Mediagazer: Music Web Sites Dispute Legality of Their Closing (Ben Sisario/New York Times)

6:30 PM ET, December 20, 2010

Top News:

Clark Fredricksen / eMarketer and Blog Posts:

The Web Passes Newspapers in Ad Spending For First Time — Advertisers will spend more on internet ads in 2010 than newspaper ads for the first time, according to new estimates by eMarketer. — Online ad spending will grow 13.9% to $25.8 billion for the full year in 2010 …

Discussion: Bloomberg, MediaMemo, MediaFile, SocialTimes.com, MarketingVOX, The Rural Blog and Top Digital Journal News

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:

Online Ads Pull Ahead of Newspapers — This year, for the first time, advertisers will have spent more on Internet ads than on print newspaper ads, according to new estimates from eMarketer. — The digital-marketing research firm says U.S. spending on online ads will hit $25.8 billion …

Discussion: AdAge, Gawker and VentureBeat

Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:

Targeted TV Ads Set for Takeoff — DirecTV to Pioneer Commercials Keyed to Each Household; Concerns About Privacy, Technology Linger — After years of promises and false starts, TV commercials targeted at individual homes may finally be ready for prime time.

Discussion: MediaPost, Multichannel, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, paidContent, the Econsultancy blog, Fast Company and Media Buyer Planner

Thomas E. Weber / The Daily Beast:

Cracking the New York Times Popularity Code — Just how many people does it take to propel a story onto the Times' influential most-emailed list? And can it be gamed? Thomas E. Weber finds the answers. — The most-emailed articles list on the New York Times website …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, SAI, New York Observer, The Huffington Post, Geekosystem and The Atlantic Online

Elizabeth Weingarten / The Atlantic:

Forget Journalism School and Enroll in Groupon Academy — It's a Friday afternoon and Jane Flotte is getting a little tired of spa treatments. “Today I've written a lot of salon deals,” the Groupon employee said. “And I'm getting kind of sick of talking about facials.”

Vadim Lavrusik / Mashable:

10 Predictions for the News Media in 2011 — In many ways, 2010 was finally the year of mobile for news media, and especially so if you consider the iPad a mobile device. Many news organizations like The Washington Post and CNN included heavy social media integrations into their apps, opening the devices beyond news consumption.

Discussion: Soup

Bloomberg:

CBS, Couric Said to Discuss Lower Pay, Wider Role for Anchor as CNN Waits — CBS Corp. began preliminary talks on a new contract for Katie Couric, looking to cut the evening news anchor's $15 million salary and possibly expand her role amid falling viewership, people with knowledge of the situation said.

Discussion: The Wire, The Huffington Post and TVNewser

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

Newspapers in 2010: Another Bad Year, But the Bleeding Slows — The newspaper industry, devastated during the recession, had another bad year in 2010. — Overall, circulation for newspapers in the U.S. declined 5 percent during the six months ended Sept. 30, according to the Audit Bureau …

Discussion: Publishing Executive News and FishbowlNY

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Google Poaches Paramount Executive For Content Role — Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has turned to Hollywood to fill out its content team, hiring Malik Ducard, who is currently senior vice president of digital distribution at Viacom-owned film studio Paramount, according to sources.

Discussion: Fortune, Electronista and MediaPost Raw

New York Times:

Google TV Faces Delays Amid Poor Reviews — Google TV has just enacted its first programming cancellation. — The Consumer Electronics Show next month in Las Vegas was meant to be the great coming-out party for Google's new software for televisions, which adds Web video and other computer smarts to TV sets.

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Afghan War Just a Slice of U.S. Coverage — As the Obama administration conducted an Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy review this month, the news media did too, and the coverage came peppered with question marks. — The same week that ABC News scheduled a series of segments titled “Afghanistan …

Discussion: Gawker, Yahoo! News, Inside Cable News and TVNewser

Steven Overly / Washington Post:

SB Nation's sports blogger collective sees bias as a plus — Most sports reporters cover games from the press box. The perch typically provides a view of the entire field of play and quick access to post-game press conferences with coaches and players. — SB Nation bloggers prefer the bleachers.

Mark Prendergast / Stars & Stripes:

The sound of silence — UPDATE: The director of Defense Media Activity informed me by e-mail at 9:33 a.m. today that Stars and Stripes had told him that my column challenging new restraints on this newspaper's journalists would be published in tomorrow's (Tuesday's) editions.

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:

The New York Times Pay Wall: A Goodwill Membership? — The New York Times pay wall will go up in early 2011, possibly as early as January. Last week, Slate.com asked readers how much they thought the Times would charge per month, with choices between $5 and $25.

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

CNN's New Chief Dives In — As Network Loses Ground, Ken Jautz Moves to Inject ‘Passion and Personality’ — Ken Jautz, the new head of CNN's U.S. network, is getting his hands dirty. — Since taking over in late September, Mr. Jautz has started shuffling programming and personnel …

Discussion: Company Town, Yahoo! News, Inside Cable News and On Media's Blog

Jack D. Lail / JackLail.com:

Coming down from the mountain with a few ideas for iPad apps — Last weekend I spent an intensive and fascinating weekend at the Snowbird Resort in Utah working on ideas for applications for iPads, other tablets and smart phones. It was one of those events where the positive energy and creativity of the people there fed on itself.

Danica Lo / Racked National:

Intelligence: Rumor: Was Carine Roitfeld Fired From Vogue? Le Figaro's Fashion Director Virginie Mouzat is Frontrunner for the Job — Last Friday morning, in a surprise move, decade-strong editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, Carine Roitfeld, announced she would be leaving the magazine at the end of January.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Jezebel, Fashionista and Gawker

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Music Web Sites Dispute Legality of Their Closing — When federal authorities shut down five Web sites last month on suspicion of copyright infringement, they gave no warning and offered no details of their investigation, and they have not filed any criminal charges since.

Discussion: PlagiarismToday and Techdirt

Michael Morisy / Nieman Journalism Lab:

In an age of free-flowing information, there's still a role for journalists to provide context — The Washington Post's venerable national security reporter Walter Pincus wants to make one thing clear: He isn't just hopping on the WikiLeaks bandwagon. — “I used WikiLeaks before [it] …