Mediagazer: Journal Sues to Open Up Medicare Database (Russell Adams/Wall Street Journal)

10:05 PM ET, January 25, 2011

Top News:

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

NY Times considers creating an ‘EZ Pass lane for leakers’ — The New York Times is considering options to create an in-house submission system that could make it easier for would-be leakers to provide large files to the paper. — Executive editor Bill Keller told The Cutline …

Discussion: Guardian, The Wire, msnbc.com, ArabCrunch, Techland, George Dearing dot com, Salon, FishbowlNY, Poynter, The Atlantic Wire, The New Yorker Blog, Gawker, New York Magazine and Editors Weblog

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

New York Times, Al-Jazeera Do An End-Run Around WikiLeaks — The New York Times is considering creating an electronic tip line so that leakers of classified documents can go direct instead of having to use a middleman like WikiLeaks, according to executive editor Bill Keller.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared and New York Observer

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Ongo: Aggregation So Good, You'll Pay for It. (Maybe.) — Say “aggregation” to most newspaper publishers and what they hear is “content stealing.” But a new aggregator launching today promises to put some money back in the pockets of publishers by catering exclusively to news junkies who will pay for a better reading experience.

Brett Pulley / Bloomberg:
New York Times, Washington Post Join to Sell Content to Subscribers Online

Discussion: Noted

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Newspapers Try to Reimpose Scarcity on News With Ongo

Discussion: Lost Remote, Thanks:mathewi

Jay Yarow / The Wire:
Craziest Startup Idea Ever? …

Discussion: The Wall Blog and Top Digital Journal News

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:

DLD11: James Murdoch On The Daily, Paywalls, Google And Apple — James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and currently Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, Europe and Asia, was interviewed on stage at the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany. — Murdoch touched on everything …

Discussion: paidContent, Guardian, paidContent, App Advice, MacNN, Yahoo! News, MacStories, Macgasm, Poynter and Noted

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
News Corp.'s Daily iPad Newspaper Launching “In the Next Few Weeks”

Discussion: Guardian and New York Observer

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Google To Acquire fflick For $10 Million — Back in August we wrote about a neat service called fflick that looked to harness Twitter to power a movie sentiment and recommendation engine, with an added dash of colorful style. Now the service is getting two big thumbs up from Google …

Discussion: Venture Capital Dispatch, MediaPost, NewEnterprise, Techland, SAI, VentureBeat, GigaOM, paidContent, Fast Company, Search Engine Land, Electronista, Softpedia News and Noted, more at Techmeme »

Greg T. Spielberg / Nieman Journalism Lab:

How Sam Spratt is finding a niche for illustrations in the text-heavy world of digital journalism — Sam Spratt is a freelance artist, but thanks to journalists, not a starving one. Since graduating from college in July, the illustrator has done hundreds pieces for Gawker Media …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:

Times to Staff: We Built You Some Rooms So You Can Sleep Off Your Hangovers — This is the image from the Times internal newsletter. The filename on the photo is “recoverycouch.jpg.” — An amused Timesian just sent us this note from an internal newsletter sent to staffers today:

Discussion: @romenesko, The Wire and New York Observer

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

Real Blogs Don't Have Interstitial Ads — Hey, if I dish it out, I have to be able to take it, too. And take it today I have. We've put up this ridiculous interstitial ad here on TechCrunch that appears the first time you visit the site. — It's an ad for Dell.

Discussion: Gawker

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

The iPad newsstand that works — Zinio's digital revenues have grown 350% since last April. Will Apple put a stop to that? — When we wrote a few weeks ago about the signal failure of Apple's iPad to halt the magazine industry's downward spiral (See Why digital newsstands stink), we had forgotten about Zinio.

Discussion: Poynter, ReadWriteWeb, TeleRead and Monday Note

Peter Lauria / The Daily Beast:

Rupert Murdoch's Family Reunion — The mogul is working to bring daughter Elisabeth back to News Corp. with a deal to purchase her production company, Shine Group. Peter Lauria looks at Rupert's “master plan” for keeping the media empire in the family. — Rupert Murdoch may soon be reunited …

Discussion: Mixed Media, FishbowlNY, Runnin' Scared, The Corsair and Company Town

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:

Journal Sues to Open Up Medicare Database — The publisher of The Wall Street Journal filed suit Tuesday to overturn a decades-long court order barring public access to a confidential Medicare database that it says is essential to rooting out fraud and abuse in the government health-care program.

Discussion: Poynter

Greg Sandoval / CNET News:

Netflix: Why Time Warner slams us — Time Warner's very public bashing of Netflix in recent weeks is a result of the media conglomerate's frustration over having to bid against the video service for Warner Bros. films and TV shows. — Time Warner will have an easier time acquiring Warner Bros. content …

Discussion: paidContent, GigaOM and Broadcasting & Cable, more at Techmeme »

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

The Most Tech-Enhanced SOTU Yet — More reasons to ditch your TV and watch online — Don't have a TV to watch tonight's State of the Union address? Or do you just get bored with all the standing-applause breaks without constant visual and informational input? You are in luck.

Discussion: Mediaite, Esquire, On Media's Blog and The Daily Beast, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Roll Camera! Jason Calacanis Makes a Video Push at Mahalo, and Wants You to Know About It — Jason Calacanis has overhauled his Mahalo start-up yet again. Just ask him. — Actually, no need to: The not-at-all bashful entrepreneur has been working hard to make sure we're all aware of what he's calling …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat and SAI

David Goetzl / MediaPost:

WPP's Sorrell Calls For Pay Model For Content — WPP Group CEO Martin Sorrell said Monday he believes it is imperative that a pay model for content should dominate, since media companies need more than ad dollars to afford continued production of top-tier content.

Discussion: Noted

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

ASME Unveils New Guidelines for Magazine Web Sites — Group tries to lay down law on advertising, editorial distinction — With Web sites increasingly permissive about the kinds of ads they'll accept, the American Society of Magazine Editors is trying to push back.

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Meredith Rides Ad Recovery Wave, As It Relies More On Integrated Marketing — Women's magazine publisher Meredith Corp. (NYSE: MDP) posted strong results last quarter, signaling that the magazines and local broadcast were continuing to reap the benefits of the wider advertising recovery.

Discussion: MediaPost, rbr.com, Folio, MediaPost and Broadcasting & Cable

Mike Orren:

A modest proposal for paywall purveyors — This morning, I was helping a friend whose company got featured in the Dallas Morning News. The story is behind the registration (soon-to-be-pay) wall. It's the sort of story that a company wants to show off to prospects and investors as a sign of traction and credibility.