Mediagazer: ESPN Gives Web Star Bill Simmons His Own Site (Peter Kafka/MediaMemo)

5:20 PM ET, February 18, 2011

Top News:

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Time Inc. Chief Executive Jack Griffin Out — The chief executive of Time Inc., Jack Griffin, is leaving the company after less than six months on the job — forced out over what company executives said was a widespread sense that his management style was brusque and did not fit the corporate culture there.

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.

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Ousted Time Inc CEO Griffin fires back about reason for departure — Jack Griffin, the ousted CEO of Time Inc. has fired back at Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes who blamed yesterday's firing on a clash of management styles. — Said Griffin in his first public response, “I was recruited and hired …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Insiders: Bewkes Fired Griffin Over Poor Communication, Talent-Drain Fears — My first thought when I heard that Jeff Bewkes fired Time Inc. CEO Jack Griffin was a sentence I can't print here. The second one: maybe he learned something from AOL (NYSE: AOL) after all.

Discussion: Deal Journal, The Wrap, FishbowlNY, MediaPost and AdAge

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

Keith J. Kelly / @media_ink: Time Inc. CEO Jack Griffin fired after only five months on the job. Stunning development

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: Yahoo! News, Poynter and The Raw Feed, more at Techmeme »

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

New York Times:

Security Forces in Bahrain Open Fire on Mourners — MANAMA, Bahrain — Government forces opened fire on hundreds of mourners marching toward Pearl Square Friday, sending people running away in panic amid the boom of concussion grenades. But even as the people fled, at least one helicopter sprayed fire …

Discussion: BBC, Guardian, News Desk, CNN, ProPublica, Salon, The New Yorker Blog, Washington Post, New York Magazine, AOL News, Indecision Forever, The Daily Dish, Soup and Yahoo! News

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

Discussion: The Lede and Committee to Protect …

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

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

Wall Street Journal:

Regulators Eye Apple Anew — Enforcers Interested in Whether Digital-Subscription Rules Stifle Competition — WASHINGTON—U.S. antitrust enforcers have begun looking at the terms Apple Inc. set this week for media companies who want to sell their content on its popular iPad and other devices …

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The Newsonomics of Apple/Press+/Google's pay-for-all

Discussion: PadGadget, Canadian Magazines, blogs.chron.com and PC World

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

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

What Bob Iger Values Most In TV's Digital Future — If there was any doubt as to how Disney (NYSE: DIS) CEO Bob Iger sees the changing TV world, it became abundantly clear in the closing hours of Disney's investors conference on Thursday in Anaheim. — In short, for all the emphasis he puts …

Discussion: VideoNuze, PR Newswire and Future of Journalism

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:
Disney Interactive Media Group: The Turnaround Plan

Discussion: Media Money …

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: Multichannel, TVNewser and New York Magazine

Victoria Barret / Upside Potential:

Is Pure Journalism Unaffordable? — Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider is in Barcelona this week covering the Mobile World Conference. In a post about the event, he mentions this aside: … Woah. Let's be clear, here. Samsung is buying influence. If they didn't think they were …

Discussion: @eldon, CJR and Crikey

Jim Romenesko / Poynter: Tech firms help news sites with Mobile World Congress expenses

HuffPost TV / The Huffington Post:

WATCH: Arianna Discusses Her Editorial Vision On Charlie Rose — Arianna and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong sat down with Charlie Rose on Thursday to discuss the recent merger of The Huffington Post with AOL. — Arianna explained to Charlie her larger vision for the future of the company.

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

Margaret Brennan: Bloomberg TV's force — Commentary: Anchor aims to boost her employer's profile — NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — When people start talking about cable news, invariably they launch into deep discussions about the fortunes of Fox, CNN, MSNBC and CNBC.

Discussion: Inside Cable News and Talking Biz News

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

BBC Finally Turns iPlayer In To A VOD TV Aggregator — Commercial public TV broadcasters are about to get a big boost to their web-based VOD services from the BBC. — Nine months after it first announced it, the BBC has finally started including in BBC iPlayer linked VOD listings for counterpart sites.

Discussion: GigaOM

Chris Ariens / mediabistro.com:

Paul Friedman out at CBS News — TVNewser has learned another CBS News executive is out the door today. Executive VP for news Paul Friedman is leaving the company. Incoming chairman of the news division Jeff Fager made the announcement in a memo to staff a short time ago:

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and TVNewser

David Marsh / Guardian:

Yes, we do know what day it is (but we probably won't say so) | Mind your language — For an online readership, words such as ‘tonight’ and ‘yesterday’ can be confusing and misleading - so we have dropped them — I am writing this at 5pm on Thursday in London.

Discussion: Editors Weblog, Thanks:martinsfp

Claude Brodesser-Akner / New York Magazine:

YouTube Offering Millions for Celebrity-Created Content — In a move designed to vastly improve the quality of its content, Google's YouTube is undertaking what's understood to be a massive bid to attract Hollywood talent — one that has agents practically leaping out of their John Lobbs …

Discussion: GigaOM