Mediagazer: The flip side of black hat SEO: If your news site publishes paid links, you risk suffering Google's wrath (Martin Langeveld/Nieman Journalism Lab)

12:55 PM ET, March 9, 2011

Top News:

Mark Memmott / NPR:

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Resigns — This follows yesterday's news that then-NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation) was videotapped slamming conservatives and questioning whether NPR needs federal funding during a lunch with men posing as members of a Muslim organization …

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

NPR president Vivian Schiller resigns — Romenesko Misc. — NPR board chairman Dave Edwards says CEO and president Vivian Schiller's resignation was accepted “with understanding, genuine regret and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years.”

Discussion: Poynter, CJR, Associated Press, @brianstelter, @brianstelter, Hot Air, The Hill, NewsBusters.org blogs, Weasel Zippers, NewsBusters.org blogs, @carr2n, Hit & Run and The Daily Caller

New York Times:

Facing Lawmakers' Fire, NPR Sees New Setback — Already under fire from Republicans who want to strip its federal financing, NPR was forced into damage-control mode on Tuesday after the release of a video that showed one of its fund-raising executives repeatedly criticizing Republicans and Tea Party supporters.

Discussion: USA Today, Guardian, Bloggasm, BlogPost, Poynter and Boing Boing

Mark Memmott / NPR:

In Video: NPR Exec Slams Tea Party, Questions Need For Federal Funds — NPR's soon-to-be-departing senior vice president for fundraising Ron Schiller is seen and heard on a videotape released this morning telling two men who were posing as members of a fictitious Muslim Action Education Center that:

Discussion: Poynter, CNN, paidContent, Los Angeles Times, James O'Keefe's Project …, Tuned In, Big Journalism, NewsBusters.org blogs, NewsTrust, Mediaite, USA Today, The Daily Caller, The Atlantic Online, Politics Daily, AOL News and The Atlantic Wire

David Folkenflik / @davidfolkenflik:

Board chairman Edwards confirms board ousted her - said Schiller set tone by saying board should take any action it felt necessary.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Fox Nation

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:
NPR ‘appalled’ by former exec's comments

Discussion: Weigel, Big Journalism, The Daily Caller and Current.org Blog

Matthew Boyle / The Daily Caller:
NPR executives caught on tape bashing conservatives and Tea Party, touting liberals

Discussion: Slate, Mixed Media, Yahoo! News, Mediaite, Salon, TVNewser, CJR, The Wire, NPR, Media Decoder, USA Today, Big Journalism, Weigel, Indecision Forever, Current.org Blog, Runnin' Scared, FishbowlDC and The Atlantic Online

Austin Carr / Fast Company:

Personalized iPad Magazine Zite Learns As You Read, Challenges Flipboard — Have you ever created a Genius playlist on iTunes or set up a station on Pandora? Just plug in one song, and you instantly hear music that matches your tastes. Think of Zite, the free personalized iPad magazine …

Discussion: Mashable!, NetworkEffect, VentureBeat, App Advice, eMedia Vitals, The Business Insider, Phones Review, The Next Web and Ubergizmo, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

TV.com Head Anthony Soohoo Leaves CBS — More bodies moving around at CBS' digital division: Last week, the broadcaster bought Clicker.com for a reported $100 million, and put its CEO Jim Lanzone in charge of CBS Interactive. Today, CBS Interactive entertainment head Anthony Soohoo says he's leaving.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and Company Town

Amy Chozick / Wall Street Journal:

Television's Senior Moment — As Audiences Get Older, So Do the Characters— And Ads Cost More — In CBS's new cop show “Blue Bloods,” Tom Selleck, at the age of 66, plays a New York police commissioner. Kathy Bates, at 62, snagged the lead role in NBC's legal series “Harry's Law.”

Martin Langeveld / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The flip side of black hat SEO: If your news site publishes paid links, you risk suffering Google's wrath — Last month, the New York Times outed retailer JCPenney for engaging in “black hat optimization” — the practice of buying or placing links designed primarily to improve a site's standing in Google search results.

Neal Ungerleider / Fast Company:

Al Jazeera Launching English-Language Children's Channel — Al Jazeera isn't just news. Their next project? An English-language childrens' edutainment network on American TV by 2012. — Al Jazeera's banking that its newest project—an English-language children's channel …

Discussion: Mediaite

Verne G. Kopytoff / Bits:

Hoping to Be the Netflix for the Sundance Crowd — A new Web site focused on independent films is hoping to become Netflix for the Sundance Film Festival crowd. — Fandor, introduced on Wednesday, is a subscription service with a library of 2,500 films like “Dogtooth,” …

Discussion: Online Video News

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

Drilling Down: Is ‘The Times’ Giving Proper Credit? — Who do you have to frack to get some credit around here? — That's what we're wondering after a recent New York Times series on the latest hot-button environmental issue—hydraulic fracturing, a.k.a. “fracking.”

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: FishbowlNY, Common Sense Journalism, The Wire, @scottros, @romenesko and @chanders, Thanks:jaredbkeller

Daniel D'Addario / New York Observer:
What Does ‘The Atlantic’ Know About Its Own Aggregation?

Discussion: Yahoo! News

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Craigslist's Newmark joins Center for Public Integrity board — Romenesko Misc. — Executive director William Buzenberg calls Craig Newmark “an iconic visionary who saw the community- empowerment potential of the Internet early on.” The Craigslist founder, he says …

Peter Beaumont / Guardian:

Libya regime treating journalists like idiots - but ones who are useful to them — At surreal press conferences in Tripoli reporters hear scripted praise for Muammar Gaddafi while being told black is white, attack is retreat and ‘the colonial English’ are fomenting conspiracy

Discussion: Mediaite, The Atlantic Wire, Crikey, CJR and Future of Journalism

Sarah Kessler / Mashable!:

Al Jazeera Launches Twitter Dashboard To Track Uprisings in Egypt, Yemen, Libya & Bahrain — Qatar-based news outlet Al Jazeera has launched a Twitter dashboard to illustrate tweets about uprisings and revolutions around the world. — The dashboard tallies the daily number of tweets …

Discussion: Editors Weblog and New York Magazine

MediaShift:

Why Are Hispanics Missing in Leadership at Media Companies? — Business content on MediaShift is sponsored by the weekend MA in Public Communication at American University. Designed for working professionals, the program is suited to career changers and public relations or social marketing professionals seeking career advancement.

Discussion: American University …

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

Among the Assisterati: Bottoms Up with the Highbrow Bottom Feeders — On a Tuesday evening not long ago, a group of publishing assistants in their early 20s gathered in a well-appointed apartment on the West Side of Manhattan. — “Assistants: Meet the person on the other end of the telephone,” the email had said.