Mediagazer: Some news outlets stop calling WikiLeaks a ‘whistle-blower’ (Michael Calderone/Yahoo! News)

10:50 PM ET, December 6, 2010

Top News:

Wikileaks and the Long Haul — Like a lot of people, I am conflicted about Wikileaks. — Citizens of a functioning democracy must be able to know what the state is saying and doing in our name, to engage in what Pierre Rosanvallon calls “counter-democracy"*, the democracy …

Discussion: Salon, Poynter, ReadWriteWeb, Guardian, CNET News, Whimsley, The Atlantic Wire, Tom Watson, Threat Level, Boing Boing, The Wire and mathewingram.com/work, more at Techmeme »

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Some news outlets stop calling WikiLeaks a ‘whistle-blower’ — WikiLeaks' critics haven't been shy in their characterizations of the online document clearinghouse over the past week. The Senate's Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, blasted editor-in-chief Julian Assange on on …

Discussion: Slate, Guardian, CNET News, News: News blog, Crikey, Jon Slattery, Hit & Run, New York Times and The Daily Caller

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Julian Assange WikiLeaks - latest — • Lawyer announces Julian Assange to meet police — • WikiLeaks founder will fight any extradition attempt — • International pressure mounts as Assange account closed — • Follow latest developments live with Josh Halliday

Discussion: New York Magazine, VentureBeat, Online NewsHour, newsfeed.time.com, http://www.Stinkyjournalism … and Clusterstock

Sam Gustin / Threat Level:

Columbia University Reverses Anti-WikiLeaks Guidance — Days after Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) caused an uproar by warning its students against linking to WikiLeaks or discussing the secret-spilling website's latest cache of diplomatic cables online …

Discussion: New York Times, Guardian and TPMMuckraker

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

Julian Assange Leads TIME Person of the Year Poll — You might have heard that Julian Assange leads the pack in the TIME magazine Person of the Year poll. Before you protest—jaw dropped, caps lock depressed, appalled that America could choose a socialist spy as their person of the year …

Discussion: The Nation, Guardian and TechCrunch

Abraham Murray / The Official Google Blog:

Discover more than 3 million Google eBooks from your choice of booksellers and devices — Today is the first page in a new chapter of our mission to improve access to the cultural and educational treasures we know as books. Google eBooks will be available in the U.S. from a new Google eBookstore.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Google's New Bookstore Cracks Open the E-book Market — Google today launched its long-awaited electronic book store, called simply Google eBooks, with more than 3 million titles and 4,000 publishers participating as partners, including most of the major industry names.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Epicenter, USA Today, paidContent, New York Observer, MacStories, The Next Web and MediaMemo, more at Techmeme »

Macy Halford / The Book Bench:
The Google eBookstore: Mostly Good, a Little Bad

Discussion: New York Times, GigaOM, paidContent and Media Money …

Paige / IndieBound:
Independent Bookstores Selling Google eBooks

Discussion: Consumer Reports …, App Advice, Switched, GalleyCat and eBookNewser

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Dan Abrams Plans 3 Web Sites — After a successful run with his Web sites that cover media, sports, gossip and technology, Dan Abrams, perhaps best known not as an Internet entrepreneur but as an MSNBC personality, is expanding. — Mr. Abrams will start three online properties early next year …

Discussion: WebNewser, On Media's Blog and Poynter

Nick Summers / New York Observer:

Exclusive: Dexter Filkins Poached by The New Yorker — Dexter Filkins, a star war correspondent for The New York Times, is heading to The New Yorker, a person familiar with the situation tells The Observer. — Mr. Filkins, who is in Istanbul today, declined to discuss the move, which he has been considering for two months.

Discussion: WWD, Gawker, The Wire, Yahoo! News and The Huffington Post

Jason Fry / National Sports Journalism Center:

Gawker Has a Lesson for Sports Departments — Gawker Media boss Nick Denton made waves last week with an explanation of the thinking behind his sites' new look, which will become the norm next month. (You can see how Deadspin looks in a beta version here.)

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media: Did Gawker's Attack on Barry Diller Go Too Far?

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Hulu Orders Up a New Bite-Size Show. It's Going to Taste a Lot Like “Talk Soup.” — Hulu is a great place to see shows that just ran on TV. Is it a good place to see Internet shows that talk about shows that just ran on TV? — Stay tuned! — Plans are underway for a Hulu …

Discussion: Mixed Media, Mediaite, Fast Company, GigaOM, mediabistro.com and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

New York Times:

Comcast and NBC — Television is undergoing a wrenching change. Companies like Netflix and Google TV are lining up to offer movies and TV online. Cable systems are developing online bundles as they add broadband customers but lose TV subscribers. Broadcast networks are still figuring …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Post Tech, TVNewser, WebNewser and Stop Big Media News

Alex Hillman / dangerouslyawesome:

Fear and Loathing in Phoenix - My 48 Hour Binge Experience at NewsFoo — I'm coming down from a 48 hour binge. Not one fueled by two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers …

Discussion: krochmal's posterous and Timetric Blog

Jim Romenesko / Poynter Online:

Newsday redesigns website, offers free access through Jan. 7 — Newsday editor Debby Krenek says that “perhaps the most noticeable change is our new, fresh look, with a lighter color scheme and darker text, as well as a faster load time.” The one month of free access is sponsored by Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

Why a Day of Tumblr Down Time Matters to the Entire Web & World — Fast growing lightweight blogging service Tumblr has been down for most of the past day and its users are being mocked for their concern. “Can Tumblr do a Twitter and recover?” laughs economics writer and funny man Paul Kedrosky, for example, on Twitter.

eMarketer:

Online Ad Spend Continues Double-Digit Growth — Large brand marketers and SMBs are major contributors to ongoing increases — The economy may be on an upward trajectory, but continued caution among advertisers will lead to a continued shift toward online advertising, eMarketer forecasts.

Discussion: paidContent, GigaOM, MarketingVOX, TechCrunch, NetNewsCheck Latest and AgencySpy, more at Techmeme »

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

How Mark Zuckerberg Fooled ‘60 Minutes’ — Leave it to 60 Minutes to pass off Facebook's utterly meaningless redesign of the site's profile pages as some kind of “exclusive” worth leading a segment on the company's founder, Mark Zuckerberg. It's not just that correspondent Lesley Stahl …

Discussion: Guardian, New York Magazine, Social Medium, The Wrap, Venture Capital Dispatch, The Wire, VentureBeat, SelectStart, Facebook Blog, International Media, Monday, December 6, 2010, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and The Social

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

Web Site for Teenagers With Literary Leanings — When Jacob Lewis helped create the beta version of the Web site Figment with Dana Goodyear, a staff writer at The New Yorker, Mr. Lewis envisioned it as a sort of literary Facebook for the teenage set. — “I really went into it and thought …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, New York Observer and LA Observed

Ann Marie Kerwin / AdAge:

10 Trends That Are Shaping Global Media Consumption — Ad Age Has the Stats From the TV Penetration Rate in Kenya to the Number of World Cup Watchers and More — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — While we've been obsessed with the carnage in American media markets for the last couple of years …

Discussion: Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Lotame Raises $11 Million in Funding — Digital Data Company Brings in Sales Execs From Comcast, Metacafe — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Online data firm Lotame Solutions raised $11 million in a new round of funding, according to the company. Emergence Capital, which led the previous round of $13 million …

Discussion: paidContent

Greg T. Spielberg / Nieman Journalism Lab:

“An art brand”: Gawker Artists looks at the image beyond the display ad — Five years ago, Chris Batty, until this week Gawker's vice president of sales and marketing, was looking to fill un-purchased ad space on the site. He wanted to forgo the “horrendous creative” of ad networks …

David Carr / New York Times:

To Beat ‘Today,’ Look to Tomorrow — When a sports team loses long enough, fans get restless and soon enough, the coach ends up getting the gate. After all, you can't fire the whole team, right? — Unless you work in television. Last week, every single member of the perennially last place “Early Show” on CBS was shown the door.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and TVNewser

Wall Street Journal:

No Longer Tiny, Netflix Gets Respect—and Creates Fear — As Rivals Look to Counter Its Online Movie-Streaming Service, Hollywood Cautiously Cuts Deals to Provide Some Content — After years as a bit player in entertainment, Netflix Inc. is being eyed for a new role by Hollywood: industry hulk.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, GigaOM, SAI, CNET News, Tech Trader Daily, Engadget and DSLreports

New York Observer:

Best of 2010: The Year's Biggest Media Launches (Such as They Are) — Well...it wasn't a big year for big new media ventures. But compared to the year preceding it, 2010 actually saw a few media jobs opening up — a Great Media Hiring Thaw, if you will. And alongside the job openings came …

Joe Mullin / paidContent:

The Messy Falling Out Between The AP And iCopyright — Updated with response from AP: — Back in 2008, the AP and iCopyright talked excitedly about their new partnership, an early attempt to make bloggers license AP's content instead of simply scraping it.

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Cosmo Sets Sights on Mongolia — Coming to a newsstand most likely not near you: Cosmo Mongolia. — Cosmopolitan, which has been helping women all over the world unlock the secrets to better sex, tighter tushes and the enigmatic male psyche for four decades, will begin to sell a Mongolia edition this week.

Discussion: Mediaite, New York Observer and New York Magazine

Seeking Alpha:

The Future of Media Gradually Coming Into Focus — Suddenly there are a lot of moving parts on the media landscape. And what's really interesting is that they all seem to be moving in the same direction. — We have old media coming toward new media: Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs building an IPad-only newspaper.

Discussion: newsplexer

Barb Palser / American Journalism Review:

Give Patch a Chance — Controversy swirls around AOL's ambitious hyperlocal venture. — Barb Palser (bpalser@gmail.com) is director of digital media for McGraw-Hill Broadcasting Co. — When is a company hiring 500 journalists in a year a bad thing for journalism? According to some, it's when that company is AOL.