Mediagazer: Feuding friends — I haven't spoken to Toby Young in more than two years. (Michael Wolff/GQ.COM)

4:45 PM ET, December 7, 2010

Top 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: TheAustralian, Salon, CNN, New York Times, Guardian, The New Yorker Blog, Politics Daily, The Lede, Press Gazette, Gawker and Tom Watson, more at Techmeme »

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: paidContent, Jon Slattery, The Wire, Mark Follman and CNBC

Gautham Nagesh / Hillicon Valley:
Lieberman: NYT may have committed crime by printing WikiLeaks docs

Discussion: Guardian, The Wire, NBC Connecticut and On Media's Blog, Thanks:stiffjab

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

Discussion: Gawker, msnbc.com, paidContent:UK and Threat Level

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

Discussion: The Next Web, Guardian, Crikey, The Nation, Online NewsHour, newsfeed.time.com, CNET News, Jon Slattery, Slate, News: News blog and Salon

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:
Julian Assange Leads TIME Person of the Year Poll

Discussion: Guardian, The Nation, Mediaite, The Wire, Reuters and TechCrunch

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: Cision and The Huffington Post

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Graham: Washington Post not ‘going to be a pioneer’ in charging for online news — Washington Post Company CEO Don Graham's candid take on trends in the news business has been a staple of the 10 media conferences I've attended each December in New York City.

Discussion: MediaPost

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, ESPN MediaZone, TechCrunch, VideoNuze and SAI

Nat Worden / Wall Street Journal:
HBO Could Be Offered Outside of Cable Packages

Discussion: GigaOM

Jon Lafayette / Broadcasting & Cable:
Bewkes Says Digital Should Help Time Warner

Discussion: MediaPost and Multichannel

Steve Buttry / The Buttry Diary:

News Foo Camp: where TBD is ‘mainstream’ — In another context, I might have protested being labeled part of the “mainstream media.” — We launched our website in August. We're trying to be innovative and edgy in our mobile apps, use of social media, breaking-news coverage, blog network and other respects.

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Shirky joins NYU as full-time faculty member — Romenesko Misc. — New media expert Clay Shirky will hold the title Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU's Carter Journalism Institute. He'll also be Assistant Arts Professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Bravo Builds Twitter Showcase @BravoTV — Bravo has launched @BravoTV, a browser-based dashboard offering fans who use Twitter an enhanced environment for discussing the channel's shows 24/7. — It's yet another indication of how aggressive this NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, MediaPost and WebNewser

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Google ‘cooperating’ with New York Times to prevent paywall abuse — At a UBS media conference Tuesday morning, New York Times Co. executives discussed the online metered pay model that the Times website will adopt in 2011. But when pressed about when the paywall will launch and how much it will cost, they offered no new details.

Discussion: Mixed Media, Poynter Online and The Wrap

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 Post:

John Roberts to leave ‘American Morning’ in the new year — Tweet — Shake-ups at CNN under new boss Ken Jautz will begin as early as the start of the new year, insiders say. John Roberts is finalizing a contract to leave “American Morning” and start a new life as a CNN national correspondent …

Discussion: The Wire, TVNewser, Mediaite, Inside Cable News, Chickaboomer, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine and The Page

Russell Adams / Speakeasy:

Tina Brown Taps Talent for Newsweek … Tina Brown is keeping her plans for Newsweek close to the vest, for now. But the magazine queen is starting to put her stamp on its staff. — Tuesday, Brown named Tunku Varadarajan, a writer-at-large for the Daily Beast and a veteran of Forbes …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Josh Kosman / New York Post:

Tribune lenders targeting Zell — Tweet — Tribune lenders are expected to file a lawsuit by midnight against real estate mogul Sam Zell alleging the leveraged buyout he engineered caused the business to quickly collapse, The Post has learned. — Lawyers for the lenders …

Discussion: Gawker, The Wrap, New York Magazine and FishbowlLA

Henry Blodget / The Wire:

You're Not Going To Believe This But The Future Of The New York Times (NYT) May Now Actually Be Bright — The New York Times (NYT) almost went bust two years ago. — If not for emergency asset sales, cost cuts, debt-restructuring, and an 11th-hour bailout by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim …

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

The Education of Luke Russert — Charges of nepotism flew after the NBC reporter stepped on stage following the death of his famous father. Howard Kurtz talks to Russert about stage fright, weight loss and his critics. — For Luke Russert, adolescence was more than a tutorial in Beltway politics …

Discussion: Vanity Fair and FishbowlDC

Michael Wolff / GQ.COM:

Feuding friends — I haven't spoken to Toby Young in more than two years. It isn't, exactly, that we are no longer friends. Rather, we are feuding friends... I'm not sure when, if you are feuding, you actually relinquish the friendship. Or, even, if you can. It's always in the background.