Mediagazer: How reality TV took over prime time (Aaron Barnhart/Kansas City Star)

3:10 AM ET, December 7, 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, CNET News, ReadWriteWeb, Whimsley, Threat Level, Tom Watson, Guardian, The Atlantic Wire, Boing Boing and The Wire

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, Salon, Slate, News: News blog, Crikey, CNET News, Online NewsHour, Jon Slattery, newsfeed.time.com and The Daily Caller

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, TechCrunch and Guardian

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: Guardian, New York Times, TPMMuckraker and Student Activism

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.

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

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

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

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, TechCrunch, USA Today, paidContent, Epicenter, Boston Globe, The Next Web, New York Observer and MediaMemo, more at Techmeme »

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, Poynter Online, Gawker, Yahoo! News, The Wire and The Huffington Post

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.

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

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, Poynter and On Media's Blog

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 …

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.

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, Wall Street Journal and VideoNuze, 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: DigiDave, krochmal's posterous and Timetric Blog

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 …

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

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.)

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.

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, Gizmodo, Fast Company, Mediaite, GigaOM, mediabistro.com and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

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.

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

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