Mediagazer: Tribune Co. bankruptcy nearing finish line (Michael Oneal/Chicago Tribune)

6:25 AM ET, March 8, 2011

Top News:

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

YouTube Makes Acquisition to Move Beyond Home Videos — SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube, the video site owned by Google, formally announced on Monday that it had acquired Next New Networks, a Web video production company, in its biggest effort yet to move beyond short, quirky home videos to professionally produced content.

Discussion: YouTube Blog, Next New Networks, Online Video News, Techie Buzz, VentureBeat, Erictric, memeburn, Pulse2, Mashable!, SAI and Fast Company, more at Techmeme »

Alex Pham / Company Town:

Google's YouTube buys Next New Networks — Hoping to “supercharge” the next generation of online video stars, Google Inc.'s online video site YouTube on Monday announced it has purchased Next New Networks for an undisclosed sum. — As reported in Company Town in December …

Discussion: TechCrunch, MediaMemo, Beet.TV and @pkafka, 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: Poynter and Media Buyer Planner

Gregg Kilday / Hollywood Reporter:

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.

Discussion: The Next Web and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Henry Blodget / The Wire:

BUSINESS INSIDER SECRETS REVEALED: An Inside Look At Our Readership And Financial Performance — Most private companies zealously protect details about financial and operating performance, refusing to release so much as a revenue number. — The logic for this secrecy varies.

Discussion: Guardian, Poynter, VatorNews, mediabistro.com, TechCrunch and @mathewi, more at Techmeme »

Felix Salmon: The economics of Business Insider

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Look out, TMZ!: Reuters to distribute ‘paparazzi-type footage’ — Romenesko Misc. — Reuters says distributing Hollywood TV's footage of celebrities serves “a crucial role for entertainment programming needs” and complements the celebrity and entertainment coverage currently offered by Reuters.

Mike Orren:

Paywall, ho! — It's official- the Dallas Morning News paywall goes live tomorrow. We've had about a month to preview the new site and to get used to more rigorous registration requirements. Now, it's game on. After the jump, Jim Moroney's email to the troops and my thoughts: #

Discussion: Guardian, Newsonomics, @jayrosen_nyu and WebNewser

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: J-Source and MediaPost

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: steve's blog, Scobleizer, TechCrunch, Howard Lindzon, Engadget, The Huffington Post, Technologizer and Stowe Boyd, more at Techmeme »

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Sheen On Ustream: A Wasted Opportunity — “The future of television is happening right now,” tweeted someone sitting pretty in the medium's present, Survivor host Jeff Probst. But from the looks of the video to which he linked, a live stream of the ubiquitous Charlie Sheen, the future is going to have to wait.

Discussion: B&C, Company Town and VatorNews

John Cook / Gawker:

Talk Radio Is Fake Now — Premiere Radio Networks, the radio syndicator that brings you Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, knows better than anyone that its audience consists almost exclusively of mouth-breathing illiterates. That can make talk radio, which theoretically relies on the ability …

Discussion: Mediaite, The Huffington Post, rbr.com, The Wire and FOK News Channel

Newsweek:

My Favorite Mistake: Harvey Weinstein — Harvey Weinstein on smoking with Kate Moss—and his failed social network. — There are two things that come very easily to me: rooting for New York sports teams and making mistakes. One of my all-time classics happened when I took a plane …

Discussion: The Awl, Grids, The Wrap, WWD Media Headlines, Wall Street Journal, Scocca, FishbowlNY, Runnin' Scared, CJR and Guardian

Jim Rendon / Mother Jones:

Dan Rather: Inside Mark Cuban's Gilded Cage — At 79, the former CBS anchorman is still kicking ass and winning Emmys. But with his exposés sandwiched between pro wrestling and Girls Gone Wild, is anybody watching? — Post Comment — DAN RATHER IS EBULLIENT, more so than usual …

Discussion: Poynter, The Big Picture and TVNewser

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Welcome to GeekWire, from John Cook and Todd Bishop — For years we've covered the adventures of entrepreneurs large and small, successful and not-so-much — living vicariously through their attempts to build meaningful technology products and businesses. We've learned a lot along the way.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Martin Langeveld / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Who owns newspaper companies? The banks, funds, and investors and their (big) slices of the industry — Who owns America's newspapers? — In January, I detailed how a hedge fund named Alden Global Capital, which played a role in the shakeup at MediaNews Group, also had significant holdings …

Paul Bond / Hollywood Reporter:

Universal First Studio to Make All Movie Clips Available Online … Hoping to earn money from every snippet of a film, Universal has licensed rights to a vast portion of its library to AnyClip, a company that chops up films digitally and makes every moment searchable.

Discussion: Techland

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

WSJ Europe deputy editor departs — Iain Martin has quietly departed from the deputy editorship of the Wall Street Journal Europe. It follows the arrival of a new editor at the WSJE, Tracy Corrigan. — A spokeswoman confirmed that Martin had left, but did not comment further.

Discussion: Press Gazette

Jonathan S. Paul / tenones.tumblr.com:

To the Reader, Thank you for reading 111-111-1111 — To the Reader, Thank you for reading 111-111-1111 — Ten Ones — my real-time edit of NYTimes.com visual matter. At the urging of The New York Times legal department, I have suspended postings and removed the archive.

Discussion: Felix Salmon, Techdirt and Soup

Chris O'Shea / mediabistro.com:

The Best/Worst Selling Magazine Covers of 2010 — In the latest issue of min, the best and worst selling magazines of 2010 are listed. This New York cover from April of last year was the magazine's best seller, while its worst was actually a pretty interesting one: The Curse of Spider-Man from November.

Discussion: Adweek

Sam Gustin / Epicenter:

Does Arianna Huffington Have Enough Magic Touch Left to Save AOL? — In this photo provided by Earl Gibson III, Arianna Huffington appears as a panelist for Tavis Smiley's America's Next Chapter on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011 in Washington. (AP Photo/Earl Gibson III)

Discussion: Mixed Media

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
AOL-HuffPo Deal Officially Closes Today-More Big Media Hires Signal New Content Direction Under Arianna

Discussion: TechCrunch, Poynter, Poynter, BW: GUEST HOME, VatorNews, MediaPost, Black Web 2.0, GMSV, Softpedia News, New York Post, CNET News, The Wire, Mixed Media, DealBook, Fortune, paidContent and Newsweek

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Familiar Bylines Grace Tina Brown's Newsweek — Harvey Weinstein. Leslie H. Gelb. Kathleen Parker. — Tina Brown reached for some of the more well-worn cards in her Rolodex to write articles for the debut issue of her newly redesigned Newsweek, which hit newsstands today.

Discussion: The Wire, Yahoo! News and Editors Weblog