Mediagazer: Fresh news websites proliferated last year (Crain's New York)

1:50 AM ET, January 27, 2011

Top News:

Dealing With Julian Assange and the Secrets He Spilled — This past June, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, phoned me and asked, mysteriously, whether I had any idea how to arrange a secure communication. Not really, I confessed. The Times doesn't have encrypted phone lines, or a Cone of Silence.

Discussion: Poynter, @wikileaks, The Atlantic Wire, Threat Level, The Firewall, The Awl, Latest Open Salon Blog, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine, Runnin' Scared, Yahoo! News, The Huffington Post, The Corsair, Jon Slattery, News: News blog and Gothamist

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:
Bill Keller's Clash with Assange

Discussion: Gawker, @chanders, The Atlantic Online and Yahoo! News

Raphael G. Satter / Associated Press:
AP Interview:WikiLeaks seeking more media partners

Discussion: The Nation, Big News Network.com, Noted and Jon Slattery

Julianne Pepitone / CNNMoney.com:

Demand Media shares soar 34% in IPO — NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Shares of online content creator Demand Media rose 34% in early trading Wednesday, raising $66.5 million for the company in an IPO that valued Demand at more than $1 billion. — The offering included 8.9 million shares …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Poynter, Poynter, Epicenter, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, Exile On Wall Street, Wall Street Journal and Future of Journalism

Shira Ovide / Deal Journal:

New York Times Almost Bought Into Demand Media — Demand Media, which is fresh off its IPO, was almost part of the New York Times family. — Demand, a mass producer of instructional content, approached Times Co. executives more than three years ago about combining the company with About.com, a person familiar with the matter said.

Discussion: @rafat

Keith Richman / AdAge:

Why Demand Media Really Is a Media Company and Its IPO Will Succeed — Critics Conveniently Forget That Media Companies Have Always Scrambled to Give People Content They're Looking for — Today, Demand Media will have its IPO, and while the company and its model have taken a lot of hits lately …

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Congratulations, Demand Media. You're Still Pretty Dumb. — Well, it happened: Demand Media went public. The content farm made its initial public offering this morning at a share price of $17, valuing it at almost $1.5 billion, and since then it's been trading in the range of $23.

Discussion: paidContent, The Atlantic Online, Gannett Blog, The Wire and Deal Journal, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Wall Street Welcomes the Content Farm: Demand Media Supersizes Its IPO

Discussion: FT tech hub, Deal Journal, Money & Company, paidContent, SAI, VatorNews, The Wire, Black Web 2.0 and Dow Jones Newswires

Maureen O'Connor / Gawker:

Plagiarizing Editor's Boss: 'Byline Doesn't Take Credit for the Work' — Rodale, publisher of Men's Health and employer of serial plagiarist David Zinczenko, explains why ripping writers' bylines off their work, and slapping Zinczenko's on, is OK: “The byline doesn't take credit for the work, but serves as an overarching tag.”

Discussion: Poynter and @dangillmor

Maureen O'Connor / Gawker:
Men's Health Editor Plagiarizes His Own Writers

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Tom Junod / Esquire:

Roger Ailes on Roger Ailes: The Interview Transcripts, Part 1 — TALENT SCOUT /// “I thought Glenn at Headline News was not doing what he could do. I thought Bill O'Reilly at Inside Edition was not doing what he could do. I thought Sean Hannity on radio — good-looking guy, why not put him on television?

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Mediaite, FishbowlNY, The Atlantic Wire, Yahoo! News, Ben Smith's Blog and New York Magazine

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Dear commenters, Steve Doocy is reading

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Yahoo! News, Mediaite, On Media's Blog, Media Matters for America, @tolles, Gawker and Swampland

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
News Corp. Showdown: Roger Ailes vs. Rupert Murdoch's Kids

Discussion: Media Matters for America, The Wire, VentureBeat, TVNewser, Gawker and The Wire

Jason Horowitz / Washington Post:

Before meeting the press, they met Mr. Aly — There is a tradition on “Meet the Press,” television's longest-running news program, to follow the political grilling and roundtable conversation with a friendly off-the-record breakfast. The show this past Sunday seemed no different.

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlDC and CJR

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

State of the Union: Whitehouse.gov as a media outlet — Every State of the Union can be called “the most technologically advanced State of the Union in history” — at least until the next year's comes along. And last night's speech was no exception: Coverage across outlets was an explosion …

Discussion: Fast Company

Nicholas Carlson / The Wire:

Patch Is A Huge Waste Of Money, And It Has Us Worried About Tim Armstrong's Ability To Run AOL — AOL CEO Tim Armstrong believes that its local blog network, Patch, will be a “major” part of the company's turnaround as it fills one of the largest “white spaces” left on the Internet.

Discussion: Change of Subject

Paul Bradshaw / Online Journalism Blog:

Content, context and code: verifying information online — When the telephone first entered the newsroom journalists were sceptical. “How can we be sure that the person at the other end is who they say they are?” The question seems odd now, because we have become so used to phone technology …

Crain's New York:

Fresh news websites proliferated last year — For the media industry, 2010 was a big improvement over the disaster that was 2009. A new report adds up exactly how much better last year was, starting with how many newspapers folded. — In 2010, 151 papers shut down, compared with more than 300 in 2009 …

Discussion: Noted

Dan Frommer / The Wire:

Netflix Passes 20 Million Subscribers But Doesn't Give Full-Year Guidance — Netflix's Q4 subscriber growth beat the Street, passing 20 million subscribers for the first time, but revenue was a little weak. — Notably, Netflix is NOT providing full-year revenue or subscriber growth guidance …

Discussion: MacStories, SAI, CNET News and Macgasm, more at Techmeme »

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Q&A: Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua at the World Economic Forum — Francine Lacqua, host of Bloomberg's “On the Move with Francine Lacqua”, is currently on the ground in Davos, Switzerland, at the site of the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of heads of state, business leaders and economists which opened today.

Discussion: TVNewser

Paul Bradshaw / Online Journalism Blog:

Investigations tool DocumentCloud goes public (PS: documents drive traffic) — The rather lovely DocumentCloud - a tool that allows journalists to share, annotate, connect and organise documents - has finally emerged from its closet and made itself available to public searches.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and DocumentCloud