Mediagazer: Tribune's New Tech Columnist: Julia Allison. (Yes, That Julia Allison.) (Jeff Bercovici/Mixed Media)

11:50 PM ET, January 31, 2011

Top News:

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Newsweek and Daily Beast Hire Two More — Tina Brown's Newsweek-Daily Beast hybrid continues to add to its roster of writers as it prepares to start a completely reconfigured magazine this year. — Wayne Barrett, a former Village Voice investigative reporter, and Peter J. Boyer …

Discussion: Poynter, NetNewsCheck Latest, Yahoo! News, The Daily Beast, LA Observed, MediaPost, FishbowlNY, On Media's Blog, Gawker, The Empire and New York Magazine

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Center for Public Integrity, NewsBeast sign content deal — Romenesko Misc. — Under the agreement, Newsweek/Daily Beast will pay the Center for Public Integrity for exclusive stories. It's the Center's first pay-for-content deal in more than two decades, says a release.

Discussion: Editors Weblog, @mathewi and @jayrosen_nyu

Joe Coscarelli / Runnin' Scared:

Gabriel Snyder to The Atlantic Wire: On Growing Up an Aggregator — Gabriel Snyder, who was fired by Nick Denton as the editor-in-chief of Gawker in February 2010, will be joining The Atlantic as the editor of the magazine's Atlantic Wire aggregation website, according to an Observer report today.

Discussion: TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:
NewsBeast and CPI: A mutualization made in heaven

Discussion: WebNewser

Nick Summers / New York Observer:
Exclusive: Ex-Gawker Guy Snyder to Head Atlantic Wire, New Manhattan Staff

Discussion: The Wrap, Poynter, @gabrielsnyder, On Media's Blog, Mediaite, Yahoo! News, @annaholmes, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine and @nicksumm

Aljazeera:

Al Jazeera camera equipment seized — Camera equipment remains seized after release of six Al Jazeera jounralist who were briefly detained in Cairo. — Six Al Jazeera English journalists, who were briefly detained in Egypt, have been released, however; their camera equipment remains confiscated by the military.

Julie Moos / Poynter:

How Obama, Clinton legitimized Twitter & Facebook as tools of democracy in Egypt — As the American people and U.S. government struggle to understand the uprising in Egypt and how it may transform the Middle East, President Barack Obama and his administration have explicitly requested protections for certain media.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, MediaFile, Mediaite and Yahoo! News

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Nick Kristof turns to Facebook to report from Egypt

Discussion: Yahoo! News, TechCrunch, Journalism.co.uk and The Huffington Post

Caroline McCarthy / The Social:

Facebook's next big media move: Comments — Facebook is planning to launch a third-party commenting system in a matter of weeks, according to multiple sources familiar with the new product. This new technology could see Facebook as the engine behind the comments system on many high-profile blogs …

Discussion: MediaMemo, Mashable!, The Next Web, New York Observer, ReadWriteWeb, @pkafka, TechCrunch, @sjcobrien, Erictric, @pkafka, paidContent and SAI, more at Techmeme »

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Hearst Leaps to New Level With Deal for Lagardère Magazine Portfolio — Gets Rights to Elle and Outright Ownership of Titles Including Woman's Day, Car and Driver in 15 Countries — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Hearst has reached a deal to buy 102 magazines and the right to publish Elle in 15 countries …

Discussion: Publishing Executive News

Eric Pfanner / DealBook:
Hearst to Buy Lagardere's Magazine Unit for $889 Million

Discussion: The Wrap, The Fix, Media News International, MinOnline, Press Gazette, Folio, DealBook, Gawker and Fashionista

Eric Enge / Search Engine Land:

The Rise And Fall Of Content Farms — With Demand Media having gone public last week, it is worth taking some time to discuss the future of content farms. Clearly, lots of people are seeing value in the business model, as shown by the street's willingness to accept the IPO, and the acquistion of Associated Content by Yahoo! last May.

David Card / GigaOM: Demand Media: Search Spam or the Future of Content?

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Rendell, Bissinger added as Philly Daily News columnists — The owners of Philly's dailies announced today: — * The Inquirer's A section will have more local and original content; — * Buzz Bissinger will serve as Daily News editorial advisor and occasional guest columnist;

Discussion: PR Newswire

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Why The Daily will succeed - or not — The Daily, which is set to launch this week, could be a capitvating hit, a spectacular miss or something in between. But one thing is sure: — Rupert Murdoch, the last swashbuckling publisher of our time, will shake up the media world on Wednesday …

Evan Rudowski / paidContent:UK:
A News Corp. Digital History Lesson For The Daily

Discussion: TeleRead

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

With Egypt in Crisis, Anchors Head to Cairo — As the uprising in Egypt approaches the one-week mark, television networks based in the United States continue to send reporters to the region. Now it appears some of the big network anchors are arriving there, as well.

Discussion: On Media's Blog, Broadcasting & Cable and TVNewser

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Independent's i ‘has hit 170,000 sales’ — Publisher says circulation of cut-price daily is ‘continuing to climb’ as multimillion-pound campaign kicks in — Circulation of the Independent's 20p spin-off i hit an average of more than 170,000 a day last week, according to the first sales figures revealed by the publisher.

Felix Salmon:

Paywalls and cannibalization — I'm surprised, but pleased, to see this coming from FT editor Lionel Barber, in his Hugh Cudlipp lecture today: … This is the first time that I've seen an advocate of online paywalls admit that they don't boost offline subscriptions, and that newspapers …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Elizabeth Jensen / Media Decoder:

PBS Show's Future in Doubt — When the PBS newsmagazine “Need to Know” started last May it had big shoes to fill, replacing “Bill Moyers Journal” and “Now on PBS.” But even as angry e-mails from disappointed viewers have subsided, the producers acknowledge that the show remains a work in progress …

Discussion: Poynter, TVNewser and Free Press

Benjamin Wallace / New York Magazine:

The Geek-Kings of Smut — After once being the best thing that ever happened to porn, the Internet is now wreaking havoc: destroying some fortunes, making bigger ones, and serving as a stimulus plan, in more ways than one. — For one brief moment here at the 2011 Adult Video Awards in Las Vegas …

Discussion: SAI and @iwantmedia

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Director: NYT film has A- average rating from critics — Some critics at Sundance complained about “Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times” lacking focus, but director Andrew Rossi tells Romenesko that others have raved about the documentary. “The movie now has an ‘A-’ average rating based …

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

YouTube Steps Up to Shine Light on Egypt — Video sharing website YouTube has been highlighting video from the protests in Egypt for days, but tonight the official YouTube blog put up a post describing a number of steps it's taking to make sure the world knows what's going on in Cairo …

Discussion: YouTube Blog, more at Techmeme »

Niel / Explainer.Net:

Explain yourself: George Lakoff, cognitive linguist — As part of our research on explanatory journalism, we're interviewing experts in fields outside journalism about their approaches to explaining complex systems to non-specialtists. — Our first expert is cognitive linguist George Lakoff …

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Tribune's New Tech Columnist: Julia Allison. (Yes, That Julia Allison.) — Syndicated tech columnist and blogodisiac Julia Allison — If you know the name Julia Allison, chances are good it's because you're a reader of the gossip blogs where she was a regular fixture two or three years ago.

Discussion: The Wire and Cision

Douglas Quenqua / Media Decoder:

A Phish Fan's Secret Smile — CNBC may not have known it, but last week, the financial news network ran one of the greatest Phish shows in recent memory. — The band itself was nowhere to be seen. But Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Company and an occasional commentator …

Discussion: @myersnews

John Herrman / Splitsider:

Why Nielsen Ratings Are Inaccurate, and Why They'll Stay That Way — It's easy to understand why people are ambivalent, or even hostile, toward ratings. The thinking goes something like this: — 1. People love the shows that they love, a lot — 2. Some of these shows get canceled “too soon”

Discussion: @brianstelter

Alexandra Topping / Guardian:

Music industry struggles to make digital leap of faith — Major labels embraced streaming at Midem in Cannes last week, but some claim their moves are too little, too late — In the louche Martinez hotel bar in Cannes, a sharply dressed young man launched into a tirade against the music industry convention he was attending.

Discussion: Telegraph, 9 to 5 Mac and hypebot

Mike Shields / Mediaweek:

Pay Walls Crumble — The New York Times is ignoring the deep flaws in its online business model, say industry observers, blowing a chance to transform online publishing by instead opting to earn a few quick bucks. — Based on the details that have emerged, the Time's meek metered approach …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Noted

Business Wire:

AOL Elects Alberto Ibargüen to Board of Directors — Media and Internet Executive Brings Over 30 Years Experience to AOL — NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—AOL Inc. (NYSE:AOL) today announced that Alberto Ibargüen has been elected to its Board of Directors.

Discussion: SAI

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:

AOL Europe Acquires Branded Video Network goviral For $96.7 Million — AOL Europe has lead an acquision of video distribution network Goviral today, to the tune of $96.7 million. Goviral distributes branded video content for mainstream brands, as well as content producers and advertising agencies.

Discussion: GigaOM and paidContent:UK

Gavin O'Malley / MediaPost:

AOL, Burnett To Produce CliffsNotes Shorts — We'll try to keep this short. AOL and TV producer Mark Burnett have entered into a production agreement to co-develop a series of comedic video shorts based on CliffsNotes Literature Guides. — Together with Coalition Films …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable