Mediagazer: The Daily Wait — I've been reading The Daily each day since its debut Wednesday. (John Gruber/Daring Fireball)

2:40 AM ET, February 6, 2011

Top News:

The Daily Wait — I've been reading The Daily each day since its debut Wednesday. Three days, three issues. My opinion of it has declined each day. Until I see an updated version of the app, I'm done with it. I noticed yesterday that it took way too long to load the day's new issue.

Discussion: paidContent, Scripting News, @dannysullivan, Pulse2 and The Wire

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Users Rate The Daily: Better than NY Times App, Worse Than WSJ

Discussion: Notebooks.com

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

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
NBC Fires Guy Who Posted The Bryant Gumbel/Katie Couric ‘What Is Internet’ Video

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

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

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Readability Just Became Instapaper's Publisher Payment Layer — Personally, I think the concept behind Readability is pretty awesome. It gives you a way to read all your favorite articles on the web without all of the clutter of the web — meaning, mainly, ads.

Discussion: Instapaper Blog, Sample the Web, SAI and Readability Blog

Arianna Huffington / Guardian:

Traditional papers didn't know how to handle WikiLeaks | Arianna Huffington — WikiLeaks revelations were fascinating - but the key points were too often overlooked by the press, writes Arianna Huffington — With condolences to the iPad and Sarah Palin's Twitter account, WikiLeaks is the media story of our time.

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: HuffPo's Eric Hippeau Stepping Down From Yahoo Board as Akamai's David Kenny Steps In — Eric Hippeau (pictured here), longtime Yahoo board member and one of its earliest investors, will be stepping down as a director, according to sources close to the situation.

Discussion: The Wire

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 …

Discussion: @nicknotned

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

Discussion: Speakeasy and Gawker

Frances Martel / Mediaite:

Matt Drudge Surfaces On Twitter To Talk Internet Lexicon, Obama Poll Numbers — Notoriously elusive internet aggregator Matt Drudge has decided to give his internet persona a voice away from the screechy headlines. With little fanfare, the Drudge Report added to the tops of its stories …

Discussion: Gawker, @drudge_report and @drudge

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 …

Discussion: Babylon & Beyond

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, Committee to Protect … and Boing Boing