Mediagazer: The Wild World of Sports (James Parker/The Atlantic Online)

4:00 PM ET, January 4, 2011

Top News:

Wayne Barrett / Runnin' Scared:

Time for Something New — Ed Koch and I were inaugurated on the same day in 1978. He became mayor and I became his weekly tormentor. — I had written a few pieces for the Voice before I took over the Runnin' Scared column that January, going back as far as 1973.

Discussion: On Media's Blog, New York Observer, Gawker, WNYC News, Poynter, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine and Showbiz411

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Barrett, Robbins Out at Village Voice — Wayne Barrett and Tom Robbins, two muckraking fixtures of the New York City press corps, are leaving The Village Voice. Mr. Barrett was let go; Mr. Robbins quit in protest. — Mr. Barrett, who has written for The Voice since 1973 …

Discussion: The Wrap, New York Observer and Gothamist

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Judy Miller responds to criticism over Assange slight — Judy Miller riled up some bloggers and Iraq War critics on Monday by calling WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange a “bad journalist” who “didn't care at all about attempting to verify the information that he was putting out or determine whether or not it would hurt anyone.”

Discussion: Mediaite, Poynter, videocafe.crooksandliars.com, TPMMuckraker, The Huffington Post, Wonkette, Gawker, The Nation, On Media's Blog and The Wire

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Twitter And Facebook Really Are Killing RSS (At Least For TechCrunch Visitors) — Earlier today, we ran a “TechCrunch 2010 In Review” post featuring some key data WordPress.com sent our way for 2010. Interesting stuff all around. However, as some people have noticed, in our top referrers for the year …

Discussion: Malcolm Coles, Scripting News, eMedia Vitals, SAI, Stowe Boyd, A VC and Soup

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Entertainment forecast 2011: Insider predictions on who and what will make headlines — Our informed crystal ball says: Apple will unveil its own TV set and Netflix will buy the Starz channel. Also, CBS will move to gobble up Sony Pictures, and — surprise! — Carl Icahn will continue to make trouble for Lions Gate.

Discussion: Mediaite, Deal Journal, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, Company Town and Wall Street Journal

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

3rd Quarter Ad Spending Accelerated, Report Finds — The recovery in advertising spending gained momentum in the third quarter, according to a report scheduled to be released on Tuesday morning, underlining the belief that Madison Avenue may be poised for continuing gains in the new year.

Discussion: Poynter, NetNewsCheck Latest, Media Buyer Planner, MarketingVOX, MediaPost, AdAge and Gawker

Carl Court / Newsweek:

Why Journalists Aren't Standing Up for WikiLeaks — Three reasons that efforts to prosecute Julian Assange aren't drawing more of an outcry about the First Amendment. — If you think prosecuting journalists is the province solely of the sort of authoritarian governments in the developing world …

Discussion: NewsBusters.org blogs, Free Press and The Nation

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

USA Today Buys Consumer Electronics Review Network Reviewed.com — The USA Today just announced the purchase of Reviewed.com, a group of 12 consumer electronics review sites that focus on gadgets, technology and more. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Discussion: rbr.com, paidContent and PR Newswire

People-Press.org:

Internet Gains on Television as Public's Main News Source — More Young People Cite Internet than TV — The internet is slowly closing in on television as Americans' main source of national and international news. Currently, 41% say they get most of their news about national …

David Folkenflik / NPR:

In London, A Case Study In Opinionated Press … This is the first in a two-part series looking at ideology in the media. — British newspaper reporter Polly Curtis strides around back corridors of the Houses of Parliament with a steely confidence in her paper's mission: — Get the facts.

Discussion: Yahoo! News and New York Observer

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Chartbeat Says the Rise of the Machines Won't Be So Bad if You're a Cyborg — Tony Haile has a vision of the future, and it involves turning people like me into cyborgs. — And Haile thinks this is a good thing! It's part of his pitch for Chartbeat, a Web analytics start-up …

Discussion: New York Observer

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Yes, iNewsStand Is Coming, But Not From Apple — The fight is on for the nascent digital periodical market, with Apple and Google each positioning itself to be the leading vendor. In the latest development, Google is courting publishers for a “digital newsstand for users of devices that run …

Discussion: MarketingVOX, Poynter, MediaPost, DailyFinance and Computerworld

Bob Egelko / San Francisco Chronicle:

Bay Guardian, SF Weekly reach antitrust settlement — (01-03) 18:31 PST SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Guardian and SF Weekly announced a settlement Monday of the Guardian's antitrust suit that led to a $21 million jury verdict against its rival for selling ads below cost.

Discussion: Poynter, mediabistro.com, The Rural Blog, Free Press and The Snitch

John Dunbar / CJR:

A Television Deal for the Digital Age — How to worry about the Comcast-NBC Universal merger … Those in the know say you don't need a television to watch TV anymore. All you need is an Internet connection and a screen. Missed last night's episode of 30 Rock? No worries.

James Parker / The Atlantic Online:

The Wild World of Sports — In SportsCenter, ESPN's increasingly arcane and anarchic highlights program, the fan still finds solace—even order—in chaos. — WHAT HAPPENED HERE, Merril? John Buccigross and Merril Hoge are standing—like angels, like Gandalfs, like members of the Jedi High Council …

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

New iTunes Features Aim To Outdo DVD — Some of the coolest so-called “extras” embedded only on the iTunes' version of several recent film releases from Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures aren't even mentioned in their promotional materials. That's because Sony Pictures Home Entertainment …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM and MacRumors, more at Techmeme »

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

Dallas Morning News to launch paid content on Web, mobile — The Dallas Morning News will launch new iPad and iPhone apps this month in conjunction with plans to move to a paid content model in February. — Brendan Case reports that the new initiative will launch on Jan. 18 …

Discussion: Dallas Morning News

Laurie Sullivan / MediaPost:

Ziff Davis Shakes Up Publishing Model, Launches Ad Platform, Acquires Coupon Co. — Ziff Davis on Tuesday unveiled the launch of the ad platform BuyerBase and revealed the acquisition of LogicBuy.com, which provides tech deals and coupons. BuyerBase, an audience-based ad targeting platform …

Discussion: paidContent, eMedia Vitals and TechCrunch

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Hearst, Lagardère Finally Confirm Sales Talks — French publisher's U.S. arm Hachette includes Elle, Woman's Day — Could the media M&A market be primed to kick off? Hearst Corp. and Lagardère SCA finally admitted they're in sales talks, confirming the growing buzz of an impending deal.

Discussion: Publishing Executive News and FishbowlNY

Evan Smith / The Texas Tribune:

Lots of Good News in the Trib's 2010 Analytics — It was a very interesting and newsworthy year for Texas politics and public policy, so it makes sense that traffic on our still-new-ish site would be robust — but even we optimists at Trib HQ didn't imagine that it would be this robust.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Poynter and WebNewser

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Facebook vs. Time Warner: A Not-So-Rigorous Financial Evaluation — Word arrived Monday that Facebook, the burgeoning social media company that surpassed Google last year as the most visited Web site, was worth $50 billion dollars based on a deal done by Goldman Sachs.

Discussion: Fortune, The Wealth Report and The Atlantic Online, more at Techmeme »

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

St. Louis Beacon On Pace To Raise $3.5 Million — Nearly three years into its publishing life, the nonprofit St. Louis Beacon starts the new year with some breathing room thanks to a $1.25 million gift from the hometown Danforth Foundation. The gift, the largest single donation so far …

Discussion: St. Louis Beacon and NetNewsCheck Latest