Mediagazer: “Verve and Attitude” (Greg Masters/American Journalism Review)

9:05 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, Poynter, Hot Air, About.com Journalism, Mediaite, blogs.journalism.co.uk, The Wrap 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, @chucktodd, Mixed Media, Los Angeles Times, Kempton, The Wire and Drudge Report, 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 …

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

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Future of Journalism

Matt Welch / Reason: Arianna Huffington, Slavemaster?

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: The Huffington Post, Ken Doctor's Instablog, The Wire, NetNewsCheck Latest, GigaOM and Search Engine Land

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, @jimbradysp, The Wrap, @jayrosen_nyu, @lavrusik, @jimbradysp, @dangillmor, bizjournals, DCist and NetNewsCheck Latest

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

Discussion: Recovering Journalist, GigaOM 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, Digital Daily and NetNewsCheck Latest

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, Mediaite, TVNewser, mediabistro.com, The Daily Beast 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, Yahoo! News, mediabistro.com, The Huffington Post, Chickaboomer, Media Decoder and Company Town

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

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 and ReadWriteWeb

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

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

Andrea Morabito / Broadcasting & Cable:

Upfronts 2011: Current TV Positions Itself as ‘Real’ Reality Network — Olbermann show, new unscripted series joining net in 2011 — A day after Current TV announced that Keith Olbermann would return to television with a nightly primetime commentary show on its network …

Discussion: The Wrap, Mediaite and The Huffington Post

Media Decoder:
For Current TV, Adding Olbermann Is Way to Gain an Identity

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

Amy Chozick / Wall Street Journal:

Working Stiffs: Playing Dead on TV Can Keep a Career on Life Support — Actors Are Sorely Needed for Corpse Duty; A Reporter Gets Shot on ‘Law & Order’ — “Corpses, hold your breath...and, Action!” the director yelled. I had been slumped in an office chair on a Hollywood set for hours …

Discussion: Company Town

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

Adam Hochberg / Poynter:

Maddow, MSNBC chase ‘two-screen viewers’ to increase engagement, ratings — For Susan Brannigan, watching television is a community experience, even though she's usually home alone when she does it. — Brannigan — an Annapolis, Maryland legal researcher — rarely turns on her TV without also booting up her laptop computer.

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, LA Observed, The Wire and @iwantmedia

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