Mediagazer: Blockbuster to be sold; opening bid set at $290 million (Ben Fritz/Company Town)

11:15 AM ET, February 22, 2011

Top News:

No More Mr. (Or Ms.) Nice Guy — As The Journal Drops ‘Courtesy Titles’ From the Sports Pages, It's Modernity Over Gentility — Joe Torre (left) and Derek Jeter after a 2001 playoff game. — Athletes get called many things, fairly and not. Great ones are often described as “amazing …

Discussion: Poynter and FishbowlNY

Mschuler / Marx Layne:

If blogging is dead, then it's living a healthy afterlife — As long as people enjoy writing more than a few sentences at a time, blogging will never die. — I'd contend that if blogging is dead, as this New York Times article suggests, then it's living a healthy afterlife.

Discussion: Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, Stowe Boyd, Adotas and Teds Take, Thanks:mattschuler

Matt Mullenweg:
Blogging Drift — The New York Times has a pretty prominent …

Discussion: Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Trends in the Living Networks, AdExchanger.com, Twist Image, TechCrunch, parislemon, Gatekeeper, Gothamist, toni.org, New York Times and Mark Evans Tech, more at Techmeme »

Ben Fritz / Company Town:

Blockbuster to be sold; opening bid set at $290 million — Home video chain Blockbuster Inc., in bankruptcy, has opted to put itself up for sale after creditors were unable to agree on a recapitalization plan. — The Dallas-based company said Monday that it has submitted a plan …

Discussion: paidContent, Los Angeles Times, CNET News, Associated Press, The Wrap, parislemon and LAist

Judy Battista / New York Times:

N.F.L. Labor Dispute Plays Out on Twitter — A few hours after N.F.L. owners filed a complaint against the players union last week alleging that it was not bargaining in good faith, Houston Texans right tackle Eric Winston took to his keyboard to react. — “The NFL has reached that point …

Discussion: Venture Capital Dispatch

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Why The Big Music Labels Won't Burn All Of Spotify's New Money (Right Away) — Spotify is set to cash a very big check. What it's going to do with that money? — The streaming music service is going to raise something like $100 million, at a valuation of $1 billion or more, very shortly …

Discussion: Kleinman, Music Ally and paidContent, more at Techmeme »

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Al Jazeera English in talks with US cable providers — Al Anstey, managing director of Al Jazeera English, is holding talks with US cable providers about carrying the network in the US for the first time. — According to a release from Al Jazeera, the first meeting is scheduled for today in New York with Comcast.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Time and Big Journalism

Dirk Johnson / New York Times:

Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Notes in the Margins — CHICAGO — Locked in a climate-controlled vault at the Newberry Library here, a volume titled “The Pen and the Book” can be studied only under the watch of security cameras. — The book, about making a profit in publishing, scarcely qualifies as a literary masterpiece.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Personanondata and Latest Open Salon Blog

Echo:

[VIDEO] TV Industry Taps Echo to Keep Viewers' Attention — Over on the NYtimes yesterday, Brian Stelter writes about the TV industry's push to build real-time two screen experiences for audiences using Social Media content. — He writes: … He couldn't be more correct.

Discussion: New York Times, Thanks:chrissaad

Stefan Meeuws / The Next Web:

When will Google put the ‘You’ back in YouTube? — YouTube is one of the biggest websites in the world, according to Alexa. Every hour, another 35 hours are added to the website. This is common knowledge, but you wouldn't guess it from YouTube's homepage.

Long Island University:

LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2010 GEORGE POLK AWARDS IN JOURNALISM — Rolling Stone honored for its history-making dispatch on the war in Afghanistan; — Associated Press wins for its extraordinary coverage of the Gulf oil spill — Long Island University has announced …

Discussion: Talking Biz News, The Wire, On Media's Blog, New York Times and LA Observed

Lauren Rabaino / mediabistro.com:

What newsrooms can learn from tech startups — NYU journalism professor and media critic Jay Rosen recently led a Web Journalists Chat on Twitter around the topic of “radical change in the newsroom” (see the highlights here). One of the reoccurring themes of the chat was that newsrooms need to radically revamp their culture.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and mediabistro.com

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Telegraph plans some digital content charges from September — Payment system described as ‘very light touch’, with a ‘very generous allowance’ before users forced to pay — Telegraph Media Group is understood to be planning to introduce charging for some of its digital content from September.

Discussion: Jon Slattery, Press Gazette and Editors Weblog

Nathan Olivarez-Giles / L.A. Times Tech Blog:

Syrian blogger jailed as social media helps protestors in Middle East — A veteran blogger in Syria was jailed Sunday — yet another example of just how important to demonstrators, and threatening to government regimes, the Internet can be. — The blogger, Ahmad Abu Khair …

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

The NYT's journalistic obedience — Earlier today, I wrote in detail about new developments in the case of Raymond Davis, the former Special Forces soldier who shot and killed two Pakistanis on January 27, sparking a diplomatic conflict between the U.S. (which is demanding that he be released …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, New York Times, Guardian, Boing Boing, AOL News and Gawker

Matt Brian / The Next Web:

Steve Jobs: Only publishers are bound by new in-app subscription rules — No more than a week has passed since Apple announced it was going to introduce App Store Subscriptions and analysts, publishers and app developers are already up in arms. — Apple has stated that for each …

Discussion: MacRumors, Marco.org and Ars Technica, more at Techmeme »