Mediagazer: A blow to content farms, Facebook's continued growth, and the … (Jason Fry/Nieman Journalism Lab)

5:10 AM ET, December 18, 2010

Top News:

Jim Romenesko / Poynter Online:

Memo: 'Gawker tech team didn't adequately secure our platform' — “On several fronts — technically, as well as customer support and communication — we found ourselves unprepared to handle this eventuality,” says Gawker chief technology officer Thomas Plunkett's memo to staff.

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Study: Some Viewers Were Misinformed by TV News — News organizations can educate voters about public policy and economic conditions, but they can also misinform voters. As if to prove the point, a study released Friday found that “substantial levels of misinformation” …

Discussion: TPM LiveWire, Mediaite, Gawker, The Huffington Post, The Informer, TVWeek.com and Inside Cable News

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Rupert Murdoch's “Daily” iPad Newspaper Set for January Launch — Want to get a gander at “the Daily,” Rupert Murdoch's much-discussed but still sorta-secret iPad newspaper? Wait a month. — News Corp. plans to launch the publication the week of January 17, multiple sources tell me.

Michael Miner / Chicago Reader:

$180 Million Is Not Chump Change If You've Got to Give It Back — In the past few days I've twice been forwarded a document that my Tribune sources find pretty astonishing. It's a list of 209 Tribune Company managers and former managers who came into quite a bit of money when Sam Zell took …

Discussion: Poynter and The Wrap

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Research firm offers cash for journalists' opinions — News reporters are supposed to keep their opinions out of their copy. They certainly aren't supposed to sell them back to the people they cover. — Yet now there's a hush-hush way for journalists to turn their innermost thoughts into cold hard cash.

Discussion: Gawker, New York Observer, mediabistro.com, Digital Ingest and Talking Biz News

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Exclusive: Another Executive Exits Disney Digital: Paul Yanover — It's over for Paul Yanover at Disney (NYSE: DIS) Online. The chief architect behind the rebuilding of Disney.com is leaving to “pursue new opportunities outside the company,” as he told staffers Friday morning in an internal e-mail (full memo below).

Discussion: MediaPost, Company Town and The Wrap

James Kanter / New York Times:

E.U. Deepens Investigation Into Google — BRUSSELS — European Union authorities have broadened their investigation of Google by accepting two complaints from Germany, one involving a powerful group of newspaper and magazine publishers and the other, a mapping company, officials said on Friday.

Discussion: GigaOM, MediaPost, SiliconANGLE, Post Tech, The Register and Tech Report

Martin Bryant / The Next Web: EU extends Google investigation to news and mapping

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Who really owns the M&A beat? — As a followup to Nick Summers' recent New York Observer piece about the New York Times' DealBook franchise and the extent to which it has closed in on the Wall Street Journal's traditionally dominant mergers-and-acquisitions coverage, an anonymous Journal staffer took …

Discussion: Poynter, Talking Biz News and New York Observer

Robert Lee Hotz / Wall Street Journal:

Word-Wide Web Launches — New Google Database Puts Centuries of Cultural Trends in Reach of Linguists — Language analysts, sifting through two centuries of words in the millions of books in Google Inc.'s growing digital library, found a new way to track the arc of fame, the effect of censorship …

Discussion: Digital Trends, AOL News, Guardian and Economist

Jason Fry / Nieman Journalism Lab:

A blow to content farms, Facebook's continued growth, and the continued pull of the open web — Editor's Note: We're wrapping up 2010 by asking some of the smartest people in journalism what the new year will bring. Today, our predictor is Jason Fry, a familiar byline at the Lab.

New York Post:

Details beefs up with fitness — Tweet — Can Details muscle up? — The perennial little brother to GQ at Condé Nast, Details is trying to add a little bulk by borrowing some of the fitness service that has long characterized the Rodale flagship, Men's Health.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Yahoo! News

Damian Kulash Jr / Wall Street Journal:

The New Rock-Star Paradigm — Succeeding in the music business isn't just about selling albums anymore. The lead singer of OK Go on how to make it without a record label (treadmill videos help) — OK Go performs at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, above.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Jon Stewart, the Advocate, on the 9/11 Health Bill — Jon Stewart has become perhaps the loudest proponent of a stalled bill that would provide more medical care to first responders to the World Trade Center terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. — Mr. Stewart, the host of “The Daily Show” …

Discussion: The Wire and New York Observer

Frederik Joelving / Reuters:

When the news breaks the journalist: PTSD — (Reuters Health) - Chris Cramer, 62, was a fledgling war correspondent when one spring day 30 years ago he got much closer to the battle than he'd ever intended. — Just back from Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, his boss at the BBC had asked him to fly to Tehran …