Mediagazer: Kachingle and the Limits of Tip-Jar Journalism (John Hendel/The Atlantic Online)

3:55 PM ET, March 1, 2011

Top News:

Frank Rich Joins New York Magazine — Frank Rich is joining New York Magazine, beginning in June. Rich will be an essayist for the magazine, writing monthly on politics and culture, and will serve as an editor-at-large, editing a special monthly section anchored by his essay.

Michael Barbaro / New York Times:

After Business and Politics, Mayor Tests Opinion — Over the last year, representatives of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg quietly reached out to a handful of the country's top journalists with an intriguing job offer: Divine and distill his unique brand of political philosophy and disseminate …

Discussion: Poynter, City Room, The Big Picture, The Empire, Gothamist, The Wire, On Media's Blog and FishbowlNY

Jodi Enda / American Journalism Review:

The Bloomberg Juggernaut — While many news organizations are struggling and retreating, Bloomberg News keeps adding talented journalists, expanding its empire and elevating its ambitions. Posted: Wed, March 1, 2011 — Jodi Enda (jaenda@gmail.com) writes about politics and government from Washington …

John Cook / New York Observer:

Was a Vanity Fair Editor Secretly Working for the Church of Scientology? — Gawker.com, where the author is employed a staff writer, declined to publish this story. — Did the Church of Scientology use a Vanity Fair contributing editor to infiltrate and gather intelligence on the cult's enemies in the media?

Discussion: Poynter, @johnjcook, @felixsalmon, @felixsalmon and @jeffbercovici

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:

Exploiting Charlie — When I arrived in Detroit to intern at the Free Press many years ago, I saw a local character dressed in a bright yellow rain slicker, no matter the weather, theatrically directing traffic in front of the Cadillac hotel. He was there every day.

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Julie Moos / Poynter:

Media acting as enablers with excessive coverage of “Two and a Half Men” star Charlie Sheen — Whether or not you watch “Two and a Half Men,” by now you've certainly heard about its troubled star, Charlie Sheen, who has been talking about the uncertain future of his hit show to anyone who will listen.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, The Wire, msnbc.com, The Huffington Post and Politics Daily

Jack Shafer / Slate:

Darrell Issa e-mail leaks: Why John F. Harris is massively overreacting. … Like This Story — Follow Slate's Press Box … - How Warren Buffett Is Making Millions Off His Smart Bet on Trains- Why Do Workers Need a Law Allowing Collective Bargaining? Can't They Just Do It?

Discussion: The Politico and On Media's Blog

The Politico:

Darrell Issa probes staff; spokesman Kurt Bardella at center of controversy — Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the powerful Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has launched an inquiry into whether spokesman Kurt Bardella improperly shared e-mails from other reporters …

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Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Recommendation Is Still the Holy Grail For News — If you count all the different media-related apps for the iPhone and iPad, there are almost an infinite number of ways to consume the news — some are specific to a particular newspaper or magazine, while others try to aggregate different sources of news for you.

Discussion: PC World

Chris Atkins / Media Standards Trust:

Fuel to the fire — Chris Atkins, the independent film maker who played a number of news hoaxes to help raise awareness about churnalism, writes a guest post describing what he did and how he did it — It was just under a month ago when the Media Standards Trust challenged me to raise awareness …

Discussion: Richard Sambrook … and Media Law Journal

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Exclusive: Thumbplay Gives Up On Music Subscriptions, And Clear Channel Steps In — After less than a year in the music subscription business, Thumbplay is giving up: The company is selling off the struggling service to Clear Channel Radio. — Thumbplay will hang on to its once-booming ringtone business …

Discussion: Guardian, Company Town, Mashable!, hypebot, Media Buyer Planner and paidContent

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Facebook Comments Platform Brings Media Partners Into Users' News Feeds — Facebook is relaunching its commenting plugin that will promise to insert media partners into users' news feeds. Previously, when a user made a comment on another site with their Facebook profile, the comment remained with that outside site.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Facebook Developer Blog, WebNewser, TechCrunch, Media Buyer Planner, ReadWriteWeb, Search Engine Land and Inside Facebook, more at Techmeme »

Gregory Ferenstein / Fast Company:

Google's Journalism Prize and the 5 Groups Who Should Win It — Google's running a $2.7 million contest for innovative online journalism and we rounded up 5 models to inspire the contestants. — Google's philanthropic spending spree has just dropped another $2.7 million to fund innovative uses …

Discussion: CyberJournalist.net

Nick Summers / The Daily Beast:

Eliot Spitzer's Nasty CNN Parting Shot to Kathleen Parker — Eliot Spitzer is already moving on, with his new show up and running. But even off the air, “Parker Spitzer” ended much as it began—with Spitzer insisting on the last word. — Time moves quickly in the 24-hour culture of cable news.

Discussion: mediabistro.com and The Wire

Emma Barnett / Telegraph:

Watchdog clamps down on web adverts — The UK's advertising watchdog is going to vet sites like Twitter and Facebook for the first time after receiving thousands of complaints about misleading online adverts. — The ASA will clampdown on misleading free ads on Twitter.

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Yahoo's Anna Robertson: Streaming Videos on Facebook is a “Huge Opportunity for Us” — Facebook pages are becoming increasingly video rich and an increasing number of small and large video publishers are streaming more of their videos “in-line,” meaning having their player on Facebook pages, not just providing links.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

John Hendel / The Atlantic Online:

Kachingle and the Limits of Tip-Jar Journalism — A two-year-old start-up has the best of intentions, but faces many obstacles and continues to struggle for acceptance — As the New York Times prepares to throw up its new subscription-based paywall in coming weeks, the news giant …

Discussion: MediaPost, Poynter and eMedia Vitals, Thanks:jaredbkeller

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Boxee's Backers Bet Big On Web Video, With A $16 Million Round — Here's that big funding round for Boxee I told you about last fall: The Web video software company has raised another $16.5 million. Previous investors General Catalyst, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures are all back …

Discussion: Boxee Blog, VentureBeat, Venture Capital Dispatch, GigaOM, paidContent, The Wire, TechCrunch and NYConvergence.com, more at Techmeme »

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Get the gray out of America's newspapers — In 1995, the Society of News Design counted a dozen American newspapers as among the best-looking in the world. By 2010, there were none. — Though it may not be fair to judge the problems of American newspaper publishers strictly by their covers …

Discussion: Matters of Varying …

Benny Evangelista / San Francisco Chronicle:

Bloomberg TV goes live from West Coast Feb. 28 — The expanding San Francisco office of Bloomberg LP launches a new hourlong television show today aimed at beaming technology news with a Silicon Valley point of view to the rest of the world. — “Bloomberg West” will air weekdays at 3 p.m …

Discussion: BusinessJournalism.org … and San Francisco Peninsula …