Mediagazer: Sean Parker, Music Mogul? Facebook Billionaire Mulling Warner Music Bid (Peter Kafka/MediaMemo)

Cooper, Amanpour among TV journalists to Japan — U.S. broadcast and cable networks, some of which were very short-staffed Friday morning in Japan, are now stepping up efforts to cover the deadly earthquake and tsunami by sending top anchors and correspondents to the region.

Discussion: TVNewser and mediabistro.com

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

Twittersphere Slams Itself, and CNN, for Godzilla References After Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami — The Top 10 Trending Topics on Twitter This Week — As I write this late Friday morning, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami have effectively taken over Twitter's Trending Topics list …

Discussion: Mediaite, kottke.org, Mashable!, The Daily Caller, The Atlantic Wire, Runnin' Scared and TVNewser

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Sean Parker, Music Mogul? Facebook Billionaire Mulling Warner Music Bid — Sean Parker helped create Napster, which kicked off the long and steep decline of the big music labels. Soon he might own part of one. — The digital entrepreneur is considering putting his money into a consortium bidding …

Discussion: Electronista, VentureBeat and SAI

Latoya Peterson / Poynter:

New York Times, Houston Chronicle tell different stories of 11-year-old's rape — The New York Times finds itself embroiled in controversy after publishing an article on a horrific gang rape that occurred in Cleveland, Texas. Citizens (most notably young feminist organizer Shelby Knox) …

Discussion: The Public Editor's Journal, The Huffington Post and The Awl

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Excerpt: Maxim Founder Felix Dennis on the Fallacy of Big Ideas — In addition to being a publisher, poet, planter of trees and polyamorist, Felix Dennis, founder of Maxim and The Week magazines, is simply one of the most entertaining people you could hope to converse with.

Lois Beckett / Nieman Journalism Lab:

A WordPress for news orgs: Knight gives Bay Citizen, Texas Tribune $975,000 for open-source CMS — This morning, the Knight Foundation announced a new $975,000 grant to the Texas Tribune and the Bay Citizen, two young nonprofit news organizations, to build an open-source publishing platform designed specifically for news outlets.

Discussion: paidContent, Strange Attractor, KnightBlog and Free Press

Bill Moyers / The Huffington Post:

In Defense of NPR — Come on now: Let's take a breath and put this NPR fracas into perspective. — Just as public radio struggles against yet another assault from the its long-time nemesis — the right-wing machine that would thrill if our sole sources of information were Fox News …

Discussion: Mediaite and NewsBusters.org blogs

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why AOL Was So Desperate to Hook Up With Huffington Post — When AOL CEO Tim Armstrong announced the $315-million acquisition of The Huffington Post several weeks ago, he made the deal sound like a nice strategic add-on for the former web portal's content business — an expansion …

Discussion: On Media's Blog, rbr.com, mediabistro.com and Editors Weblog

MediaShift:

How French Site OWNI Profits by Giving Away Its Content — 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.

Judith Acosta / The Huffington Post:

And Now, More About Me: The Sorry State Of The News Media — Things have changed in many ways, but few things as dramatically or as insidiously as the manner in which we receive and process information. This is particularly true of the media. — The media—or what was once called the press …

Nat Worden / Dow Jones Newswires:

Time Warner Faces Pressure To Recoup HBO Subscriber Losses — NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- HBO, home of popular TV shows like “Big Love” and “True Blood,” faces a key test of its business model this year after its subscriber rolls declined to an estimated five-year low in 2010 …

Discussion: Company Town

Dan / Xark!:

The danger in the doldrums — This morning's day-off multi-tasking: watching coverage of the horrible 8.9 earthquake in Japan while reading my various feeds, which included finally taking on the Bill Keller column about aggregation. It includes this passage in the ultimate graph:

Discussion: NewsBusters.org blogs and AAN