Mediagazer: The Stunt Man — Can CollegeHumor's Ricky Van Veen turn viral funny … (Adam Sternbergh/New York Magazine)

3:45 PM ET, December 13, 2010

Top News:

WikiLeaks Taps Power of the Press — Has WikiLeaks changed journalism forever? — Perhaps. Or maybe it was the other way around. — Think back to 2008, when WikiLeaks simply released documents that suggested the government of Kenya had looted its country. The follow-up in the mainstream media was decidedly muted.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Reuters and The Wire

Gautham Nagesh / Hillicon Valley:
Judiciary panel to take up Espionage Act, legal options against WikiLeaks

Thanks:gnagesh

Tim Arango / New York Times:

Time Warner Views Netflix as a Fading Star — For the past year, executives at big media companies have watched Netflix with growing resentment — for its success in delivering movies and television shows via the Internet, for its stock price nearly quadrupling, for its chief executive …

Discussion: Company Town, New York Observer, Clusterstock, DNAINFO.com, Electronista, VentureBeat, Fast Company, Techland, The Consumerist, Engadget, GMSV, MediaPost Raw and SAI, more at Techmeme »

Daniel Kennedy / The Firewall:

The Real Lessons Of Gawker's Security Mess — Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife — Gossip site Gawker has experienced a large data breach whose scale fully came to light Sunday. The group that calls itself Gnosis claimed and provided evidence of responsibility …

Discussion: Slate, Gawker, Media Decoder, New York Observer, Computerworld, PC World, New York Magazine, Lifehacker, The Next Web, PC Magazine and ReadWriteWeb, more at Techmeme »

Colby Hall / Mediaite:
Exclusive: ‘Gnosis’ Explains The Method And Reasoning Behind Gawker Media Hack

Discussion: MediaMemo, New York Observer, MediaPost, Reuters, Lifehacker, Urlesque, The Not-So Private Parts, Hillicon Valley, Wonkette, Techland, BlogPost, On Media's Blog and The Atlantic Online, more at Techmeme »

Gawker:
Commenting Accounts Compromised — Change Your Passwords

Colby Hall / Mediaite:
Far Worse Than Previously Thought: Gawker Content Management System Hacked

Discussion: SAI, Gawker, Runnin' Scared, Gothamist, Yahoo! News and The Wire

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

Rivals Say Google Plays Favorites — Search Giant Displays Its Own Health, Shopping, Local Content Ahead of Links to Competing Sites — Google Inc. increasingly is promoting some of its own content over that of rival websites when users perform an online search, prompting competing sites to cry foul.

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Google Public Policy Blog, CJR, Financial Times, SAI, Screenwerk, Between the Lines Blog, broadstuff, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Tech Report and MediaPost Raw, more at Techmeme »

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Web Focus Helps Revitalize The Atlantic — WASHINGTON — How did a 153-year-old magazine — one that first published the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and gave voice to the abolitionist and transcendentalist movements — reinvent itself for the 21st century?

Discussion: Mediaite, Noted, On Media's Blog, Screenwerk, Fast Company, The Wire, New York Observer, NetNewsCheck Latest, Magazines Online, Tech Report and The Daily Dish

Clay Shirky / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What will 2011 bring for journalism? Clay Shirky predicts widespread disruptions for syndication — Editor's Note: To mark the end of the year, we at the Lab decided to ask some of the smartest people we know what they thought 2011 would bring for journalism.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Condé Nast Gets Ready to Go Shopping, Adds $500 Million and an Ex-Yahoo — Anyone have anything they want to sell to Condé Nast? The publisher is officially in shopping mode: It has hired an M&A guy and raised $500 million in cash to get him started.

Discussion: Mediaweek, paidContent, PR Newswire, Noted, SiliconANGLE, New York Magazine, New York Observer, SAI and bizjournals

Elizabeth Jensen / New York Times:

Public Broadcaster Is to Sell Current, a Trade Publication — Current, the newspaper that has covered the public broadcasting business every two weeks for three decades, is leaving the hands of its longtime owner, WNET.org, the New York City public broadcaster.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, On Media's Blog and Poynter

Crain's New York:

AOL tries a do-it-yourself reinvention — Two months after reports first appeared that AOL was looking to merge with Yahoo in a bold bid to speed up its turnaround, the Manhattan-based Web veteran has abandoned its quest, according to an industry insider with knowledge of the situation.

Discussion: Noted and SAI

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries / Digits:

Internet Now as Popular as TV, Survey Shows — The average U.S. consumer now spends as much time online as watching television, according to research being released today by Forrester. — To technophiles, it might seem strange to think of people ever watching TV more than they surfed the Web.

Discussion: Forrester Blogs, Computerworld, SiliconANGLE, GigaOM and The Next Web

Wall Street Journal:

News Corp. Crams for Classes — Media Giant Faces Task of Honing Education Strategy — With two moves over two weeks, News Corp. has become one of the biggest players in the increasingly crowded field of corporate investors chasing the next technology to transform American education.

Discussion: New York Observer and FishbowlNY

Lois Beckett / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The great paywall debate: Will The New York Times' new model work? — Editor's Note: We're wrapping up 2010 by asking some of the smartest people in journalism what the new year will bring. — Many of their predictions centered on what may be the most anticipated business-model shift of 2011 …

Discussion: Poynter

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Former AOL Media Boss Bill Wilson Rounds Up the Old Gang — Former AOL content boss Bill Wilson, who left the company early this year and landed in September at radio-station owner Townsquare Media, has been a busy guy. — High up on his to-do list, apparently: Hire a whole lot of people who worked at his old company.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, rbr.com, MediaFile, paidContent and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Sean Macaulay / The Daily Beast:

The Man Behind Piers Morgan — A year ago, agent John Ferriter was almost dead (his heart stopped for three minutes) and figuratively dead (he was fired). Getting Morgan into King's seat was Ferriter's road back. — This January, Piers Morgan will take over from Larry King as CNN's prime …

Discussion: TVNewser