Mediagazer: Digital downloads fail to counter CD decline (Esther Bintliff/Financial Times)

10:10 AM ET, January 6, 2011

Top News:

Sarah Ellison / Vanity Fair:

The Man Who Spilled the Secrets — The collaboration between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the Web's notorious information anarchist, and some of the world's most respected news organizations began at The Guardian, a nearly 200-year-old British paper. What followed was a clash of civilizations …

Discussion: Guardian, Poynter, Yahoo! News, New York Observer, The Huffington Post, SAI, Threat Level, The Nation, Press Gazette and Boing Boing

Nicholas Jackson / The Atlantic Online:
Julian Assange: I Own All of the WikiLeaks Documents

Discussion: Vanity Fair

Joe Flint / Company Town:

Turner CEO says heavy Web exposure made company lose interest in reruns of ‘Modern Family’ — “Modern Family” co-creator and executive producer Steve Levitan has not been shy about voicing his concerns that the show's exposure on the Web would hurt its long-term value and ratings.

Discussion: MediaMemo, New York Observer, NetNewsCheck Latest and Broadcasting & Cable

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:
Turner Chief Explains How TV Industry Will Neutralize Netflix

Discussion: GigaOM

Hollywood Reporter:

Courtney Love's Tweets Lead to Unique Defamation Showdown … The following article appears in the current issue of The Hollywood Reporter available on newsstands Wednesday. — Courtney Love was very upset. — The firebrand rocker had been locked in a dispute with Dawn Simorangkir …

Discussion: PopEater, Fashionista, Gawker, BlogPost, Styleite, AOL News, Movieline, Techland and The Wire

Tips / philebrity.com:

Exclusive: Philly.com Inches Closer To Pay Wall, City Paper Content Swap — Like many of us, the brass at Philadelphia Media Network, Inc. — the new corporate entity (sometimes known here also as The Groovie Ghoulies) that controls the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com …

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Glenn Beck Hires Former Huffington Post Chief — Looking to further expand his growing media presence, Glenn Beck, the conservative talk-show host, has hired a one-time chief executive of the left-leaning Huffington Post to lead his new Web site, The Blaze.

Discussion: Poynter, Gawker, The Wire, The Blaze, On Media's Blog, The Wrap, paidContent and New York Observer

Lauren Sherman / Fashionista:

Tumblr is Sending 20+ Bloggers to New York Fashion Week — Tumblr, the image-heavy platform beloved by top fashion bloggers like Tavi Gevinson and Jessica Quirk (What I Wore), is focusing more of its energy on the fashion industry. — In fact, it's sending more than 20 of its bloggers to New York Fashion Week.

Discussion: New York Observer and Gawker

Brent Lang / The Wrap:

At Long Last, Hollywood-Backed ‘Video Anywhere’ Debuts in Mid-2011 — It's been talked about for so long that it was beginning to feel like an impossible dream. — On Wednesday, the two and half year journey to make “video anywhere” a reality moved several important steps closer to completion.

Discussion: paidContent, NetNewsCheck Latest, CNET News and Online Video News

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Newsweek Hires Publisher — After months of staff turmoil including a new owner, editor and chief executive and scores of lower-level departures, the management ranks at Newsweek are beginning to stabilize. — The magazine has named a new publisher, Ray Chelstowski, a former publisher of Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Wrap, MediaPost and Adweek

Robinsloan / Twitter Media:

The art of the hashtag — This is something we've been talking about with media partners more and more lately, so I thought it would be useful to mention it here on Twitter Media, too: — All hashtags are not created equal. — MTV's Video Music Awards hashtag—#ifbiebermetgaga— has become a canonical example.

Discussion: Poynter

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

NBC to premiere ‘The Cape’ on iPad app — Here's a first. NBC is premiering the one-hour pilot episode of “The Cape” on an iPad app — and not NBC's app, but on DC Comics' free iPad app. — “What better partner than DC Comics, whose audience is devoted to the comic book genre from which 'The Cape …

Discussion: TVbytheNumbers

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:

Cisco's Videoscape: Ready to Reinvent TV? — Cisco announced an ambitious strategy for making high-quality video — whether it be from online or traditional TV and cable providers — pervasive across a wide range of devices, from broadband-connected set-top boxes to tablets and other mobile devices at CES Wednesday.

Discussion: Cisco, Media Money …, paidContent, Between the Lines Blog, Multichannel and TelevisionInfo.com, more at Techmeme »

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

The Desperate Campaign to Discredit Jane Mayer — Last August, Jane Mayer wrote a long investigative article in The New Yorker about the Koch brothers, the conservative billionaires who bankroll a host of right-wing causes. Since then, she's apparently become the victim of a disturbing, organized smear campaign.

Discussion: On Media's Blog and The Huffington Post

New York Post:
Smear disappears — Who is behind the apparently concerted campaign …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Gawker, New York Observer, The Wire, Mediaite and The Huffington Post

James Robinson / Guardian:

News of the World executive suspended over alleged phone hacking — News editor Ian Edmondson taken off ‘active duties’ as paper conducts internal investigation — A senior News of the World executive has been suspended following a “serious allegation” related to phone hacking.

Discussion: BBC, Press Gazette, The Lede and Jon Slattery

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL Goes to Town in Reorg, Closing Men's, Women's Sites — Going downhill fast? AOL's motivational gift to employees. — AOL is sometimes criticized for not having a strategy, but that couldn't be more unfair. Heck, they've got a new one practically every quarter!

Discussion: paidContent, Nieman Journalism Lab and Mediaweek

Esther Bintliff / Financial Times:

Digital downloads fail to counter CD decline — Sales of music albums in the UK continued to fall in 2010, as a surge in digital album sales failed to offset the decline in CD sales. — The data from the Official Charts Company highlights the continuing transformation of the music market …

Matt Thompson / Poynter:

10 lessons for the future from women in media — As 2010 drew to a finish and the end-of-year lists started streaming in, I began to feel that there was something missing from the din of bold predictions and celebrated thinkers in the tech and media world: female voices.

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Record your own TV talk shows on Avatar Kinect — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says his Xbox avatar is “pretty darn bald,” but he was clearly thrilled to lead off his annual keynote at CES with Xbox and the big-seller, Kinect. Ballmer took the wraps off Avatar Kinect, a new Xbox Live game …

Discussion: TechCrunch