Mediagazer: Last Year Was a Good Year for Ad Spending, Report Finds (Stuart Elliott/Media Decoder)

5:35 PM ET, March 17, 2011

Top News:

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

The Times Announces Digital Subscription Plan — The New York Times rolled out a plan on Thursday to begin charging the most frequent users of its Web site $15 a month in a bet that readers would pay for news they have grown accustomed to getting free. — Beginning March 28 …

Discussion: New York Times, MediaMemo, Nieman Journalism Lab, The New York Times Company, Felix Salmon, Nieman Journalism Lab, SteveOuting.com, The Wire, The Wire, paidContent, Yahoo! News, Mashable!, paidContent, Mediaite, Daggle, CJR, Recovering Journalist, Mashable!, Poynter, MediaFile, VentureBeat, The Wrap, MediaShift, Yahoo! News, Mixed Media, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Engadget, 10,000 Words, WebNewser, Deadline.com, Marketing Pilgrim, @rafat, RJI, Vanity Fair, Online Journalism Blog, @howardkurtz, @penenberg, Guardian, Change of Subject, @pkafka, AdAge, TVbytheNumbers, The Register, The Daily Dish, Wall Street Journal, @natives, @learmonth, Tuned In, TUAW, Technologizer, @iwantmedia, FishbowlNY, @dannysullivan, Electronista, Switched, @tim, NPR, @chanders, Gizmodo, @cressman, ReadWriteWeb, Understanding Google …, yelvington.com, @stevenjayl, Pulse2, CNNMoney.com, Gannett Blog, Gawker, eMedia Vitals, Gothamist, Joho the Blog and Scripting News, more at Techmeme »

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Newsonomics of The New York Times' pay fence — Editor's Note: Each week, Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of news for the Lab. — It's official — and the world still turns.

Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:

New York Times paywall: wishful thinking or just crazy? — The New York Times just announced a new paywall that will let you see 20 articles a month and thereafter redirect you to a signup for paid access. However, if you follow a NYT link from some search engines and services like Twitter …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, @scottros and GalleyCat, more at Techmeme »

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

All You Need To Know About The NYTimes.com Paywall — The New York Times has just put up more information about its much awaited paywall. The digital subscription model was initially announced in January 2010 as an effort to create a second revenue stream while still preserving the newspaper's advertising business.

Nat Ives / AdAge:

New York Times CEO on Pay Meter: Possible Slight Dip in Traffic Will be Short Term — About 15% of Times Online Visitors Will Hit Gate, Janet Robinson Says in Q+A — The New York Times on Thursday announced its long-gestating plan to charge the heaviest users of its web site …

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, Epicenter and @johngapper

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The Google Loophole Has Become The Facebook/Twitter Loophole

Discussion: The Wire, Poynter and CJR

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Last Year Was a Good Year for Ad Spending, Report Finds — The recovery in advertising spending continued in the fourth quarter last year, according to a report that is to be released on Thursday morning, resulting in a solid full-year gain compared with the results of 2009.

Discussion: AdAge and Poynter

Ray Wert / Jalopnik:

How The Detroit News Sold Its Soul — Scott Burgess resigned today as The Detroit News auto critic after his editors bowed to a request by an advertiser to water down his negative review of the Chrysler 200. This is why we can't have nice reviews anymore. UPDATE More »

Discussion: AdFreak, Poynter and Talking Biz News

Washington Post:

Editor's Note: An apology — Two articles published by The Post online and in its print editions earlier this month contained substantial material that was borrowed and duplicated, without attribution, from The Arizona Republic newspaper. — The articles described an indictment …

Discussion: New York Times, Washington Post, The Awl, Poynter, The Wire, Editors Weblog, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Huffington Post, The Wrap, Gannett Blog, Kirk LaPointe's …, Regret the Error, The Daily Caller and New York Magazine

Jonathan Seitz / Nieman Reports:

British Libel Law: Its Ripple Effect on Journalists Worldwide — Germany's Duke of Brunswick was an overweight, autocratic paranoiac who was kicked out of his fiefdom by a peasant uprising. — A statement like that might be the reason why the United Kingdom has come to be considered the libel capital of the world.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab

Mike Webb / ProPublica:

Watch The ProPublica Long-Form Storytelling Event — Last night, ProPublica and the New School sponsored a public conversation on “Long-Form Storytelling in a Short-Attention-Span World.” The event featured This American Life's Ira Glass, The New Yorker's David Remnick, Frontline's Raney Aronson-Rath …

Discussion: Nieman Storyboard and Poynter

Chicago Sun Times:

Sun-Times Media, Mesirow Financial chief Jim Tyree dies at 53 — James C. Tyree, chairman and CEO of Mesirow Financial and the chairman of Sun-Times Media, died Wednesday afternoon after battling cancer for several months. He was 53. — “With a heavy heart, I am saddened to tell …

Discussion: Poynter

Arab Media & Society:

Can Al Jazeera English Leverage its ‘Egypt Moment’ into an American Audience? — Introduction — Al Jazeera English (AJE)1 entered the competitive global news field in late 2006, claiming to give a “voice to the voiceless” as the “world's first English language news channel to have its headquarters in the Middle East.”

Discussion: TVNewser and Media Network

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

ABC News won't pay to broadcast debates — The Cutline looked Wednesday at an idea kicking around the Republican National Committee to start sanctioning official primary debates and then sell the broadcast rights to networks. — NBC News said yesterday that the “selling of news events …

Tanzina Vega / New York Times:

Viral Videos Catch On That Only Hint at a Sponsor's Purpose — Can a man with a tiny electronic device hack into the multitude of jumbo screens in Times Square and play videos from his iPhone? Maybe, if you believe a YouTube video that has been watched by more than half a million viewers in the last four days.

Discussion: BoomTown, MarketingVOX, Switched, Gizmodo, Gothamist and Techland

Terry Heaton / Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog:

To what end? The question that kills media reinvention — There's an old church story about a small parish that brought in a new pastor amid certain bickering among the parishioners. The old pastor had retired, and, after some infighting, the church thought a little young blood would be good for everybody.

Huma Khan / ABCNEWS:

Houses Passes Bill Stripping Federal Funding for NPR — Vote Was on Party Lines, Democrats Dismissed Bill as ‘Distraction’ and a ‘Political Stunt’ — In a largely symbolic move, the House today voted to block all federal funding for NPR, a week after the embattled public radio station found itself …

Discussion: Washington Post, @teeghman and Political Punch