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

3:55 AM ET, February 10, 2011

Top News:

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: Echo, @chucktodd, Ken Doctor's Instablog and The Atlantic Online, Thanks:mathewi

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 Evolving Newsroom

Matt Welch / Reason:
Arianna Huffington, Slavemaster?

Discussion: Opinion L.A., Pressthink and blogs.journalism.co.uk

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

Discussion: Washington Post, The Big Picture, MarketWatch, Hot Air and Opinion L.A.

New York Post:
AOL stock sheds $315M — HuffPo price tag

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Future of Journalism

Associated Press:
Newspaper stocks jump on content hopes

Discussion: New York Observer and Big News Network.com

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, Poynter, @jimbradysp, @jimbradysp, Washington Examiner, @jayrosen_nyu, bizjournals, The Wrap, @lavrusik, @dangillmor and NetNewsCheck Latest

Terry Heaton / Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog:

WJLA-TV re-assumes control of “its” website — According to reports out of Washington, Albritton Communications is transferring control of its experimental news start-up, TBD.com, back to its TV station in the market, WJLA-TV, where GM and News Director Bill Lord will now be in charge.

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

Discussion: Recovering Journalist and GigaOM

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: Folio, Reuters, FishbowlNY, Mediaweek, NetNewsCheck Latest and Digital Daily, more at Techmeme »

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

Byrne / majordojo:

How did WordPress win? — When we are passionate about something, it is sometimes hard for us to wrap our heads around why someone else might not be passionate about the same thing. You see this in the WordPress community often - fans and users of WordPress are often flabbergasted that someone might choose something else.

Discussion: @mathowie

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Gawker's Scoop Draws Eyes to a New Format — Representative Christopher Lee's sudden resignation on Wednesday was triggered by an article on Gawker, the Manhattan-based gossip Web site. — The story of the married “Craigslist Congressman” who evidently sought out a woman via …

Discussion: City Room, Gawker, Crikey, Piers Morgan and @jyarow

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

Andrew Adam Newman / New York Times:

For Rihanna's Perfume, a Video Meant for Rewatching — WHEN new perfumes are introduced, fragrance companies typically mount introductory advertising campaigns that run widely in women's fashion magazines, often including sample strips. — But to introduce a new perfume named for the singer Rihanna …

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

Steve Peoples / Roll Call:

Tea Party Creates Own Magazine to Reflect Movement's Values — The tea party movement, known for its regular attacks on the media, is formally joining the media business. — Activists have created a magazine, Tea Party Review, to be launched this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Discussion: CJR, The Stir By CafeMom, The Caucus, Politics Daily, Yahoo! News, The Huffington Post and Washington Wire

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry / SAI:

Reddit Turnaround Shows How Big Companies Can Get M&A Right — Of all the storied properties owned by Condé Nast, which one is generating the most pageviews? — It's not Vanity Fair, it's not Vogue, and it's not GQ. It's none of the usual suspects.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Mashable! and VentureBeat

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.

Ellie Behling / eMedia Vitals:

Financial media outlets tweet with care — The New York Stock Exchange wouldn't be my first choice as a venue to talk about Twitter, but there we were at last night's Social Media Week event, listening to how financial media companies have adopted social media.

Discussion: NYConvergence.com

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, mediabistro.com, Mediaite, The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post