Mediagazer: How Did Paris Hilton Get Famous Anyway? (Brian Moylan/Gawker)

9:40 PM ET, December 1, 2010

Top News:

The new Gawker Media — Gawker Media's big company-wide redesign, a year in the making, will finally come out of beta on January 3. It will the biggest event in Gawker Media history, for all three arms of the company—editorial, sales, and technology. It's a concerted attempt for Gawker Media …

Discussion: Anil Dash, The Wrap, New York Magazine, Bits, The Wire, The Awl, eMedia Vitals, Romenesko, Soup, Yahoo! News, SAI and Lifehacker

Tara Palmeri / New York Post:

Co-host spittin' mad over Spitzer — Tweet — Eliot Spitzer's TV sidekick is so fed up with playing second fiddle to the hooker-loving ex-gov that she's threatening to walk, sources told The Post yesterday. — Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker actually stormed off the set of the …

Discussion: Hot Air, The Daily Caller, NewsBusters.org blogs, Inside Cable News, TVNewser, The TV Guy, New York Times, Politics Daily, Company Town, New York Magazine, Mediaite, Gothamist, TVbytheNumbers and ClickZ

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

A royal letdown — Tweet — K ate Middleton and Prince William ended up snagging four celebrity magazine covers this weekend — People, Us Weekly, Star and OK! — but with the exception of People, the engagement isn't translating into booming sales for the weeklies.

Discussion: New York Observer and The Fix

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News: Harman visits ‘Beast’ staff; Tina swings by Newsweek

Time:

TIME Exclusive: Full Transcript/Audio of Julian Assange Interview — RICHARD STENGEL: Hi, Mr. Assange, it's Rick Stengel. I'm the editor of TIME magazine, and thank you for joining us this evening. — JULIAN ASSANGE: You're welcome. — So sorry about the technical difficulties, but I'm sure it's something you're used to.

Discussion: Guardian, Yahoo! News, Vanity Fair, newsfeed.time.com, Swampland, News: News blog, WL Central and Aljazeera, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal:

Google Set to Launch E-Book Venture — Google Inc. is in the final stages of launching its long-awaited e-book retailing venture, Google Editions, a move that could shake up the way digital books are sold. — The long-delayed venture—Google executives had said they hoped to launch this summer …

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Google Says Its E-Books Store Will Launch By Year-End

Discussion: Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and The Next Web

Wall Street Journal:

Hulu Open to New Investors for Global Expansion — Hulu LLC wants to expand its online video service internationally and would be willing to take on new investors to help it do so, Jason Kilar, its chief executive, said in an interview Wednesday. — Mr. Kilar said there is an “unmet need” …

Discussion: GigaOM and ReadWriteWeb

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

State-run papers from China and Russia buy convincing advertorial sections on the WaPo's website — Clicking around the Washington Post, you stumble onto the types of stories you'd expect a national newspaper to cover, like “Judges free homeowners from foreclosure mess” or “Obama reaches out in Indonesia.”

Discussion: New York Observer

John Cook / Gawker:

Inside the David Paterson Rumor Mill — A while back, we filed a Freedom of Information Law request looking for e-mails between New York Gov. David Paterson's flacks and a bunch of reporters. The governor's office tried hard to keep them secret, but we finally got them. — And there's not much there!

Discussion: CJR, New York Observer, On Media's Blog, Yahoo! News, Gothamist and Capital Tonight

Steve Buttry / TBD All News:

TBD halting ad sales in network — TBD told members of its community network late Tuesday that it will stop serving ads on member blogs and websites, effective today. — In an email message to network members who had agreed to accept advertising sold by TBD, we said:

Discussion: Lost Remote and paidContent

New York Times:

Agency Proposes ‘Do Not Track’ Option for Web Users — WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission advocated a plan on Wednesday that lets consumers on the Internet choose whether they want information about their browsing habits to be collected, an option known as “do not track.”

Discussion: GigaOM, Federal Trade Commission, energycommerce.house.gov, L.A. Times Tech Blog and The Consumerist, more at Techmeme »

Michael Donohoe / First Look:

Swiping, Linking and Highlighting: A Few New Features — On a site as big as NYTimes.com, changes and updates occur on a daily basis. Here's a look at some of the features we've added in the past six months. — Inside NYTimes — You've probably noticed the “Inside NYTimes.com” module …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, New York Observer and The Wire, Thanks:taylorbuley

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

Interview: Virgin Media's Cindy Rose On The Connected-TV Explosion — “2011 is going to be pretty transformative for the UK television landscape,” says Virgin Media's director of digital entertainment Cindy Rose. “There's a lot of next-generation television products coming to market.”

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

‘The Walking Dead’ Lets Go Of Writers; Considers No Writing Staff For Season 2 — EXCLUSIVE: I hear The Walking Dead writer/ executive producer/ director Frank Darabont has let go of the writers on the hot freshman AMC series, which has already renewed for a second season.

Discussion: Tuned In, Celebritology 2.0, ArtsBeat, New York Observer, New York Magazine, Gawker, Movieline and TVbytheNumbers

Matthew Campbell / Bloomberg:

Lagardere in Talks to Sell International Magazines — Lagardere SCA, France's biggest publisher, is in informal talks that could lead to the sale of its international magazine business, whose titles include “Car and Driver” and the foreign editions of “Elle.”

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Media Buyer Planner

Brian Moylan / Gawker:

How Did Paris Hilton Get Famous Anyway? — Why did Paris Hilton suddenly become so famous a few years ago while other ditzy fameseekers with no discernible talent—like, say, Tara Reid—fell off the map so quickly? Elizabeth Currid-Halkett breaks it down in her new book.

Mark Briggs / Poynter:

What journalists need to know about starting a nonprofit business — There is a misconception among many would-be entrepreneurs, especially in journalism, that starting a nonprofit business will mean relief from the pressure of making money. Not so. Any business, whether nonprofit or not, must bring money in to survive.

Reuters:

New York Times looks to WeightWatchers for Internet tips — (Reuters) - New York Times Co is completing plans to charge readers for online news after spending a year studying websites such as Consumer Reports and WeightWatchers. — The New York Times, which in 2007 abandoned its first big effort …

Discussion: msnbc.com, Yahoo! News, Gawker and New York Observer

Ben Klayman / Reuters:

New York Times in talks to sell Red Sox stake — (Reuters) - New York Times Co (NYT.N) is talking with a variety of potential buyers for its stake in the Boston Red Sox and expects to turn a profit on the baseball team's sale, the media company's chief executive said on Tuesday.

Discussion: The Wrap

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:

Forget Murdoch and Branson, could TRVL's gorgeous iPad magazine transform publishing? — It looks like iPad-only publications might be a trend to look out for in 2011. Rupert Murdoch has a team busy preparing ‘The Daily’ newspaper app, while Richard Branson yesterday launched his flash 'Project magazine.

Thanks:bradtnw

Dana Lacey / j-source.ca:

In SEO writing, algorithms replace journalists

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

ProPublica:

NYU and ProPublica Team Up to Experiment With Explanatory Journalism — At ProPublica, we often cover topics that are not only critically important but also mind-bendingly complex. (CDOs, anyone?) To help readers follow along, we frequently back up a step and offer primers, FAQs, and backgrounders.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, mediabistro.com, Pressthink, Studio 20, Poynter and New York Observer

Anna Holmes / Jezebel:

Jezebel Sells The Book Of Jezebel (No, Really) — Some exciting, site-related news: We're doing a book! Two, in fact. — As Publishers Marketplace is reporting (subscription required), we've developed, and sold, two Jezebel-branded titles to Grand Central Publishing …

Discussion: New York Observer

Edward Wyatt / New York Times:

F.C.C. Chairman Outlines Broadband Framework — WASHINGTON — Thwarted by the courts, by lawmakers on Capitol Hill and by some of his fellow commissioners, the Federal Communications Commission chairman will try again on Wednesday to devise a new strategy for regulating broadband Internet service providers.

Discussion: GigaOM, Epicenter, The Huffington Post, Washington Post, CNET News, New York Magazine, WebNewser, savetheinternet.com/blog, Tech Daily Dose, The Rural Blog and The Atlantic Online

MediaShift:

Suu Kyi Set Free But Media Still Held Captive in Burma — Burma has in recent weeks been one of the top world news stories. The country's November 7 general election was followed less than a week later by the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, one of the world's best-known political dissidents …

Paul Farhi / American Journalism Review:

From the Fringe to the Mainstream — How “scandals” of dubious validity or relevance end up attracting so much media attention. Posted: Wed, Dec. 1 2010 — Senior Contributing Writer Paul Farhi (farhip@washpost.com), a Washington Post reporter, wrote about the National Enquirer in AJR's Summer issue.