Mediagazer: A Faustian Bargain — Slideshows are the scourge, and the savior, of online journalism (Chadwick Matlin/CJR)

Fox News Chief Blasts NPR ‘Nazis’ — Roger Ailes slams Jon Stewart as a conservative-basher, explains why he rode to Juan Williams' rescue—and sees NPR as taxpayer-funded propaganda. Part II of Howard Kurtz's interview. — When Jon Stewart was appearing on the O'Reilly Factor a few weeks back …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Romenesko, Mediaite, Guardian, Media Matters for America, The Awl, New York Observer, Gawker, New York Magazine, TVNewser, BlogPost and The Huffington Post

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Fox News chief apologizes to ADL for ‘Nazi’ remark — Fox News chief Roger Ailes apologized Thursday to Abraham Foxman, national director for the Anti-Defamation League, after calling NPR executives “Nazis” in an interview with The Daily Beast. — Ailes, in a letter, began by following up on …

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Crunching Denton's Ratio: What's the return on paying sources? — There was a lot of buzz on Twitter yesterday about Paul Farhi's piece in The Washington Post on checkbook journalism — in particular the way a mishmash of websites, tabloids, and TV news operations put money in the hands of the people they want to interview.

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

FT Gives Its Staff A $480 Bonus To Buy An iPad; CEO's Memo — The Financial Times says it will give a £300 or $480 rebate to its 1,800 staff against the purchase of an iPad or other tablet. — Newspaper publishers are clearly getting bullish about the prospects of a post-web future …

Discussion: MediaPost, Romenesko, Journalism.co.uk, MediaFile, TUAW, SlashGear, SAI, Talking Biz News, Poynter Online, Engadget and WebNewser

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Bill Clinton's speech can be tweeted after all — Did former President Bill Clinton really ban tweeting, live-blogging and posting on Facebook during a keynote address for a business and technology conference? — No. But it definitely appeared that way over the past 24 hours.

Discussion: Romenesko, WebNewser, Techdirt and SAI

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, SAI and WebNewser

Chadwick Matlin / CJR:

A Faustian Bargain — Slideshows are the scourge, and the savior, of online journalism — In May 2009, Thebigmoney.com was shouting into the void. Slate's business site was eight months old, but it was still averaging only 50,000 page views a day, well below The Slate Group's goal.

Discussion: Romenesko and SAI

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Video: Reuters Readies Big Expansion in the United States — MONACO — Declaring that news providers in the U.S. are not “satisfying the needs” of publishers and broadcasters, Reuters will be expanding its offerings in the United States, with major announcements to come over the next couple of months …

Discussion: WebNewser

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Newsweek.com nervously awaits news of its fate — Of all the players anticipating fallout from the forthcoming union of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, staffers for Newsweek's website may have the most to lose—namely, their jobs. — As the two money-losing news organizations meld into one …

Michael Miner / Chicago Reader:

Life in the Patch — Is AOL's hyperlocal news network an evil slave empire or a boon to hungry journalists? — Chris Gray, Sara Fay, and Sofia Resnick — CEOs must love it when small folk call them evil—nice guys don't wind up masters of the universe.

Discussion: Romenesko

Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:

Patti Smith Wins National Book Award — Patti Smith, the musician and artist, won the National Book Award on Wednesday night for her evocative memoir of bohemian New York, “Just Kids.” — In the nonfiction category, she beat the finalists Barbara Demick for “Nothing to Envy,” …

Discussion: The Awl, Los Angeles Times, Speakeasy, The Daily Beast and GalleyCat

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Senators Want Negotiations Made Public in Retransmission Fights — At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Democratic senators suggested there should be more transparency in the tumultuous negotiations between television stations and distributors. — At times the hearing, titled “Television Viewers …

Discussion: Hillicon Valley and Company Town, Thanks:gnagesh

MediaShift Idea Lab:

Google News Meta Tags Fail to Give Credit Where Credit Is Due — Far be it for me to question the brilliance of Google, but in the case of its new news meta tagging scheme, I'm struggling to work out why it is brilliant or how it will be successful. — First, we should applaud the sentiment.

Katie Hoffmann / Bloomberg:

Cablevision Explores Spinoff of TV Channels Including ‘Mad Men’ Home AMC — Cablevision Systems Corp., the New York-area cable-television provider, is exploring a spinoff of its Rainbow unit, which includes cable channels Sundance, IFC and AMC, the broadcaster of “Mad Men.” The stock jumped.

Discussion: Company Town

Nikki Osman / Guardian:

Diary of a budding journalist: The highs and lows writing about yourself — Attending a panel discussion with top Guardian columnists Charlie Brooker, Zoe Williams and Tanya Gold has given Nikki an insight into the rewards and pitfalls of lifestyle journalism

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Netflix Web-Only Service Coming, Probably Not Cheap — Hate discs? Love Web video? Netflix should have something for you shortly: At the Web 2.0 conference yesterday, CEO Reed Hastings said a streaming-only option for U.S. subscribers should be available “shortly.”

Discussion: PC Magazine, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

A Web Ad That Tells You It's Stalking You — There's a big debate about privacy and online advertising, and the personal data marketers use to hunt down the customers they're trying to capture. — So here's a Web ad campaign that cuts to the chase, and simply tells you up front that it's stalking you.

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

No More Media Silos: Digital Content Needs to Universally Accessed, paidContent's Staci Kramer — MONACO — For publishers to succeed in the fast changing media environment, digital content must be universally accessed, irrespective of the device, says Staci D. Kramer, editor of paidContent, the influential media news site.