Mediagazer: War, Boredom, and Journalism (Elissa Lerner/The Book Bench)

2:35 AM ET, February 23, 2011

Top News:

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Journalists start arriving in Libya — With foreign journalists banned in Libya, it's been very difficult to confirm the reports emerging by phone and social media that the government is brutally cracking down on protesters demanding the ouster of the country's staongman leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Discussion: Poynter, Guardian, Committee to Protect …, Future of Journalism and TVNewser

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:
Al Jazeera English in talks with US cable providers

Discussion: Al Jazeera Blogs, mediabistro.com, Time, This Just In, CJR, The Atlantic Wire and GigaOM

Sam Gustin / Epicenter: Al-Jazeera in Talks With Comcast Over U.S. Distribution

Nathan Olivarez-Giles / L.A. Times Tech Blog: Syrian blogger jailed as social media helps protestors in Middle East

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Demand Media's First Earnings Report Includes an Actual Profit — Here's the first quarterly report card for the first big Web IPO of the year: Demand Media, dinged in the past for claiming profitability when that wasn't technically true, can now relax. The company earned a bona fide $1 million …

Discussion: BoomTown and Folio, more at Techmeme »

Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Demand Media's Rosenblatt Defends His Company's Content

Discussion: VentureBeat

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Blogging Is Dead Just Like the Web Is Dead — Blogging is on the decline, according to a New York Times story published this weekend — citing research from the Pew Center's Internet and American Life Project — and it is declining particularly among young people, who are using social networks such as Facebook instead.

Discussion: Wired, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, SAI, newsplexer and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:
FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver adjusts to New York Times, 6 months after joining the newsroom

Discussion: The Copy Box

The Atlantic Wire:

It's War of the Silicon Valley Boosters — The battle between Silicon Valley's two biggest boosters has flared up again, The Atlantic Wire has learned. It's an industry that takes its conferences very seriously: the conferences are where much of the business of launching, financing and selling new companies take place.

Discussion: Silicon Valley Watcher and @jason

Jun Yang / Bloomberg:

Google's YouTube Says It's in Negotiations to Stream Live NBA, NHL Games — Google Inc.'s YouTube said it's in talks with the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League to broadcast live games, building on the popularity of cricket's Indian Premier League last year.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, SAI and Online Video News, more at Techmeme »

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Rothenberg Leaves Time Inc., Returns To IAB Following Griffin's Ouster — Despite a concerted effort by Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Randall Rothenberg is leaving his new job as chief digital officer to return to his job heading the Interactive Advertising Bureau, paidContent has learned.

Discussion: Publishing Executive …, Poynter, MediaMemo, AdAge, Publishing Executive News, MinOnline, MediaPost, Media Decoder, mediabistro.com, @srabil and @koblin

Jeff Israely / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Building a news org in order to support good journalists — Editor's Note: Jeff Israely, a Time magazine foreign correspondent in Europe, is in the early stages of a news startup called Worldcrunch. He occasionally describes and comments on his startup process here at the Lab. Read his past installments here.

Discussion: Worldcrunch Blog and NetNewsCheck Latest

MediaShift Idea Lab:

Help Spot.Us Find a Path to Financial Sustainability — Spot.Us recently launched a new design, so this is an opportune time to write a “State of the Spot” post — something we haven't done since the website was six months old. I hope to lay out how far we've come and what's on our plate …

Discussion: Poynter and DigiDave

Liz Shannon Miller / GigaOM:

CBS Picks Netflix Over Hulu to Stream Classic Shows — Netflix's dominance when it comes to streaming films is unquestioned, but in early April it'll have an edge on Hulu, its chief competitor in the TV streaming business. That's because CBS announced that in early April “dozens” …

Discussion: Netflix, Broadcasting & Cable, VideoNuze, The Wrap, MediaPost, Company Town and NetNewsCheck Latest, more at Techmeme »

Guardian:

Will the Telegraph's online charging plan work? — The Telegraph's generous metered charging plan aims to retain casual browsers, reward the paper's print subscribers and create a club of loyal readers. But will it create revenues? — Getting a fix on the Telegraph's business strategy is always tricky.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
Telegraph plans some digital content charges from September

Discussion: Editors Weblog, Jon Slattery and Press Gazette

Elissa Lerner / The Book Bench:

War, Boredom, and Journalism — The unrest in the Middle East of late has proven that the romantic notion of the intrepid reporter running off to war is alive and well. Even in articles and newscasts that strive for nuanced approaches, we see a character we love to believe in and rarely challenge …

Alan Rusbridger / Guardian:

A taxing question — The Guardian's editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger on the challenges of practising what you preach — In April 1932, a small boat sailing on Lake Windermere was hit by a sudden squall and capsized. There were two people in the boat. One, Ted Scott, was drowned.

Discussion: Guy Fawkes' blog and Jon Slattery

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

Facebook threatens to sue Daily Mail over paedophile story — Social networking site unhappy with being named in story about a paedophile gang operating in Devon — Facebook is threatening legal action against the Daily Mail amid a dispute over the headline of a front page story that named …

Discussion: The Next Web

Mark Joyella / Mediaite:

Keith Olbermann Re: Current TV: “I'm In Charge” — Ex-MSNBC host Keith Olbermann may have lost his perch in cable news primetime, but-if quotes attributed to him are to be believed-he hasn't lost any of his, um, confidence. The Current TV-bound Olbermann is quoted by Cindy Adams …

Discussion: New York Post and Chickaboomer

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

Next Question: What's A Publishing App? … There's been so much confusion in the wake of Apple's new subscription billing policy for apps that Steve Jobs felt the need to issue the proclamation above via his preferred method, a personal email. (It's his version of the burning bush).