Mediagazer: NBC: Here's Why We Fired the “Today Show” YouTube Leaker (Peter Kafka/MediaMemo)

2:15 PM ET, February 5, 2011

Top News:

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

NBC: Here's Why We Fired the “Today Show” YouTube Leaker — Yup, NBC did indeed fire the guy who put that 1994 “Today Show” clip up on YouTube. — Here's the company's official statement: “The individual in question violated the company's standards of conduct by repeatedly copying …

Discussion: paidContent, AOL News, Mediaite, Computerworld, The Wrap, The Wire and GigaOM, more at Techmeme »

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, Mediaite, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wire, Gizmodo, Switched, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Gawker and Chickaboomer

New York Times:

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

Discussion: Jillian C. York

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

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

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 …

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

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

Discussion: Latest from Crain's …, @nicknotned, @rafat, @joepompeo, @real_kaplan, @maura, @behrle, Speakeasy, The Wrap, Gawker and FishbowlNY

Ethan / ...My heart's in Accra:

Interview with Andy Carvin on curating Twitter to watch Tunisia, Egypt — Andy Carvin is a pioneer in online organizing, digital journalism and social media. He's currently “senior strategist” at NPR, helping the radio network develop their digital strategies.

Discussion: contentious.com and News for Digital Journalists

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

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 …

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.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Users Rate The Daily: Better than NY Times App, Worse Than WSJ — The early reviews on The Daily are in, with most critics agreeing the new iPad-based publication looks snappy but isn't quite the revolutionary leap forward Rupert Murdoch and co. had made it out to be. But what really matters is how consumers respond to it.

Discussion: Notebooks.com