Mediagazer: Is Writing Online Without Pay Worth It? (NPR)

11:45 PM ET, February 15, 2011

Top News:

Trudy Muller / Apple:

Apple Launches Subscriptions on the App Store — Apple® today announced a new subscription service available to all publishers of content-based apps on the App Store℠, including magazines, newspapers, video, music, etc. This is the same innovative digital subscription billing service …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Reflections of a Newsosaur, Mediactive, Ars Technica, Billboard.Biz, Think Vitamin, John Gapper's blog, Fortune, Mixed Media, SAI, VentureBeat, Digital Daily, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable!, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, Poynter, paidContent, CNET News, Newsonomics, SAI, Between the Lines Blog, AppAdvice, GigaOM, Engadget, Kindle Review, Top Digital Journal News, DailyFinance, Mediaweek, paidContent:UK, Company Town, The Atlantic Wire, Pulse2, Electronista, Computerworld, CrunchGear, GigaOM, eBookNewser, Faster Forward, L.A. Times Tech Blog, GMSV, ryanfaas's blog, Evolver.fm, MacStories, The Wrap, Inside Mobile Apps, Tech Trader Daily, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, WebNewser, Fast Company, FishbowlNY, Electricpig.co.uk, AOL News, Epicenter, paidContent:UK, AdAge, MacRumors, New York Observer, Soup, Media Buyer Planner and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Popular Science Accepts Apple's Terms, Starts Selling iPad Subscriptions — Apple Asks In-app Subscribers: ‘Share Your Information?’ — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Popular Science has become apparently the first magazine to accept the iPad subscription plan that Apple detailed this morning.

Discussion: MacStories and FishbowlNY

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What Apple's new subscription policy means for news: new rules, new incentives, new complaints — Apple has announced its long-awaited subscription policy for newspapers, magazines, and other outlets who want to sell content for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The high points:

Discussion: TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, DailyFinance, Between the Lines Blog, CNET News, SAI, GigaOM, Computerworld, Mixed Media, AppAdvice and Faster Forward, more at Techmeme »

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Updated: Apple's Subs Rules Could Suck $1 Million From Financial Times

Discussion: Future of Journalism

CBS News:

CBS News' Lara Logan Assaulted During Egypt Protests — CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Separated From Her Crew And Brutally Assaulted on Day Mubarak Stepped Down — On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering …

Foster Kamer / Esquire:

Lara Logan Assaulted in Egypt: Notes from the Night Before — CBS released this photo of Logan “moments before she was assaulted.” In her final public comments before the incident, she told Esquire.com that “I haven't had a chance to even address” traveling without private security.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Mediaite and Yahoo! News

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:

It's not all about content and work — In his column complaining about Huffington Post and the new economics of content competition, I think David Carr makes two understandable but fundamentally fallacious assumptions about news and media: that the value in journalism is in content and that making content must be work.

Discussion: New York Observer, Techdirt and The Huffington Post

NPR:

Is Writing Online Without Pay Worth It? … Many online and social media companies — from Facebook to Twitter — that rely on writers to fuel their popularity have been valued at astronomical sums. — Last week, AOL agreed to buy The Huffington Post for $315 million. The sale will undoubtedly make some people rich.

Discussion: MediaPost, Metamedia, Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard, Online Journalism Blog and Burst Media Company Blog

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
72 Hours: Inside Arianna's Mission To Change AOL

Discussion: Guardian, MediaPost, L.A. Times Tech Blog and NYConvergence.com

Ryan Chittum / CJR: AOL's HuffPo Premium Doesn't Mean Much For the NYT

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
First AOL Q1 Luge Update Since HuffPo Acquisition: We've Got Work To Do (No Kidding)

Discussion: SAI

Adam Pasick / New York Magazine:

Daily Editor Rallies the Troops — Jesse Angelo, editor-in-chief of Rupert Murdoch's iPad-only tabloid, The Daily, sent out a memo to his editorial team this week, urging them to go beyond “scraping the web and the wires” and do some actual reporting: … The memo continues:

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, CJR, Runnin' Scared, Vanity Fair, ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller, FishbowlNY, MediaPost, On Media's Blog and Gawker

Zombie Journalism:

First try at using Xtranormal for news at TBD — In a wjchat a few weeks ago, we were brainstorming ways to use non-traditional new media tools for news. One of those tools was Xtranormal, an animation site that allows you to make cartoon videos with no offsite tools or experience.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab and TBD All News

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

1,900 copies: How a top-selling Kindle Single is generating new audiences for ProPublica — Listing the eight big trends journalism will see over the next year, Josh highlighted the increasing role that the singles model will play in the news. He was talking about the disaggregation …

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

Does W Have a Carine Roitfeld Problem? … When Stefano Tonchi named Alex Gonzalez creative director of W magazine, we were relieved that the expecting father and newlywed would be getting a helping hand. But a line at the end of the announcement gave us pause: “In addition to his role …

Philip B. Corbett / Times Topics:

Phrases We Love Too Much — Notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style. (Some frequently asked questions are here.) — Almost two years ago, my colleague Adam Bryant noted in After Deadline our fondness for the “he/she is not alone” device. As Adam said, it's a popular …

Andrew Adam Newman / New York Times:

Competing for the Cover of the Rolling Stone — AS Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show famously sang in 1973, getting “your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone” signaled that a band had officially arrived. But for the first time in its 44-year history, Rolling Stone editors are ceding …

Kate Kaye / ClickZ:

Yahoo Explores Deals Offering for Newspaper Partners — Yahoo's partnerships with newspaper publishers - including one of its biggest scores, Gannett - are chugging along. The company continues to consider new ways of working with its so-called consortium of local media partners.

Kunur Patel / AdAge:

WPP to Roll Up Digital Agencies Into New Unit — Schematic, Bridge and Others Combine to Create Top 20 Digital Network — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — WPP will roll up multiple digital agencies into a new agency with a yet-to-be-released name, according to multiple people familiar with the plans.

Discussion: AdScam/The Horror!

Alex Alvarez / Mediaite:

Michael Wolff Vs. Elizabeth Spiers: The Anatomy Of A Media Feud — From the “What New York Media Types are Fighting About This Week” file comes a(n ongoing) feud between Rupert Murdoch biographer and Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff and Elizabeth Spiers, Gawker founding editor and current editor in chief of The New York Observer.

Discussion: The Wire, Michael Gross, New York Magazine and Adweek