Mediagazer: Title Junk — The recent hubbub about Delicious got me thinking … (John Gruber/Daring Fireball)

Al Franken / The Huffington Post:

The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time — What's Your Reaction: — This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet. — As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Electronista, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Technology Liberation Front and Reuters, more at Techmeme »

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

F.C.C. Is Set to Regulate Net Access — The Federal Communications Commission appears poised to pass a controversial set of rules that broadly create two classes of Internet access, one for fixed-line providers and the other for the wireless Net. — The proposed rules of the online road …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, NewEnterprise, Epicenter and Public Knowledge, more at Techmeme »

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, more at Techmeme »

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

Discussion: broadstuff and Gawker, more at Techmeme »

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, Guardian, the Econsultancy blog, MediaMemo, SocialTimes.com, MarketingVOX, MediaFile, The Rural Blog, AdAge, Top Digital Journal News and Wall Street Journal

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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, GigaOM, Electronista and MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

Jon Slattery:

Assange turns on Guardian in Times interview — Julian Assange in an interview in The Times today turns on the Guardian, one of the favoured few “media partners” given exclusive access to WikiLeaks material. — Assange accuses the Guardian of unfairly tarnishing him by revealing details …

Discussion: The Daily Caller and Gawker

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

Title Junk — The recent hubbub about Delicious got me thinking about bookmarking in general, and brought to mind a long-standing irritation: poorly designed web page titles. — Here's an example that I bookmarked last night: Roger Ebert's 1968 review of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The title of that web page is:

Discussion: Soup, more at Techmeme »

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