Mediagazer: Insiders: Bewkes Fired Griffin Over Poor Communication, Talent-Drain Fears (Staci D. Kramer/paidContent)

7:20 AM ET, February 19, 2011

Top News:

Mike Shields / Adweek:

Sources: IAB Considering Rehiring Rothenberg — Held president/CEO post from 2007 to last December — Does Randall Rothenberg want his old job back? — He may soon get the chance. Given Time Inc.'s ouster of Jack Griffin yesterday (Feb. 17), The Interactive Advertising Bureau …

David Carr / New York Times:

Time Inc.: The Anatomy of a Fiasco — Like most bad news, the departure of Jack Griffin — the chief executive of Time Inc. for less than six months — dropped at the end of the day, leaving the publishing community scratching its head and wondering how things had gone so wrong.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

How Much Severance Does Axed Time Inc. CEO Have Coming? — Jack Griffin, far right, with ex-colleagues from Time Inc. Image by via @daylife — Time Warner hired Jack Griffin last summer to be the CEO of its magazine division, Time Inc., home to People, Time and Sports Illustrated, among other titles.

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Insiders: Bewkes Fired Griffin Over Poor Communication, Talent-Drain Fears

Discussion: MinOnline, Media & Entertainment, Deal Journal, The Daily Beast, MinOnline, John Gapper's blog, The Wire and Wall Street Journal

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:
Ousted Time Inc CEO Griffin fires back about reason for departure

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, The Wrap and Media Decoder

Abbey Klaassen / AdAge: Jack Griffin: ‘My Exit Was Clearly Not About Management Style or Results’

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Gawker's Gulp Moment: Big Redesign Is Driving People Away — About ten days ago, gossip blog Gawker and its sister sites Gizmodo, Lifehacker and others switched over to a drastic redesign which was met with plenty of jeers. People always complain about design changes …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Poynter, Yahoo! News, New York Post and The Raw Feed

Terry Heaton / Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog: Pick one: Gawker takes a hit/Gawker is coming back

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry / The Wire: After Its Big Redesign, Gawker Media Pageviews Seem To Be Coming Back

Brad McCarty / The Next Web:

The AOL Way claims its first victim: Engadget editor Paul Miller resigns — A few weeks ago, in case you've missed the news, AOL released an internal document to its staff that was entitled The AOL Way. The documents contained what could be taken as a manifesto, of sorts, but really showed how AOL was intending to do business.

more at Techmeme »

Futurepaul / paul j. miller:

Leaving AOL — Today was my last day at Engadget. — I've been writing for Engadget for more than five years. What an insane thing to be able to say! In my time as Contributing Editor / Associate Editor / Senior Associate Editor / Pixel Density Enthusiast, I've written 1.5 million words on roughly 5,500 posts.

Discussion: SAI and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

New York Times:

Security Forces in Bahrain Open Fire on Protesters — MANAMA, Bahrain — At exactly 5:18 p.m. Friday, the pro-democracy demonstrators, mostly young men, came to a fork in the road. Turn right, and they would head to a hospital that has cared for protesters.

Discussion: BBC, Guardian, News Desk, Time, ProPublica, CNN, AOL News, Salon, The New Yorker Blog, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, New York Magazine, The Daily Beast, Big News Network.com, Indecision Forever, The Daily Dish, Washington Post and Soup

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:
Violence against journalists escalating in the Middle East

Discussion: The Lede, Committee to Protect … and AOL News

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

ESPN Gives Web Star Bill Simmons His Own Site — Here's Bill Simmons' reward for sticking with ESPN: His own piece of turf, where the star columnist/multimedia experimenter can cultivate a new sports/pop culture site. — Simmons already has his own page on ESPN.com, but this is something …

Discussion: Lost Remote, New York Magazine, SportsBusiness Daily, ESPN, The Wire, New York Observer and mediabistro.com

Dan Shanoff / Quickish: Why Bill Simmons' New Sports Media Project Is Going To Thrive

Felix Salmon / CJR:

Business Insider's Barcelona Junket — Victoria Barret reports on the nice little deal that Dan Frommer has going on in Barcelona: “Samsung was generous enough to sponsor our trip”, in the words of Frommer himself. — Barret is reasonably sympathetic, and likes the fact that Frommer inserts …

Discussion: Upside Potential

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

NY Times reinventing ‘Week in Review’ section — The New York Times is overhauling the paper's Sunday “Week in Review” section, a “reinvention project that will involve staff from both the newsroom and the editorial department.” — Times editor's aren't just tinkering with the existing “Week in Review.”

Discussion: Poynter

David Folkenflik / @davidfolkenflik:
NYT announces overhaul of Week in Review - will draw upon journalists from both the news and editorial sections.

Discussion: @davidakaplan and @mlcalderone

Mark Joyella / Mediaite:

BBC Plans To Boost News Coverage In The U.S.: “Never Been A Greater Need For Impartial News” — The BBC has announced changes in its American news efforts, including changes for the network's flagship U.S. newscast, BBC World News America, expanded ties to PBS stations …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Multichannel, TVNewser and New York Magazine

Erik Sass / MediaPost:

By Design: ‘Time,’ ‘Newsweek’ Plan Another Revamp — There seems to be a deep-seated belief in the consumer magazine industry that a new look can give a beleaguered publication a new lease on life — but the evidence suggests that superficial (or even more substantial) redesigns actually have little impact on circulation or ad sales.

Bill Barol / Buzz, Boom & Sizzle:

The Atavist: Building a home for longform in the digital landscape — I don't understand some of the specific grievances registered against The Atavist, an intriguing new news product out of Brooklyn. “I thought journalism was about news and not an avenue for someone to sell their non-fiction to the public …