Mediagazer: AOL ♥ HuffPo. The loser? Journalism (Tim Rutten/Los Angeles Times)

7:20 PM ET, February 9, 2011

Top News:

AOL ♥ HuffPo. The loser? Journalism — To grasp the Huffington Post's business model, picture a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates. — Whatever the ultimate impact of AOL's $315-million acquisition of the Huffington Post on the new-media landscape …

Discussion: Washington Post, Pressthink, Hot Air, The Wrap, Poynter, About.com Journalism, Mediaite, blogs.journalism.co.uk and LA Observed

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why Didn't a Newspaper Create The Huffington Post? — Amid all the discussion about whether AOL overpaid for The Huffington Post, how much founder Arianna Huffington made from the deal, and whether the kind of search-engine optimization the site does is losing its relevance …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Mixed Media, @chucktodd, Los Angeles Times, Kempton, The Wire and New York Magazine, Thanks:mathewi

New York Post:

AOL stock sheds $315M — HuffPo price tag — You pay for what you get. — Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, co-founders of the Huffington Post, are said to be walking away with a combined $80 million to $100 million from an original $2 million per person investment — but so far AOL stockholders aren't seeing that kind of return.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and FishbowlNY

Matt Welch / Reason:

Arianna Huffington, Slavemaster? — Tim Rutten, the L.A. Times media critic/columnist, has reacted to the AOL/Huffington Post merger with the kind of race-to-the-journalistic-bottom wail that only an overpaid newspaper lifer can really air out. In the process he gets some key things wrong in a way that I think has broader interest.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Huffpo Isn't Huffpo Without the People. Does AOL Know That? — Everyone's anxious to know whether AOL got a sweetheart deal or a bum one when it bought the Huffington Post. A majority of commentators are inclined to think the latter, and Wall Street agrees: In a neat coincidence …

Discussion: The Wire

Associated Press:
Newspaper stocks jump on content hopes

Discussion: New York Observer and blogs.journalism.co.uk

Keith Richman / AdAge:
Now That AOL Has Huffpo, Where's the Video?

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wire, Ken Doctor's Instablog, paidContent, GigaOM, Drudge Report, Search Engine Land and LA Observed

Post Now:

WJLA to take over TBD.com — This story has been updated. — Allbritton Communications will reorganize its fledgling local news site, TBD.com, by naming a new boss for the operation, and restoring the Newschannel 8 name to the cable TV station it rebranded as TBD TV last summer, Paul Farhi reports.

Discussion: Lost Remote, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Poynter, The Wrap, @jimbradysp, NetNewsCheck Latest, bizjournals, @lavrusik, @jimbradysp, @jayrosen_nyu, @dangillmor and DCist

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Wait, everyone! TBD's not dead, but changes coming with TV takeover

Discussion: Recovering Journalist and TBD All News

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Time Inc. Gets the Tablet Magazine Subscriptions It Wants-With HP — Time Inc., which has been unable to come to terms with Apple over subscriptions for digitized magazines, has found a company it can work with: Hewlett-Packard. — HP has agreed to let Time Warner's publishing unit provide subscriptions …

Discussion: Mediaweek, FishbowlNY, NetNewsCheck Latest and Digital Daily

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent: Time Inc's Rothenberg: No ‘One-Size-Fits-All Model’ For Subscriptions; HP Up First

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

CBS Wants Contract Extension for Katie Couric — The network, which is shaking up its management, has asked anchor Katie Couric to stay on through the 2012 elections—for significantly less money than her original $15 million deal, a source tells Howard Kurtz.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, TVNewser, The Daily Beast, Mediaite, mediabistro.com and The Huffington Post

Andrea Morabito / Broadcasting & Cable:
New CBS News Chair: 'I Don't Know Whether' Couric Wants To Stay

Discussion: Poynter, Tower Ticker, Media & Entertainment, B&C, mediabistro.com, Yahoo! News, The Huffington Post, Chickaboomer, Company Town and Media Decoder

Media Decoder:

For Current TV, Adding Olbermann Is Way to Gain an Identity — The small cable channel Current TV hopes that Keith Olbermann can do for it what he did for MSNBC: give it a clear identity. — The channel, co-founded by Al Gore five years ago, said Tuesday that Mr. Olbermann would start producing …

Discussion: On Media's Blog, Mixed Media, Mediaite, MediaPost, Multichannel, TVNewser, The Huffington Post, Hollywood Reporter, Show Tracker, Washington Post, Media & Entertainment, Inside Cable News, Deal Journal, Fortune, Poynter and Chickaboomer

Andrea Morabito / Broadcasting & Cable:
Upfronts 2011: Current TV Positions Itself as ‘Real’ Reality Network

Discussion: The Wrap, Mediaite and The Huffington Post

Ben Popper / New York Observer:

AdKeeper CEO Scott Kurnit Says Every Day Can Be Super Bowl Sunday ... For Ads — It's okay, you can admit it, you love ads. It's just human nature. — So says Scott Kurnit, CEO of AdKeeper, in a lengthy op-ed in All Things Digital today. — AdKeeper is a New York startup that plans …

Discussion: Voices on All Things Digital

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Not all content is king on Wall Street — While journalists and other media types like to think professionally produced content is king, our friends in the financial community apparently don't agree. — Recent deals like the Facebook financing, the Demand Media IPO and the Huffington Post sale show …

Discussion: Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp closes in on daughter's Shine Television — Key meetings due in coming days to consider takeover of Elisabeth Murdoch's London-based company — Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is closing in on the takeover of his daughter's Shine Television - the £300m-plus …

Discussion: Media Matters for America

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Local TV News + Twitter's Talking Heads = NBC's “The 20″ — If you're reading this, there are decent odds you don't watch your local TV news broadcast. Would you be any more inclined if it featured a dollop of Twitter? — NBC will find out. Its Local Media unit …

Discussion: Lost Remote

The Wrap:

The Nikki Finke Photo: The Daily vs. Deadline — Since last Thursday, the little-seen blogger Nikki Finke has been hunkered down in a war of attrition with News Corporation over the thing that she apparently fears more than anything on earth: a current photograph.

Discussion: New York Observer, Gawker, AltWeeklies.com, Runnin' Scared, @iwantmedia, LA Observed and The Wire

Ronald Grover / Bloomberg:

News Corp.'s Fox Says It May Drop Stations in Dispute Over Fees — News Corp.'s Fox network said it may drop some affiliates if the local TV stations are unwilling to pay a program fee sought by the broadcaster. — Without an agreement on a new fee schedule, Fox “will have to pursue …

Discussion: Online Video News

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

Boston Globe's augmented reality project an example of quick, cheap innovation — Augmented reality is still a foreign concept for most journalists, but The Boston Globe showed last weekend that “AR” can be done quickly and cheaply, making it an experiment worth trying in any newsroom.

Greg Masters / American Journalism Review:

“Verve and Attitude” — The new editor of the Philadelphia Daily News wants his reporters to write with a point of view. Posted: Wed, Feb. 9, 2011 — Greg Masters (gmasters@ajr.umd.edu) is an AJR editorial assistant. — “I hereby free you from the tyranny of the Inverted Pyramid,” the list rousingly begins.

Discussion: Poynter