Mediagazer: One ambassador's embarrassment is a tragedy, 15,000 civilian deaths is a statistic (Paul Bradshaw/Online Journalism Blog)

9:20 AM ET, December 7, 2010

Top News:

Dan Gillmor / Salon:

Defend WikiLeaks or lose free speech — Journalists should wake up and realize that the attacks on the whistle-blower are attacks on them, too — Journalists cover wars by not taking sides. But when the war is on free speech itself, neutrality is no longer an option.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Guardian, CNET News and Yahoo! News

BBC:

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrested in London — Julian Assange denies sexually assaulting the two women — The founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police. — The 39-year-old Australian denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.

Discussion: CNN, Gawker, Politics Daily and Guardian

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: Guardian, Slate, Crikey, The Next Web, Jon Slattery and newsfeed.time.com, more at Techmeme »

Clay Shirky:

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: Guardian, Threat Level, CNET News, Mediaite, Poynter, Media Diary, Mark Follman, World News Blog, Salon, Reuters, Whimsley, Jon Slattery, Gizmodo, Tom Watson, The Atlantic Wire, News: News blog and Boing Boing, more at Techmeme »

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: Guardian, The Wire, NetNewsCheck Latest, International Media, TechCrunch and The Nation

Richard Cohen / Washington Post:
WikiLeaks and the trouble with transparency

Discussion: paidContent:UK

Sam Gustin / Threat Level:
Columbia University Reverses Anti-WikiLeaks Guidance

Discussion: Guardian, New York Times, The Lede, CNN, Arabist.net and TPMMuckraker

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Julian Assange WikiLeaks - latest

Discussion: New York Times, New York Magazine, The Nation, BBC, VentureBeat, Online NewsHour and The Wire

Macy Halford / The Book Bench:

The Google eBookstore: Mostly Good, a Little Bad — We heard last week that Google would launch its eBookstore (which for a time was going to be called Editions, but is now simply eBookstore) by the end of the year, and today it arrived. For many of us (particularly those of us who do not own Kindles) …

Discussion: Media Money …, New York Times, GigaOM, Boston Globe and paidContent, more at Techmeme »

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Google's New Bookstore Cracks Open the E-book Market

Discussion: TechCrunch, USA Today, paidContent, Epicenter, Search Engine Roundtable, Media & Entertainment, New York Observer, The Next Web and MediaMemo

Abraham Murray / The Official Google Blog:
Discover more than 3 million Google eBooks from your choice …

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Which TV Channels Can't Cord-Cutters Live Without? — If the never-ending stream of data on cord-cutting has faded into a blur, here's one new finding that may be of actual interest. In her latest research note, Needham & Co. analyst Laura Martin reported the results of a simple request …

Discussion: GigaOM, NetNewsCheck Latest, Wall Street Journal, ESPN MediaZone, TechCrunch, VideoNuze and SAI, more at Techmeme »

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.

Discussion: the Econsultancy blog, more at Techmeme »

Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:

How Online Reading Habits Have Changed Over 2010 — One of the more subtle trends of 2010 has been the way that our reading habits have changed, due to a convergence of other Web trends: mobile apps, real-time Web (mostly Twitter), and social networking as a way to track news (mostly Facebook).

Discussion: Editors Weblog

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 …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

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 …

Agence France Presse:

Washington Post watching online pay experiments — NEW YORK — The Washington Post is monitoring efforts by The New York Times and other newspapers to charge readers online but has no plans to do the same for now, the Post Co. chairman said Monday. — “On pay models, obviously …

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Mike Farrell / Multichannel:

Ad Growth Continues At Viacom — Sales Should Rise Again In Q4 — New York—Coming off strong third-quarter domestic growth, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said that ad sales, up 8% in the period, should rise even higher in the fourth quarter. — Dauman, speaking here at the UBS Global …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable

Paul Bradshaw / Online Journalism Blog:

One ambassador's embarrassment is a tragedy, 15,000 civilian deaths is a statistic — Few things illustrate the challenges facing journalism in the age of ‘Big Data’ better than Cable Gate - and specifically, how you engage people with stories that involve large sets of data.

Discussion: The Wire

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

Boston Globe:

Boston magazine editor resigns — Andrew Putz, the editor of Boston magazine, has resigned from the glossy publication about city life and events, executives at the magazine announced today. — Putz, the magazine's third editor in five years, will leave Friday, less than a year and a half after he was named in July 2009.

Natalia Brzezinski / The Huffington Post:

Washington Post's Ezra Klein: A Millennial Perspectives Interview — Millennials are being called the most progressive generation ever; they believe in civic responsibility and their own ability to make change. Through blogs, tweets and Facebook movements, Millennials are staging …

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

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: Guardian

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? — Barry Diller, left, sitting two seats away from known gay person Andy Cohen of Bravo, a network popular with gays. Draw your own conclusions. (Also pictured: Anderson Cooper.) Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife

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.

Discussion: Techdirt

Aaron Barnhart / Kansas City Star:

How reality TV took over prime time — But when your mom is Vicki Gunvalson, one of the “Real Housewives of Orange County,” you get used to having those heart-to-hearts under the glare of TV lights. — Which is why daughter Briana Gunvalson, exhausted though she is from an all-night nursing shift, is coming over for breakfast.

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. — “I love the New York Times, and I'm hugely grateful for all they've done for me.

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