Mediagazer: ‘Tosh.0’ turns Internet videos into laughs, cash for Comedy Central (Meg James/Los Angeles Times)

4:30 PM ET, March 8, 2011

Top News:

Warner Bros. to Rent Movies Digitally on Facebook, Starting With ‘Dark Knight’ … Warner Bros. is turning to Facebook, where it hopes to find an electronic audience interested in digitally renting The Dark Knight. — Warners said Monday that it is the first Hollywood studio to offer movies directly on Facebook.

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Meet Your New Media Company: Facebook — Social Network Starts Movie Rentals, Threatening Apple, Netflix, Hulu — A big, powerful wild card just entered the movie distribution business. Warner Bros. Entertainment announced today it will begin distributing movies for sale and for rent through Facebook …

Discussion: Company Town, Media & Entertainment, Lost Remote, Multichannel and Broadcasting & Cable

James Fallows / The Atlantic Online:

Learning to Love the (Shallow, Divisive, Unreliable) New Media — EVERYONE FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA TO TED KOPPEL IS BEMOANING A DECLINE IN JOURNALISTIC SUBSTANCE, SERIOUSNESS, AND SENSE OF PROPORTION. BUT THE AUTHOR, A LONGTIME ADVOCATE OF THESE VALUES, TAKES A JOURNEY THROUGH THE DIGITAL-MEDIA WORLD …

Discussion: New York Observer, @scottros, @romenesko and @chanders, Thanks:jaredbkeller

Brett Pulley / Bloomberg:

Gannett Considers Charging for Online Newspaper Content, CEO Dubow Says — Gannett Co., the owner of 82 newspapers including USA Today, is considering charging for its online content, Chief Executive Officer Craig Dubow said. — The company, which also owns television stations …

Discussion: Poynter, Guardian, Noted and Gannett Blog

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

Nine Questions on the Dallas Morning News Pay Plan — Don't mess with Texas, Lyle Lovett has advised us. That may be worth keeping in mind as publisher Jim Moroney turns a lot of conventional wisdom on its ear and launches a pay wall in America's fifth-largest metro area and eighth-largest city.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Newspapers Hope Readers Will Throw Money Over the Wall

Thanks:mathewi

Mike Orren:
Paywall, ho! — It's official- the Dallas Morning News paywall goes live tomorrow.

Discussion: Editors Weblog, WebNewser and @jayrosen_nyu

Dan Frommer / The Wire:

Google Really, Officially, Finally Is A Media Company — In case you still had any doubts, Google is now OFFICIALLY a media company. — YouTube just finally closed its acquisition of Next New Networks, a NYC-based startup in the online video production industry. — (Click here to flip through NNN's most famous videos.)

Discussion: Mashable! and SAI

Alex Pham / Company Town:
Google's YouTube buys Next New Networks

Discussion: Mediaweek, TVWeek.com, TechCrunch, Beet.TV, MediaMemo, @pkafka, NYConvergence.com and Beet.TV

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
YouTube Makes Acquisition to Move Beyond Home Videos

Matthew Boyle / The Daily Caller:

NPR executives caught on tape bashing conservatives and Tea Party, touting liberals — A man who appears to be a senior National Public Radio senior executive, Ron Schiller, has been captured on camera savaging conservatives and the Tea Party movement. — “The current Republican Party …

Discussion: Weigel, Current.org Blog, James O'Keefe's Project …, CJR, Media Decoder, Yahoo! News, Mediaite, The Wire, mediabistro.com, Indecision Forever and FishbowlDC

Matt Waite / Nieman Journalism Lab:

To build a digital future for news, developers must be able to hack at the core of old systems — Editor's Note: Matt Waite was until recently news technologist at the St. Petersburg Times, where — among many other projects — he was the primary developer behind Politifact, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

Discussion: Hot Type Consulting

John Shaughnessy / Thomson Reuters:

THOMSON REUTERS LAUNCHES NEXT-GENERATION PROFESSIONAL NEWS OFFERINGS — Reuters powers new services for science, legal, tax and accounting pros — Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, is launching a suite of news products designed …

Discussion: paidContent, Talking Biz News and Journalism.co.uk

Jim Romenesko / Poynter: Look out, TMZ!: Reuters to distribute ‘paparazzi-type footage’

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why Facebook Is Not the Cure For Bad Comments — There's been a lot of discussion recently about Facebook-powered comments, which have been implemented at a number of major blogs and other publishers (including here at GigaOM) over the past couple of weeks.

Discussion: BuzzMachine, PC Magazine, TechCrunch, Stowe Boyd, Howard Lindzon, NBC Bay Area, Engadget, The Huffington Post, Technologizer and SAI

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

A perpetual motion machine for investigative reporting: CPI and PRI partner on state corruption project — There is a flaw in the investigative reporting model and it has to do with longevity. Follow me on this for a second: A reporter works months at a time scouring documents, meeting sources …

Discussion: Future of Journalism and NetNewsCheck Latest

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Spotify Toots Its Own Horn: One Million Paying Subscribers — Nope, Spotify still isn't in the U.S. yet. But the European streaming music service does have something to announce. It has a million paying subscribers, CEO Daniel Ek writes in a blog post. — Truth in blog posts about blog posts: The number isn't news.

Discussion: Spotify, Guardian, VentureBeat, Music Ally, paidContent, CNET News, hypebot, The Next Web, GigaOM, SAI and louisgray.com, more at Techmeme »

Michael Oneal / Chicago Tribune:

Tribune Co. bankruptcy nearing finish line — Questions, answers as lawyers for media firm, creditors head to confirmation hearings in Delaware — After 27 months of legal wrangling, Tribune Co. and its creditors are finally headed into what could be the deciding chapter of the company's tangled bankruptcy saga.

Discussion: Media Buyer Planner and Poynter

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Mog, the Digital Music Service, Takes Aim at the TV and the Car — The next frontier for digital music is not a tablet or a smartphone, but two items that have been part of everyday life for decades: the car and the television set. — For years, digital music has been confined mostly to traditional computers and phones.

Discussion: rbr.com and CNET News

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Comments, Video, Push Slate Ad Revs Up 33 Percent In '10 — The Slate Group, The Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) Co.'s online-only unit house Slate.com, The Root.com, and ForeignPolicy.com, says that combined ad revenue from all those sites gained 33 last year.

Discussion: Poynter

Meg James / Los Angeles Times:

‘Tosh.0’ turns Internet videos into laughs, cash for Comedy Central — The hit TV show that features comedian Daniel Tosh has caught on with young male viewers, becoming a must-buy for advertisers. — Comedian Daniel Tosh appears on the set of Comedy Central's hit TV show “Tosh.0” before taping.

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Cable Executives Vow to Stem Subscriber Losses … NEW YORK — Top cable executives at a Deutsche Bank media and entertainment investor conference in Florida on Monday said they want to focus on doing away with or at least reducing basic cable subscriber losses, which have led to investor concerns …

Discussion: FierceIPTV

Deena Higgs Nenad / EditorandPublisher.com:

Former AP Reporter Nears Profit After Starting a Paper From Scratch — Former Associated Press reporter Dan Robrish learned many valuable lessons when he started a newspaper from scratch in a small south central Pennsylvania borough one year ago. The most critical: Wrap up personal stuff …

Discussion: Editors Weblog, J-Source and MediaPost