Mediagazer: New York Observer launches tech site, loses editor (Joe Pompeo/Yahoo! News)

5:30 PM ET, March 16, 2011

Top News:

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Four New York Times Journalists Are Missing in Libya — The New York Times said Wednesday that four of its journalists reporting on the conflict in Libya were missing. — Editors at the paper said they were last in contact with the journalists on Tuesday morning New York time.

Discussion: Poynter, Guardian, Yahoo! News, Reuters, Mediaite, Jon Slattery, Future of Journalism, The Huffington Post, Online NewsHour, The Wire, LA Observed, Gothamist, On Media's Blog, FishbowlNY, @fieldproducer, New York Magazine, Boing Boing and This Just In

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

On the Media: Patch.com's Newark plan smells of conflict — Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington (Jason Kempin / Getty Images For IMG / March 16, 2011) — The AOL hyper-local news operation, now under Arianna Huffington, enters a partnership with a New Jersey mayor that doesn't seem journalistically sound.

Discussion: On Media's Blog

Lucia Moses / Mediaweek:
Huffington Explains AOL's Odd Partnership With Newark Mayor

Discussion: Poynter

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

The Washington Post Has Achieved Perfect Fairness — The most noteworthy feature of the new WashingtonPost.com redesign: its opinion section (the world's worst) now features “Left-Leaning” and “Right-Leaning” tabs, so that you can comfortably segregate yourself in the opinion ghetto of your choice.

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Mediaite, Hit & Run, The Wire and Poynter

Megan McArdle / The Atlantic Online:

Netflix Becoming a Television Station? — The Wall Street Journal says that Netflix is in talks to distribute an original television series starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher. The company seems to hope that it can follow the path blazed by HBO and AMC …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Online Video News, Company Town, MediaPost and CNET News

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:
Netflix To Enter Original Programming With Mega Deal For David Fincher-Kevin Spacey Series ‘House Of Cards’

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Quake Coverage Draws Viewers to CNN — CNN once again proved its appeal to viewers of breaking news last Friday through Monday night, with coverage of the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. — Friday's audience for the total day, 2.273 million, was CNN's largest since the Inauguration in January 2009.

Discussion: Mediaite, Poynter, TVWeek.com and rbr.com

Nils Mulvad / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Collaboration, an investigative reporting network, and the development of Farmsubsidy.org — Editor's Note: Our sister publication Nieman Reports is out with its spring issue, which spotlights the efforts of reporters trying to uncover corruption. We're highlighting a few entries that connect …

Discussion: Nieman Reports

Stefan Candea / Nieman Journalism Lab:
From the ground up: The growth of independent media in Romania

Discussion: Nieman Reports

Dave Winer / Scripting News:

Will we see the NY Times paywall soon? — Amid revolutions and huge earthquakes and nuclear meltdowns, we're reminded that we might see a NY Times paywall any day now. — I've always said that the Times likes to talk about a paywall, and they've been doing that for a long time …

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Networks unlikely to pay RNC to broadcast debates — The Republican National Committee is considering the idea of officially sanctioning presidential primary debates and then selling the television broadcast rights to the networksâ€"an unprecedented move that would force networks …

Discussion: Swampland

CNN:
RNC considers selling TV rights of presidential primary debates

Discussion: TVNewser and Politics Daily

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

100 Percent Fresh Exclusive!: Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes in Acquisition Talks With Yahoo and Others — Flixster-the popular social movie site whose brands include the Rotten Tomatoes premium reviews site, as well as BuddyTV-is in early acquisition talks with several suitors, including Yahoo, said sources close to the situation.

Discussion: Techland and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Abu Dhabi / Reuters:

News Corp aims to build own social gaming business — (Reuters) - Media giant News Corp aims to build its own social-gaming business as valuations of games companies, such as FarmVille maker Zynga skyrocket, its head of digital media said on Wednesday. — Jonathan Miller also said News Corp's …

Discussion: BloggingStocks

Dylan Stableford / The Wrap:

Jimmy Finkelstein Buys IWantMedia.com — A Site He Once Left at the Altar — Jimmy Finkelstein — The Hill owner and media investor who once courted and dumped IWantMedia.com — has acquired the media aggregation website. — Financial terms of the deal, first reported by Keith Kelly, were not disclosed.

Discussion: New York Post

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

Bob Woodward: ‘You get the truth at night, the lies during the day’ — During a visit to Poynter on Tuesday, Bob Woodward talked about why he likes his iPad, what he thinks about the future of long-form journalism and what he considers to be the best time of day to access hard-to-reach sources.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Editors Weblog, Media Buyer Planner, MediaMemo and Poynter

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Facebook Takes Another Swing At Web Video: Live Streaming Major League Baseball — Last week, you could rent a movie on Facebook. Today, you can watch a live pro baseball game on the site. — Still think Facebook can't be a big player in Web video? — You can watch the game …

Discussion: Techland, Inside Facebook, paidContent and San Francisco Chronicle

Los Angeles Times:

Reel China: Hollywood tries to stay on China's good side — Without Beijing even uttering a critical word, MGM is changing the villains in its ‘Red Dawn’ remake from Chinese to North Korean. It's all about maintaining access to the Asian superpower's lucrative box office.

Discussion: MTV Movies Blog, Hot Air, Hit & Run, AintItCool and Company Town

minonline.com:

Hearst Magazines is 2010 Group Publishers' Ad-Page Champ — With the explosion of magazine apps, social media and the resurgence of print advertising, magazine brands are showing a prominent face to their loyal and new readers and advertisers. This week's top 5 chart looks …

Discussion: Folio and FishbowlNY

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

New York Observer launches tech site, loses editor — It's been more than a month since Kyle Pope left his post as editor-in-chief of The New York Observer, and the salmon-colored weekly is sailing along under its new captain, Elizabeth Spiers. But one Observer editor has abandoned ship.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, Poynter and New York Observer

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

AP's new curveball: Wire service will tell baseball stories two ways to help cost-cutting clients for road games — As the old saying goes in newsrooms, every night is election night on the sports desk. The late-night deadline stress is enormous — especially when you're trying to cover 162 baseball games in a six-month season.

Discussion: Associated Press and Poynter

Patricia Chui / The Moviefone Blog:

Moviefone's Response to the TechCrunch Post — By now you may have read the recent post in TechCrunch regarding that site's SXSW coverage of the film ‘Source Code.’ A representative from Moviefone, who set up the interview with Summit Entertainment, received some feedback from the studio …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Poynter, The Atlantic Wire, Marketing Pilgrim, The Awl, Bloggasm, NetNewsCheck Latest, Gawker, Soup, LA Observed, The Wrap, Soshable, @hblodget, @jayrosen_nyu, TechCrunch, @jeffjarvis, Runnin' Scared, Kempton and @poniewozik

Scott Weinberg / @scotteweinberg:
Effective immediately, I no longer work for @moviefone. Here's why: http://tcrn.ch/eLmTwi I will always love @cinematical.

Discussion: Jay Rosen, Runnin' Scared, @alexia, @scotteweinberg, @erikmal, Poynter and The Awl