leaves the Board of The Washington Post Company — Companies: — WASHINGTON—(BUSINESS WIRE)— The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO - News) announced that Melinda French Gates has stepped down from the Company's Board of Directors. The Company's board now has 11 members.

Amy Gahran / Knight Digital Media Center All-Site Feed:

For live coverage, does your content management system “play nice with others?” — For breaking news or high-profile ongoing coverage, it helps to be able to quickly present news no matter how it arrives. But at many established news organizations, their content management systems don't make this easy.

Thanks:carlitosway

Dan Crowley / GazetteNET:

Cooks Source publisher admits mistake, describes struggles with copyright issue — SUNDERLAND - The publisher of Cooks Source magazine says she was wrong to run another author's work without permission last month and that mistake has put the publication in jeopardy, rattled advertisers …