Mediagazer: Beltway Buzz(bee) — Sally Buzbee brings her global savvy … (Madhu Rajaraman/American Journalism …)

4:45 AM ET, December 1, 2010

Top News:

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 …

Discussion: theBookseller.com, TeleRead, Engadget, The Next Web, Kindle Review, ResourceShelf, paidContent and Crikey, more at Techmeme »

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Behind CBS' Morning Show Shakeup — Harry Smith and Maggie Rodriguez got axed from the Early Show Tuesday. Howard Kurtz talks to Smith and CBS News President Sean McManus about the perennial challenges of the low-rated show. — Harry Smith is sounding remarkably upbeat for a man who just got pushed out of his job.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Romenesko, MediaPost and On Media's Blog

David Bauder / Associated Press:
CBS News overhauls its morning show

Discussion: mediabistro.com, TVNewser, CBS News, The Huffington Post, The Wrap, NewsBusters.org blogs, New York Post, Yahoo! News, Moraes on TV, Mediaite, Riptide 2.0, TVWeek.com, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine and Inside TV

Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

Gawker's Sales Boss Chris Batty Leaving After Serious Disagreement With Nick Denton About Strategy — More news out of Gawker today. Sales boss Chris Batty is leaving to start his own venture, and he's bringing fellow salesman Michael Casco with him. — In an email to staff explaining the move …

Discussion: Romenesko, Poynter, Runnin' Scared, CNET News and VentureBeat

Nick Denton / Lifehacker:
Why Gawker is moving beyond the blog

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, eMedia Vitals, Argo, the Blog, Epicenter, Lost Remote, Young Manhattanite and New York Observer

Nick Summers / New York Observer:

The Great Murdoch iPad Debate — The Daily is the most exciting news media start-up of the millennium! … On the sleek iPad, it is indescribably magical to touch the news. — Apple is a fascist censor with onerous terms. — News Corp. is paying journalists, and paying them well!

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Richard Branson's iPad App: $2.99, Instructions Included. You'll Need Them.

Discussion: Bloomberg, paidContent, Yahoo! News, Publishing Executive …, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, Mixed Media, The Social, Vanity Fair, Silicon Republic, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wrap, Mobile Media, GigaOM and ScribeMedia.org

Nick Rizzo / Capital New York:
Richard Branson unveils Jeff Bridges, cars, and fiddly things for Ipad

Discussion: Crave, Gawker, SlashGear and Project Magazine

Bill Oakley / Splitsider:

How We Wrote Classic Simpsons Episodes — Bill Oakley was a writer at The Simpsons from seasons 4-6 and an executive producer/showrunner with his writing partner Josh Weinstein from seasons 7-8. I talked to him at length about his experiences in that famous writer's room.

Discussion: New York Magazine and Soup

John Koblin / WWD:

Memo Pad: Not an Apple of Its Eye — Readers trying to access the latest issue of The New Yorker on the iPad were running into a bit of a problem until early this afternoon: There was no issue available. — The magazine's Dec. 6 issue wasn't available on the iPad for more than 36 hours …

Discussion: Poynter

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 …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Google Cuts Off AppNexus, and the Ad Tech World Shudders — AppNexus, a high-flying ad technology start-up, just had a bad few days. The next few weeks could be rough, too. — That's because over the weekend, Google suspended the company's access to the ad giant's “real time” ad exchange.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, AdExchanger.com and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Jenna Sauers / Jezebel:

What Vogue Actually Pays Its Models — It's not much! Filings made in association with a $3.75 million lawsuit include the earnings statement of one of the plaintiffs, the Polish supermodel Anna Jagodzinska. That ledger tallies gigs for American Vogue, Vogue Paris, and an H&M campaign.

Discussion: AgencySpy

Rem Rieder / American Journalism Review:

A Matter of Interpretation — Why an analytic approach is crucial for mainstream news outlets. — Rem Rieder (rrieder@ajr.umd.edu) is AJR's editor and senior vice president. — When top New York Times economics writer Peter Goodman bailed in September to join The Huffington Post …

Discussion: Romenesko

Andy Alexander / Ombudsman Blog:

Data analysis and the furture of journalism — Sunday's column on numerical errors in Post stories also noted that proficiency with numbers will increasingly be important for journalists. It said that, “in the digital age, with a growing amount of raw data available online from the government …

Stephen Moss / Guardian:

Joris Luyendijk: ‘The old model of journalism is broken’ — How can journalism meet the challenges of the internet age? Former reporter Joris Luyendijk is looking for new ways to tell stories — Many journalists have mid-life crises when they begin to doubt their capacity to capture …

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Newspaper execs expect digital ad dollars to grow significantly in 2011 — Kubas Consultants' annual ad outlook report notes that in the past, newspapers executives and managers have tended to be over-optimistic in their digital category projections. Employment and auto classifieds …

Jarvis Coffin / The Huffington Post:

The Golden Age of Content — Suddenly, someone — that being Ad Age columnist and ad seer, Bob Garfield — is referring to the possibility that the world is entering a Golden Age of Content. This is something of a revelation after years of worrying instead that content was being destroyed by …

Discussion: eMarketer and AdAge

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: New York Magazine and TVbytheNumbers

Blake Eskin / New Yorker:

A NEW LOOK FOR NEWYORKER.COM — Today newyorker.com unveils some changes to its design. Our homepage now features a rotating set of lead stories, a prominent feed of recent blog posts, and more images, large and small, to help readers find favorite writers and stories as well as site features that they might not have noticed before.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online and The Next Web

Alexander Chee / The Morning News:

I, Reader — You are what you read. For some people, that means 22 boxes of books. Facing a storage crisis of bibliolatry proportions, ALEXANDER CHEE surveys e-readers and a life spent reading. — When I recently moved to New York to live with my partner, Dustin …

Madhu Rajaraman / American Journalism Review:

Beltway Buzz(bee) — Sally Buzbee brings her global savvy to Washington as the AP's bureau chief. Posted: Tue, Nov. 30 2010 — Madhu Rajaraman (mrajaraman@ajr.umd.edu) is an AJR editorial assistant. — Los Angeles. Topeka. San Diego. Saudi Arabia. Tunisia. Egypt. Iraq. Iran.