Mediagazer: New York Times Almost Bought Into Demand Media (Shira Ovide/Deal Journal)

7:30 PM ET, January 26, 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, Yahoo! News, Jon Slattery, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, The Awl, Runnin' Scared, The Corsair, New York Magazine, The Firewall, News: News blog and Gothamist

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Bill Keller's Clash with Assange — As The New York Times publishes its first e-book, editor Bill Keller tells Howard Kurtz how exasperating it was to deal with the WikiLeaks founder—and why he's launching his own column. — Bill Keller, who led The New York Times through its rocky dealings …

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

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

Discussion: The Nation, blogs.journalism.co.uk, 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, VentureBeat, Epicenter, Exile On Wall Street and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

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 and The Atlantic Online

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Wall Street Welcomes the Content Farm: Demand Media Supersizes Its IPO — Demand Media has given skeptics plenty to chew on over the last six months: Accounting issues to hash out with the Feds; weird noises from Google, which it depends on; and debates about what “profitable” means.

Discussion: AdAge, Mixed Media, SAI, Deal Journal, Money & Company, FT tech hub, Money & Company, NetNewsCheck Latest and The Wire

Lynn Cowan / Dow Jones Newswires:
Demand Media 8.9M-Share IPO Prices At $17 Each, Above Range

Discussion: paidContent, Wall Street Journal, @pkedrosky, VatorNews, Black Web 2.0 and The Wire

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

Analysis: The Internet Stole Obama's State of the Union From Cable News — A reliable producer of big ratings for cable news networks for decades, the President's annual State of the Union address on Tuesday seemed to mark a turning point in which media delivery of the event …

Discussion: rbr.com, CJR, The Huffington Post, The Big Picture, B&C, Mediaite, TVNewser, The New Yorker Blog, GigaOM, New York Observer, Tuned In, Most Recent Home Page Posts … and Media Matters for America

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

Tommy Christopher / Mediaite:
National Journal Skirts Embargo, Posts Full Text Of Obama's State …

Discussion: Embargo Watch, The Wrap, Politics Daily, Gawker, On Media's Blog and CJR

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

Maureen O'Connor / Gawker:

Men's Health Editor Plagiarizes His Own Writers — Last year, we caught Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko reusing covers. Turns out that's not the only way Zinczenko recycles content: He's been ripping other writers' bylines off old Men's Health articles and passing them off as his own.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

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 …

Laurie Sullivan / MediaPost:

Twitter Tests Self-Serve Ad Platform — Twitter has begun testing a self-serve ad platform with advertisers and agencies it plans to roll out in the first half of this year, and MediaPost got a glimpse. — Clix Marketing Founder David Szetela began supporting a handful of clients this week.

Discussion: Search Engine Land, ReadWriteWeb, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, MediaMemo and SAI

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

Erik Sass / MediaPost:

Newspaper Web Sites Reach 62% of Online Population — Newspapers are not dying — at least online. An average of 105.3 million people pre month visited a newspaper Web site during the fourth quarter of 2010, according to comScore data cited by the Newspaper Association of America …

Discussion: Media Buyer Planner, newsplexer and eMedia Vitals

NetNewsCheck Latest: Newspaper Site Generate Big Traffic In Q4

TED Blog:

Introducing TED Books — Today, we're thrilled to announce the launch of TED Books, an imprint of short nonfiction works designed for digital distribution. Shorter than traditional books, TED Books run less than 20,000 words each — long enough to explain a powerful idea, but short enough to be read in a single sitting.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat and Boing Boing

New York Post:

Stewart wants back on media company board — Media Ink has noticed this in the past with House Beautiful, where Garten was a regular columnist until recently. House Beautiful replaced her column with one by Chef Tyler Florence, starting with the February issue.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and New York Observer

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Bachmann Webcast Foils TV News Nets with Bad Staging and Presidential Motorcade — In her response to the State of the Union address, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann looked into her Webcast camera but away from a second camera in the room, the “pool” camera, which supplied her presentation …