Mediagazer: AOL Snags Amber J. Lawson as Head of Video Programming (Marc Hustvedt/Tubefilter News)

Wall Street Journal:

Hulu Mulls More Pay Plans, Not an IPO — Online Video Site Considers Broadening Menu of Offerings for Viewers Who Pay — Online video site Hulu LLC has taken off the table the idea of going public, at least for now, and may consider other financing options, people familiar with the matter said.

Discussion: VideoNuze, TVbytheNumbers, Company Town and SAI

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.”

Discussion: broadstuff

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Groupon Hires Writers, But That Doesn't Make It Journalism — Group-buying service Groupon continues to get a lot of attention, in part because it recently turned down a staggering $6-billion acquisition offer from Google. But while the popularity of group-powered buying accounts …

Thanks:mathewi

Scott Karp / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Clay Shirky's right that syndication's getting disrupted — but not in the ways he thinks it is — Editor's Note: For our year-end series of predictions for 2011, we started out with a piece by Clay Shirky in which he predicted “widespread disruption” for the traditional syndication model in journalism.

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: Mediaite, The Wire, TVNewser and The Huffington Post

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, SocialTimes.com, MarketingVOX, MediaFile, The Rural Blog and Top Digital Journal News

Discussion: AdAge, Gawker, VentureBeat and DailyFinance

The Smoking Gun:

FBI Probe IDs Conde Nast “Hacker” — Fashion-obsessed student, 22, had Ohio home raided by feds … An FBI investigation has identified a fashion-obsessed Ohio man as the person who last year illegally gained access to a Conde Nast computer system and downloaded photos and pages …

Discussion: Jezebel, FishbowlNY and Gawker

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] …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

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: MediaPost, Fortune, GigaOM and Electronista

MediaShift Idea Lab:

NPR's Project Argo Creates National Content at the Local Level — Jason and the Argonauts were the mythological Greek heroes who set off on a quest for the Golden Fleece. Like its namesake, NPR's Project Argo is off on another noble quest — to strengthen local journalism, particularly on digital platforms.

Longreads:

Mallary Tenore: My Top 5 Media Longreads of 2010 — Mallary Tenore covers media news for the Poynter Institute's Poynter.org. — Timothy Lavin: The Listener, The Atlantic, Jan/Feb 2010 — Refreshing to see well-written stories about lesser-known media phenomena like Coast to Coast AM.

Thanks:markarms

Marc Hustvedt / Tubefilter News:

AOL Snags Amber J. Lawson as Head of Video Programming — As we close out 2010, AOL has been busier than Congress this month with a flurry of new deals for us to chew on before New Year's. The latest is a key talent hire in bringing on Amber J. Lawson as the company's new Head of Video Programming.

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The changing of the gatekeeper: Adapting to the new roles for journalists, sources and information — We're continuing our recaps of the Secrecy and Journalism in the New Media Age conference that took place at the Nieman Foundation on Thursday with the second panel discussion — entitled “Whither the Gatekeeper?

Discussion: mediabistro.com

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, Fast Company, Multichannel, DailyFinance, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, the Econsultancy blog, Shelly Palmer Digital Living, Media Buyer Planner, paidContent and Company Town

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

BREAKING: Hugo Lindgren Poaches Adam Sternbergh From New York — Adam Sternbergh has been hired as a culture editor at The New York Times Magazine, editor Hugo Lindgren told The Observer. — Sternbergh is an editor-at-large at New York magazine, where he and Lindgren worked together …

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: Techdirt, PlagiarismToday and Post Tech, more at Techmeme »