Mediagazer: The argument for funding public media (Washington Post)

9:15 AM ET, February 5, 2011

Top News:

2 Detained Reporters Saw Secret Police's Methods Firsthand — CAIRO — We had been detained by Egyptian authorities, handed over to the country's dreaded Mukhabarat, the secret police, and interrogated. They left us all night in a cold room, on hard orange plastic stools, under fluorescent lights.

Discussion: Arabist.net, Guardian and Boing Boing

Sheila Carapico / Foreign Policy:

What Al Jazeera shows and doesn't show — The wide-angle aerial view from television cameras trained down on Tahrir Square in central Cairo is unprecedented in the history of world revolutions. We all have a ring-side seat. The satellite feed has become part of the story; the video frame is itself a site of contestation.

Discussion: Jillian C. York

Committee to Protect Journalists:
Cairo attacks continue; reporter dies from earlier shooting

Discussion: Bloomberg, Guardian, Yahoo! News, Future of Journalism, The Daily Dish, AOL News and Poynter

Joe Coscarelli / Runnin' Scared:

Elizabeth Spiers to Replace Kyle Pope as Editor-in-Chief of New York Observer — Founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers will replace Kyle Pope as editor-in-chief of the New York Observer, the paper announced today on their website. Pope, formerly of Portfolio …

New York Observer:
Elizabeth Spiers Taking Over As Editor In Chief of The New York Observer

Discussion: Latest from Crain's …, @nicknotned, @rafat, @joepompeo, Speakeasy, @real_kaplan, @maura, @behrle, The Wrap, FishbowlNY, Gawker, Media Decoder, @weareyourfek, @rovzar, @zekeft, @timnyc, @lock, @romenesko, @dvnjr, @caro, @katierosman, @penenberg, The Wire, Mediaite, WWD Media Headlines and New York Magazine

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York: The meaning of Elizabeth Spiers at The New York Observer

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post: EXCLUSIVE: New York Observer Editor Out After ‘Tension’ With Top Brass

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

NBC Fires Guy Who Posted The Bryant Gumbel/Katie Couric ‘What Is Internet’ Video — Like a bunch of sites, we posted about the amusing video that had been posted to YouTube, that showed Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel, back in 1994, very confused about the internet. The video itself went viral pretty quickly.

Discussion: @robpegoraro, MediaMemo, paidContent, Mediaite, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wire, Computerworld, Switched, Gizmodo, The Wrap, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Gawker and Chickaboomer, more at Techmeme »

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:

‘Ethicist’ Randy Cohen Out at New York Times Magazine — The housecleaning continues: On the heels of the news that new Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren sent “Questions For” columnist Deborah Solomon packing, we also hear that “Ethicist” columnist Randy Cohen will be leaving.

Discussion: @media_ink and @koblin

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:
Exclusive: Deborah Solomon Out at New York Times Magazine

Discussion: Media News International, Gawker, FishbowlNY, Poynter and New York Magazine

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

DemandAlJazeera: How Al Jazeera is using social media to cover Egypt—and distribute its content in the US — Mark noted in today's This Week in Review that “the organization that has shined the brightest over the past 10 days is unquestionably Al Jazeera.”

Discussion: Mashable!, Company Town, News for Digital Journalists, Broadcasting & Cable, Media Matters for America, Lost Remote, Multichannel, BlogPost and ReadWriteWeb

Christopher Heine / ClickZ:
Al Jazeera Aims to Harness Twitter Momentum

Discussion: The Huffington Post and ReadWriteWeb

Kevin Anderson / Journalism.co.uk:

Newsroom integration: the past taking over the future? — Are print executives still running the show when it comes to integrating with the digital side? The New York Times newsroom, 1942. Image: US Library of Congress — Last October, I was at the Online News Association conference …

Discussion: Strange Attractor

Emily Bell / Guardian:

The Daily, and the AOL way — News Corp's glossy iPad launch represents the world of ‘spectacle’ media, while the web giant focuses on the ugly data — There were two faces of digital media abroad in New York this week. One was its most impressively flat shiny square face …

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Storyful, YouTube: The value of the impermanent team-up — The turmoil in Egypt has shown, yet again, the key role that curation plays in a networked news environment. But as valuable as all the text-based aggregators are — which is to say, hugely valuable — the constantly shifting events …

Washington Post:

The argument for funding public media — Federal funding for public media has once again become a target in the debate about fiscal prudence. Attempts last fall to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were defeated along party lines. CPB provides financial support for locally owned …

Discussion: Technology Liberation Front

Dana Oshiro / NetShelter Technology Media:

The 4 Day Work Week: Staffing for Breaking News — There's an old saying that the “news never sleeps” but in the tech world it seems like it takes a three day weekend. After looking at the top news posts by engagement across our network for the last 90 days, only ten percent …

Nicholas Carlson / The Wire:

ESPN.com Boss John Kosner On Yahoo: “I'm More Concerned With The Guy In The Garage” — Men aged 18 to 34 spend more time on ESPN.com properties each month than they do anywhere on the Internet except Google, Facebook, all of Yahoo's sites combined, and all of Microsoft's sites combined.

Jennifer Saba / Reuters:

Apple's iPad boosts FT online subscriptions — (Reuters) - Financial Times Chief Executive John Ridding said that Apple Inc's iPad and other mobile devices are driving 20 percent of the newspaper's new online subscriptions. — Ridding, who was speaking at an investor conference in New York on Thursday …

Discussion: IR Web Report

Bill / Random Pixels and Loose Talk:

Internet hijinx at One Herald Plaza — Lately it seems like more than a few people at the Miami Herald are still grappling with the concept of Internet and how it works. — Back on January 14 someone took control of the Herald's Twitter feed and sent out this embarrassing Tweet.