Mediagazer: Was Jeff Zucker Really So Bad For NBC Universal? (Andrew Wallenstein/paidContent)

2:55 AM ET, January 29, 2011

Top News:

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:

Exclusive: The next generation of WikiLeaks — (Reuters) - All across Europe, from Brussels to the Balkans, a new generation of WikiLeaks-style websites is sprouting. — Like their forerunner, the fledgling whistle-blowing sites are a chaotic mixture of complex systems engineering, earnest campaigning, muckraking and self-promotion.

Discussion: The Nation, Poynter and Future of Journalism

Adam L. Penenberg / Washington Post:

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: ‘Anarchist,’ ‘agitator,’ ‘arrogant’ and a journalist — The State Department called Julian Assange, the founder of the stateless anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, “an anarchist.” Sarah Palin taunted him as “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.”

Discussion: Gawker, The Firewall, SlashGear and The Huffington Post

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

TV Crews Struggle in Egyptian Chaos — Television crews in Cairo fought to stay on the air on Friday as protests enveloped major cities in Egypt. — Egyptian authorities adopted various tactics to halt live broadcasts from the capital city, but for the most part networks like CNN and NBC were able to send signals out.

Discussion: Al Jazeera Blogs, Lost Remote, B&C, CNN, Poynter, GigaOM, Broadcasting & Cable, The Huffington Post, News: News blog, Multichannel, The Wrap, Wilshire & Washington and New York Times

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:
NYT interviews Egyptian blogger via Skype

Discussion: BBC, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Mediaite, Multichannel, Broadcasting & Cable, About.com Journalism, The Lede, New York Times, @jeffsonstein and NYConvergence.com, more at Techmeme »

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Was Jeff Zucker Really So Bad For NBC Universal? — Today is Jeff Zucker's last day as CEO of NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), where he spent nearly a quarter of a century. Not since Gerald Levin destroyed about $200 billion in shareholder value has a more maligned executive emerged from the media world, which is really saying something.

Discussion: GigaOM

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Zucker-Katie redux — Former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, expected to set up shop Monday on Park Avenue, is already lining up his next gig — he's talking about starting a syndicated talk show featuring CBS News anchor Katie Couric, according to three separate sources.

Discussion: Gawker, Company Town, MediaPost, TVNewser, rbr.com, TVWeek.com, Chickaboomer and New York Magazine

Greg Sandoval / CNET News:

Spotify exec eyes Apple with suspicion — Do Spotify executives believe Apple had anything to do with their company's inability to make the leap to the United States? — An interview given at the start of this week by Faisal Galaria, Spotify's chief of global business development, sure gave that impression.

Discussion: GigaOM, more at Techmeme »

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:
Spotify Close to a Deal With EMI

Discussion: Globe and Mail

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

MoJo's Egypt explainer: future-of-context ideas in action — This week's unrest in Egypt brings new relevance to an old question: How do you cover an event about which most of your readers have little or no background knowledge? — Mother Jones has found one good way to do that.

Discussion: Daily Kos and Mediaite

Curt Hopkins / ReadWriteWeb:

Al Jazeera Releases Egypt Coverage Under Creative Commons (UPDATED) — Qatar-based news service Al Jazeera has a long relationship with Creative Commons licensing. Now, for its coverage of the Egyptian uprising, it has released photographs via Flickr and video on a CC license.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, ShortFormBlog, Epicenter and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

NPR probe of Juan Williams firing questions Ellen Weiss's management style — When Vivian Schiller became NPR's chief executive in early 2009, she knew enough to know that she didn't know very much about producing radio news. For that, Schiller, who formerly headed the New York Times' cable …

Discussion: Poynter, Gawker and On Media's Blog

Gizmodo:

How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World — Hulu is a terrific service. Who could argue with free, current episodes of primetime TV on your computer? But for months now, Netflix has been eating Hulu's lunch. And Hulu's plan to fight back sounds more like a swan song.

Discussion: MediaPost, GigaOM, Mediaweek and VideoNuze

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

Aaron Sorkin's Cable News Drama Is A Go At HBO With Pilot Order, Scott Rudin Producing — EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Sorkin long-gestating drama set behind the scenes of a nightly cable news show is becoming a reality. HBO has closed a deal for a pilot order to the project, which reunites …

Discussion: AintItCool and On Media's Blog

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

From Suicide Bombs to ‘Rahmageddon’: A Day in the Life of the Homepage — News moves fast in 2011, almost as fast as the websites that cover it. What it also reveals is that not all digital media is equal. — TheWrap spent one mind-numbing day on Jan. 24 looking at the world's …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Rachel Rose Hartman / Yahoo! News:

Biden thinks The Onion's spoofs of him are ‘hilarious’ — A mock photo of Vice President Joe Biden washing a Trans-Am shirtless. Strange? Distasteful? Crossing the line? — Not so, Biden says. — “I think it's hilarious,” Biden told Yahoo! in a wide-ranging interview Thursday.

Discussion: Poynter, The Atlantic Wire, Political Punch, Mediaite, The Wire, Gawker, Indecision Forever, Washington Post and TPMDC

Melissa Ulbricht / MediaShift Idea Lab:

How WNYC Used Texts from Citizens To Map Snowstorm — The radio station WNYC is creating on-air and online stories using two things that are very familiar to people in the Northeastern United States: mobile phones and snow. — A snowstorm over the holidays was the heaviest December snowfall in six decades.

Discussion: Future of Journalism