Mediagazer: Robo-Journalism Site Founder: I Expected a Bigger Backlash (Jeff Bercovici/Mixed Media)

Felix Salmon:

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: The Wire, The Wrap, John Gapper's Business Blog, Bits, New York Magazine, The Awl, Romenesko, Lifehacker, SAI, Yahoo! News and eMedia Vitals

Gawker Is A Blog. Just Like Twitter. — I love blogs. Nick Denton wrote over on Lifehacker about the pending redesign of Gawker's blogs, with a lot of great insights into the leading edge of web publishing today. As with any thoughtful, provocative writing of such length …

Discussion: Soup

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: ReadWriteWeb and GigaOM

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 and News: News blog, more at Techmeme »

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

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: paidContent and Lost Remote

Moe Tkacik / Washington City Paper:

Betsy Rothstein's Fisbowl D.C. is the Gossip Column the Beltway Media Deserves — Sure, some people hate her. But there's a good chance they hate themselves, too. — After 13 years in the District, Betsy Rothstein quietly quit her job as a features editor and gossip columnist …

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

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

New York Times:

F.T.C. Backs Plan to Honor Privacy of Online Users — WASHINGTON — Signaling a sea change in the debate over Internet privacy, the government's top consumer protection agency on Wednesday advocated a plan that would let consumers choose whether they want their Internet browsing and buying habits monitored.

Discussion: GigaOM, Federal Trade Commission, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Technology Liberation Front and The Consumerist, more at Techmeme »

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.”

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.

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 Stelter / Media Decoder:

Oprah Network Denies Talks with Outgoing CBS Exec — Oprah Winfrey's cable venture denied a report on Wednesday that it was in talks to hire Terry Wood, a television guru who groomed Phil McGraw, Rachael Ray and other stars of syndication. — “Absolutely not true,” Christina Norman …

Discussion: Mediaite, New York Post, B&C and The Wrap

Maureen Morrison / AdAge:

Effective IPad Ads Are Clean, Simple and Provoke Emotion, Study Shows — Research Examines Visual Attention, Accessibility and Propulsion — Mike Haggerty and Betsy Frank discuss the iPad magazine app study at Ad Age's ME* Conference. — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — When it comes to ads on the iPad …

Discussion: Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Poynter, CNET News, NewscastStudio Blog, New York Post and Bloomberg

Joe Flint / Company Town:

Journalism is in hour of ‘grave peril,’ says top government regulator — Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps is taking aim at the state of television news, which he says is “in its hour of grave peril.” In both an interview with BBC World News America that airs Wednesday …

Discussion: Mediaite, Multichannel and Money & Company

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Robo-Journalism Site Founder: I Expected a Bigger Backlash — “What? I'm totally a journalist.” Image by jopemoro via Flickr — On Monday, I wrote about StatSheet, a company that uses software to process sports scores and related data into news stories on a constellation of fan sites.

Discussion: Poynter

Dana Lacey / j-source.ca:

In SEO writing, algorithms replace journalists

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: New York Observer, Thanks:taylorbuley

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Harman visits ‘Beast’ staff; Tina swings by Newsweek — Since announcing their pending deal to combine operations last month, The Daily Beast and Newsweek haven't revealed much about what their marriage will look like. — But there have been plenty of meetings.

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

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 Atlantic Wire and The Wrap

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 …