Mediagazer: War for the Observer: Management Battles With Legacy (Dylan Byers/Adweek)

5:55 PM ET, February 14, 2011

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Huffpo Editor: Facebook Doesn't Pay You, So Why Should We? — Nico Pitney. Image by Center for American Progress Action Fund via Flickr — Media companies provide their audiences with information; social networks give their users ways to disseminate their own information and keep track of each other's activities.

Discussion: Mediaite, NetNewsCheck Latest, Poynter and Soup

David Carr / New York Times:

At Media Companies, a Nation of Serfs — Some of the fizz, if not a great big bubble, seems to have returned to media, depending on how you define “media.” — There have been reports in The New York Times and elsewhere that Facebook is now valued at $50 billion, and The Wall Street Journal reported …

Daniel D'Addario / New York Observer:
Come Work for Me, Darling!: Arianna Huffington Sings Siren Song to Journo-Kids

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Lloyd Grove / The Daily Beast:
Arianna's Nearly Silent Partner

Discussion: New York Observer

John C Abell / Epicenter:

Wired and The New Yorker for Android Coming This Spring — Android versions of Wired and The New Yorker will be available in the spring, Condé Nast announced Monday. The two publications have been available for the iPad for months, but only now are tablets running Google's competing …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Eric Pfanner / New York Times:

Condé Nast Newsstand Tries Convergence of Technologies — LONDON — A newsstand set to open here next week will sell more than a dozen international editions of Vogue magazine, in languages including English, Russian and Chinese. More than 100 other titles from around the world …

Discussion: MediaPost and Noted

John Reinan / MinnPost:

RIP, USA Today — One of the great media innovations of our lifetime is dying. — USA Today launched in 1982 as the first truly national newspaper. With its colorful design and a heavy emphasis on light news, it was often mocked as a shallow “McPaper,” but I've never been among the mockers.

Discussion: Poynter, MediaPost and @lavrusik

New York Observer:

Local Politics Guru Azi Paybarah Returns to The Observer … Azi Paybarah will rejoin the staff of The New York Observer, editor-in-chief Elizabeth Spiers announced today. — “Azi Paybarah is a prolific political reporter and I look forward to the dynamism and energy he'll bring to the Observer newsroom,” she said.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

New York Times:

Inside the Muslim (Journalist's) Mind — The Pakistani public, long skeptical of American goals in Afghanistan and the Muslim world, is now outraged over Washington's insistence that the authorities release a former United States Special Forces soldier charged with killing two Pakistani men last month.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Hey Grammys, you can't tape-delay social media — While viewers in most of the U.S. were wrapping up the live broadcast of The Grammy Awards, viewers on the West Coast were just getting started with the tape-delayed version, airing at 8 p.m. PT. As is customary for many viewers now …

Discussion: Speakeasy, Media & Entertainment, GRAMMY.com, Media Decoder and Multichannel

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Google to Users: Tell Us Which Content Farms You Hate — Google's Matt Cutts. He's no Spam fan. Image via Wikipedia — Google has been promising to take action against producers of low-quality, keyword-gaming content producers that spam up its search results, and now it's making …

Discussion: The Official Google Blog, The Next Web, TechCrunch, L.A. Times Tech Blog, GigaOM, Digits, CNET News, SAI, @pkedrosky, Geek.com, Techie Buzz, Domain Name Wire, ReadWriteWeb, Search Engine Land and DailyFinance, more at Techmeme »

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Twitter Feed Evolves Into a News Wire About Egypt — While people debated whether Web sites like Twitter were important in organizing protests in Tunisia and Egypt, Andy Carvin was organizing information about the protests in an innovative way. — Mr. Carvin's Twitter account was transformed …

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:

CBS, Couric Talks Draw Near — Katie Couric may end up doing something seen as unlikely just a few years ago: stay on as anchor of “CBS Evening News.” — Both CBS Corp. and Ms. Couric appear open to a new deal that would keep her at the network's news division beyond her current five-year deal …

Discussion: Yahoo! News and Chickaboomer

Dylan Byers / Adweek:

War for the Observer: Management Battles With Legacy — Real estate scion, right-hand man leave elite paper shell of former self — When Jared Kushner bought The New York Observer in 2006 from its benefactor and owner, Arthur Carter, New York City's salmon-colored staple had been losing about $2 million dollars a year.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Poynter, Spiersblr and New York Magazine

Martin Langeveld / News after Newspapers:

Tackable aims to become the social network for user-generated news — Facebook and Twitter may be a great way to organize revolutions, but as we saw during the last few weeks of checking #Egypt and #Jan25 hashtags, following them on Twitter can mean a frustrating hunt through lots of chaff to find a few grains of wheat.

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Content Recommendation Engine Outbrain Nabs $11M in New Funding — Expands Reach into Reuters U.K., Possibly Huffington Post — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Internet startup Outbrain just grabbed $11 million in a third round of funding, bringing the company's total financing to $29 million.

Discussion: Market Wire and paidContent, Thanks:nitwitty

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

Tablet options proliferate for publishers, but Apple maintains control — In mostly separate announcements over the past two weeks, Google, Motorola, Time Warner, HP and Yahoo have all taken aim at Apple and its growing dominance of the digital tablet and mobile publishing markets.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, paidContent and Editors Weblog

Time Out Chicago:

Can the News Licensing Group save journalism? An interview with AP CEO Tom Curley — Earlier this month, those following journalism news heard that this year global news network the Associated Press would launch a new agency to allow publishers to license digital news content.

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

App-Happy Brands Bypassing Facebook to Build Content on It — Marketers Rely on Third-Party Technology and ‘Preferred Developers’ Liked by the Social Network — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — When Ron Faris was looking last year for a way to build out a Facebook page for Virgin Mobile USA …