Mediagazer: Huffpo Claims Its Bloggers Aren't Writers. Is That True? (Jeff Bercovici/Mixed Media)

5:05 PM ET, March 18, 2011

Top News:

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Lincoln Ad Offers Free Access to New York Times Online for Rest of 2011 — One More Loophole in Pay Scheme, to the Benefit of an Advertiser — The New York Times built in one more loophole to its online pay meter scheme than it mentioned yesterday: Interstitial ads from Lincoln …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, paidContent, Felix Salmon and Poynter

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Apple Gets Its First Big Publisher: New York Times Subscriptions Will Be Sold Through iTunes — The New York Times has finally unveiled its paywall plans, a year-plus in the making. — And with the Times' announcement, Steve Jobs gets his first big publisher to announce it is signing …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Q&A: New York Times Digital Czar Martin Nisenholtz on the Paywall, Pricing, Google and Apple — A lot of you have done a lot of reading, and a lot of writing, about the New York Times' digital paywall/subscription plans. And if any of you who care about this stuff haven't read Ken Doctor's dissection …

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, Nieman Journalism Lab, paidContent, MediaJobsDaily and Press Gazette, more at Techmeme »

Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

New York Times Paywall Workaround Springs Up Already — It hasn't even been 12 hours since the New York Times announced they're implementing a fairly complex paywall scheme, and already at least one workaround has sprung up. — The Times scheme allows readers 20 free stories per month before they have to pay.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, paidContent, Poynter, Yahoo! News, FishbowlNY, Online Journalism Review, Guardian, News for Digital Journalists, MediaShift, Change of Subject, 10,000 Words, CJR and Washington Post

Lois Beckett / Nieman Journalism Lab:
“Please stop calling it a wall”: First thoughts on the Times' pay plan

Discussion: RJI, yelvington.com, Slate, The Wire, The Buttry Diary, Reinventing the Newsroom, The Evolving Newsroom, Media Nation, The Huffington Post, Online NewsHour, Boing Boing, AdAge and The Wrap

LAT Blogs / The Big Picture:
The war between Fox News and the New York Times hits the bestseller list

Discussion: Poynter and Mediaite

Bill Mitchell / Poynter:
New York Times subscription plans all about one challenge: Reader migration

Discussion: New York Times, Nieman Journalism Lab and American Journalism Review

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:
A promoted New York Times Twitter trend for paywall talk

Discussion: The Conversation, Adweek, Fast Company, digiday:DAILY, Publishing Perspectives, DealBook and FishbowlNY

David Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

Libya Says It Will Release Times Journalists — TRIPOLI, Libya — Four New York Times journalists missing in Libya since Tuesday were captured by forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and will be released Friday, his son, Seif Islam el-Qaddafi, told Christiane Amanpour in an ABC News interview.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Huffpo Claims Its Bloggers Aren't Writers. Is That True? — Accused by the Newspaper Guild of undermining journalism and victimizing journalists, the Huffington Post says it's not the case. No surprise there. What's interesting is how the news-and-blogs site chose to justify itself …

Discussion: Poynter and Future of Journalism

Courtney Boyd Myers / The Next Web:
Faced with a strike, The Huffington Post says: “Our bloggers are happy.”

Discussion: Cision, The Daily Caller and GalleyCat, Thanks:cbm

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:
Newspaper Guild calls on HuffPo's unpaid writers to withhold their work

Discussion: New York Magazine

Courtney Boyd Myers / The Next Web:
Should unpaid writers for The Huffington Post go on strike?

Discussion: CJR, Thanks:m4tt

Ian Cobain / Guardian:

US spy operation that manipulates social media — Military's ‘sock puppet’ software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda — Jeff Jarvis: Washington shows the morals of a clumsy spammer — The US military is developing software that will let it secretly …

Discussion: The First Post, Crikey, Boing Boing, Yahoo! News, CrunchGear and SAI

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

CEO says Hollywood Reporter, Adweek and sister mags not for sale — The Hollywood Reporter and its sister magazines Adweek, Billboard and Backstage are up for sale again, according to sources who leaked an item to Claire Atkinson in Friday's New York Post. — Not so, insists Richard Beckman …

Discussion: New York Post, FishbowlNY, paidContent, TVWeek.com, MediaPost and New York Magazine

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

Confirmed: The Hollywood Reporter IS for Sale (updated) — The Hollywood Reporter and its four sister publications — Billboard, AdWeek, MediaWeek and Brandweek — are up for sale, an individual with knowledge of the proposed transaction told TheWrap on Friday.

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Netflix Bets Big On “House Of Cards” But Swears It's Not a Strategy Shift: Q&A With Content Boss Ted Sarandos — Netflix has bought its first TV show which doesn't exist yet. The company has finalized a deal to distribute two seasons of “House Of Cards”, a yet-to-be produced political drama directed …

Discussion: The Official Netflix Blog, paidContent, Media Decoder, The Wire, Multichannel, Electronista and Technologizer, more at Techmeme »

Steve Rosenbaum / Mashable!:

Why Curation Is Just as Important as Creation [OPINION] — This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication. — Steven Rosenbaum is a curator, author, filmmaker and entrepreneur. He is the CEO of Magnify.net, a real-time video curation engine for publishers, brands, and websites.

Discussion: Sparksheet

Deborah Potter / NewsLab:

Using Facebook for a TV investigation — Want more proof that social media are great reporting tools? Look no farther than “Keys to the Castle” an investigative story Jace Larson reported for KUSA in Denver that picked up a 2011 duPont-Columbia Award. The story uncovered a housing scam …

Max Colchester / Wall Street Journal:

Selling Video Scoops Online — Citizenside, other websites collect and syndicate amateur videos to professional news groups — PARIS—French website Citizenside recently sold a grainy video of British fashion designer John Galliano conducting an anti-Semitic rant to news organizations around the world.

Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:

Mobile devices creating their own niche for news delivery — Smartphones aren't displacing traditional media sources for most news consumers—instead, they're creating their own niche, according to a recent study out of Ohio State University. Headed up by communication professor John Dimmick …

Discussion: Noted

Andrew Damstedt / American Journalism Review:

Digging Beneath the Surface — McClatchy's new Washington bureau chief is a champion of aggressive reporting. Posted: Fri, March 18, 2011 — Andrew Damstedt (adamstedt@ajr.umd.edu) is an AJR editorial assistant. — When he took over as chief of McClatchy's Washington, D.C. …

Discussion: Poynter

Adam Ostrow / Mashable!:

AP Stylebook Finally Changes “e-mail” to “email” — The AP Stylebook, the de facto style and usage guide for much of the news media, announced on Friday that the abbreviated term for “electronic mail” is losing a hyphen, and with it, a relic of a simpler time when Internet technology needed to be explained very carefully.

Discussion: ap.org and Gawker