Mediagazer: YouTube's Premium-Content Strategy Starts to Take Shape (Michael Learmonth/AdAge)

3:50 PM ET, March 15, 2011

Top News:

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Chris Lehmann to lead Yahoo's news blogs network — Andrew Golis is leaving his post as managing editor of The Upshot network of news blogs at Yahoo! to become director of digital media and senior editor at “Frontline,” the PBS investigative documentary series.

Discussion: paidContent and Poynter

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

AOL Asks Us If We Can Tone It Down — Earlier this week, I interviewed Duncan Jones and Jake Gyllenhaal at SXSW at the press junket for their movie The Source Code. While the film doesn't have a huge tech angle other than the title, I thought it might be good video content for TCTV …

Discussion: The Awl

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

Here's a Washington Post Story With All the Editor's Notes In It — If you spend more than five minutes talking to an editor, you're sure to hear about how some story or other was a total piece of s**t before said editor got his hands on it. Now you can judge for yourself!

Discussion: CJR

Robminto / Online Journalism Blog:

When is an online comment defamatory? — Rob Minto looks at two recent cases that leave the field of libel online as confusing as ever. — For several years, newspapers, bloggers and other online publishers have been waiting for a landmark case to clarify defamation online.

Discussion: Media News

Marisa Guthrie / Hollywood Reporter:

Cable News Viewership Declines Double Digits in 2010 … After years of audience growth, cable news may have hit a wall. — According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual State of the News Media report, cable news viewership for CNN, MSNBC and Fox News fell substantially in 2010 …

Discussion: paidContent, The Atlantic Wire, TVNewser, Editors Weblog, Yahoo! News, Kirk LaPointe's …, J-Source, MediaPost, Inside Cable News and FishbowlNY

Robert Quigley / Old Media, New Tricks:

The ‘gamification’ of news, and how it can be relevant — One of the somewhat-obnoxious buzzwords going around the South by Southwest Interactive Festival is the “gamification” of, well, everything, including the news. In a nutshell, that means taking video-game style processes and applying …

The Huffington Post:

EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Signing Former Sen. Evan Bayh As A Contributor — UPDATE: Fox News officially announced on Monday afternoon that former Democratic Senator Evan Bayh is becoming a contributor to the network. — Michael Clemente, the network's senior vice president for news, announced the move in a statement.

Discussion: Yglesias, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, Politics Daily, Salon, The Atlantic Wire, Gawker and TPMDC

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

YouTube's Premium-Content Strategy Starts to Take Shape — Talks of Providing $2M-$5M Seed Funds to Agents and Producers Who Commit to Episodes — How do you get professional video if you don't want to do big money deals with Hollywood studios? You go straight to the creators.

Discussion: Techland

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

NYT's Good Timing on Pay Launch, Amid News Chaos — Timing may not be everything, but it's a lot in life, and the New York Times could have not have picked a better time — soon - to launch both its new paid plans and new tablet product. — Why? Well, the world's conspired to wait …

Discussion: Poynter and AdPulp

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Netflix Crushing the Digital Movie Competition — If you're going to pay for a movie over the Web, you don't have to use Netflix. But there's a very good chance you'll do just that: A 60 percent chance, says NPD. — The consumer tracking outfit says Reed Hastings' company owns 61 percent …

more at Techmeme »

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

News portal, super aggregator, and mega-curator: PBS builds a new site from scratch with PBSNews.org — PBS finds itself with what could be the definition of a “good” problem. (Well, not that defunding problem, but another one.) Here's the scenario: Under the PBS umbrella you'll find news shows …

Tommy Christopher / Mediaite:

MSNBC Alters Lawrence O'Donnell ‘Shooting Fish’ Michele Bachmann Segment in Online Version — In our earlier write-up of Lawrence O'Donnell's Michele Bachmann-themed “Rewrite” segment, I completely missed the possibly controversial nature of O'Donnell's “shooting fish in a barrel” reference …

Discussion: The Wire

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

Highlights from SXSW: 7 steps to building trust and credibility with an online audience — Doreen Marchionni spent the last four years studying how journalists can boost their credibility and engagement with digital audiences. She found the simple secret: Interact online and be human.

Discussion: RJI

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

CNN Live ‘TV Everywhere’, New HD Video Player On The Way — The launches are still months away but CNN Digital has a pair of announcements from SXSW tonight that mark significant advancements for the network's online and mobile video offerings. In early summer, CNN plans to flip the switch …

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

LAT publisher on how bankruptcy has hurt Tribune — Los Angeles Times publisher and Tribune co-president Eddy Hartenstein testified Monday that bankruptcy has prevented Tribune from keeping up with the rest of the publishing industry by consolidating operations, and has prevented the company …

Discussion: Bloomberg

Brian Steinberg / AdAge:

TV Networks May Punt if NFL Football Is Lost — Some Ad Dollars to Go to Other Sports; Could Prime Time Benefit? — Will the TV networks be sacked by the current NFL showdown? — A recent legal ruling means they can keep the billions of dollars in rights fees they'd otherwise owe …

Discussion: Company Town and Media Money …