Mediagazer: Kurtz tweets correction after prodding from reporter (Joe Pompeo/Yahoo! News)

5:30 PM ET, January 14, 2011

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Freakonomics Leaving NY Times to Start Own Venture — The New York Times is preparing to erect a pay gate around its website, but Freakonomics, the popular blog started by economics Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner, won't be behind it. That's because it's leaving the Times …

Discussion: Poynter, New York Observer, Pulse2, WebNewser, New York Magazine and On Media's Blog

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

A Delay for the Daily: Apple, News Corp. Push Back Launch Date — Turns out you'll have to wait a bit longer to see the Daily, Rupert Murdoch's long-awaited iPad news service. — Apple and News Corp. have made a joint decision to push back next week's planned launch, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans.

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!: “The Daily”: A Peek at the iPad-Only Newspaper's Social Media Strategy

New York Post:

Zuckerman's ax set to swing at the Daily News — Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman is apparently unhappy with advertisers' response to the new four-color paper, and the word inside is that more editorial cutbacks will follow. — Decisions about the cuts are expected to be made today.

Discussion: Poynter

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Kurtz tweets correction after prodding from reporter — Howard Kurtz, the Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief, issued a much-delayed correction on Tuesday, explaining that there had been a mix-up while he was reporting a Nov. 27 piece on Rep. Darrell Issa.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, The Wrap and http://www.Stinkyjournalism …

David Kaplan / paidContent:

HuffPo's Coleman: 'We'll Double Revenues Again This Year' — As it looks to repeat its ad sales successes from 2010, The Huffington Post is adding a dozen ad sales people to its roster. In an interview with paidContent, Greg Coleman, president and chief revenue officer …

Discussion: Poynter, Yahoo! News, MediaPost and On Media's Blog, Thanks:davidakaplan

Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:

Apple tells newspapers: no free iPad edition for print subscribers — A number of European newspapers have reportedly been told by Apple that they can no longer offer paid print subscribers free access to an iPad edition through the App Store, as the subscription strategy leaves Apple out of its 30 percent cut.

Discussion: MarketingVOX, CNET News, Runnin' Scared and MacNN

Robinsloan / Twitter Media:

The science of the hashtag — So last week I talked about the art of the hashtag: the power of mad libs, universal particulars, and feedback loops. The day after I posted it, the #LessAmbitiousMovies hashtag took off on Twitter—you might have seen it in your timeline.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online and MediaPost, more at Techmeme »

Austin Carr / Fast Company:

Chatroulette Founder Andrey Ternovskiy Raises New Funding: “50,000 Naked Men” — Following a week's worth of back and forth and blown off interviews, including one scheduled at 11 p.m EST, Chatroulette founder Andrey Ternovskiy finally picks up his cell phone after several rings.

Discussion: AdAge, Vanity Fair, MediaPost and New York Magazine

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:

Magazine Publishers Ready Tablet App Store — The country's largest magazine publishers are gearing up to launch their own service for distributing digital publications on tablets, competing head-on with technology companies they've relied on to distribute their apps to date.

Discussion: paidContent, Mashable! and FishbowlNY

Wall Street Journal:

Hand-Wringing in Comcast-NBC Deal — Media Companies Fret Over Proposed Rule Requiring Cable Giant to Offer Content to Any Online Service Working With Rivals — WASHINGTON—Major media companies are raising concerns that government conditions on Comcast Corp.'s impending deal to acquire control …

Discussion: Engadget and Company Town

Greg T. Spielberg / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Gizmodo taps illustrators to give stories more punch, pop, pow! — When Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam was planning for this week's coverage of the Verizon iPhone, he didn't think in words. He visualized it entirely in images, daydreaming about how much more emotive pictures and sounds …

Discussion: Snarkmarket and InformationWeek

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

National Post rolls out digital “welcome mats” — On Monday, Canada's National Post published an article about a local school instituting a ban on gay-straight alliance groups. It's a good local story with broad cultural relevance, and, not surprisingly, it got linked on the web-curiosities aggregator Fark.

Discussion: Poynter and Time

Amanda Andrews / Telegraph:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in talks to buy daughter Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine Group — Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is in talks to buy the whole of Shine Group, his daughter Elisabeth Murdoch's film and television production company. — Shine's hit programmes include Merlin

Discussion: Deadline.com, Guardian and Telegraph

Craig Silverman / CJR:

To Delete or Not to Delete? — Should news organizations and reporters delete erroneous tweets? — One of the long-standing accuracy debates in journalism centers around whether you should repeat the original error in a correction. I examined this issue two years ago …

Discussion: Lost Remote and Poynter

Steve Smith / minonline.com:

Oprah's iPad Sketchbook — The iPad ideas coming out of the magazine world are getting ever more curious. The February 2011 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine directs readers to the iPad App Store where they can find a free sketching app for the iPad that lets readers enter a creativity challenge.

Discussion: New York Observer

Paolo Mastrangelo / NYC The Blog:

Video Of Subway Rat Nets Videographer $3,850 And Counting — 21-year-old Jeff Forde (seen at left) was traveling on the 4 train through Brooklyn earlier this week, dozing off at 2am, when he heard a woman scream. He opened his eyes and saw a rat on the train.

Discussion: AOL News, ANIMAL, Runnin' Scared, Gothamist and Mediaite

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Spotify leaps to US — Spotify, the popular European music service, is finally crossing the pond, The Post has learned. — After trying to crack the US market for more than a year, Spotify is close to a deal with one major music company in the US and has gained the support of at least one other …

Discussion: New York Observer, MediaPost, Mashable!, Electronista and SAI, more at Techmeme »

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

FT's Paid Digital Subs Up 71 Percent In A Year — The Financial Times released its own audience figures... - “206,892 paying digital subscribers ... up 71% year on year.” — Daily print circulation: 390,121 (ABC: Dec 2010) - was 485,102 in 2000. — The digital figure is for online …

Discussion: WebNewser, Talking Biz News and The Big Picture

Dave Itzkoff / ArtsBeat:

Court Rejects Claim of Journalist's Privilege for Documentary Filmmaker — A federal appeals court says that Joe Berlinger, the filmmaker who was ordered to give footage from his 2009 documentary “Crude” to the Chevron Corporation, could not invoke a journalist's privilege in refusing to turn …

Tim Lister / CNN:

Tunisian protests fueled by social media networks — (CNN) — The protests that have gripped Tunisia in recent weeks are, to say the least, unusual. Organized dissent in the streets is rarely tolerated in Arab states, and human rights groups say the Tunisian government has had a short fuse when dealing with opponents.

Discussion: Foreign Policy, Mother Jones, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic Online, Guardian, Gawker, TechCrunch, The Lede, The Huffington Post, Aljazeera, Guardian, New York Times, Boing Boing, News: News blog and The Daily Dish, more at Techmeme »

Steve Safran / Lost Remote:

New York Times social strategy: the numbers — Cory hinted at this story in the briefs below, and now we're fleshing it out a bit because it's so interesting. The website for the The New York Times, like so many other sites, continues to see the majority of its traffic (50-60%) going directly to the front page.

Discussion: Cision, NYConvergence.com and GigaOM

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

Newcomer NBC Execs Wait on Sidelines — The peacock is stuck in limbo. — As television networks lay out their programming plans at the Television Critics Association press tour this week, NBC took the unusual step of not scheduling a press conference with top network executives Thursday …

Pete Hammond / Deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Sorkin's Full Screenplay For ‘The Social Network’ - Plus Q&A — EXCLUSIVE: Deadline Hollywood presents Aaron Sorkin's full screenplay here for The Social Network. Also, my interview with this frontrunner for Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar follows:

Discussion: Boing Boing and Electricpig.co.uk

Emily Bell / Guardian:

Arizona shootings mark a watershed for public discourse — Gabrielle Giffords' shooting was not directly due to networks such as Fox, but it has made the tone of debate a central issue — It has been a big week for the state of public discourse in the United States.

Discussion: On Media's Blog