Mediagazer: IT'S OFFICIAL: AOL Fires Freelancers* (Henry Blodget/The Wire)

5:25 PM ET, April 4, 2011

Top News:

Henry Blodget / The Wire:

IT'S OFFICIAL: AOL Fires Freelancers* — A couple of weeks ago, AOL threw its freelance journalists into purgatory: — They were supposed to sit tight and wait to hear from their editors on their roles in the post-merger Huffington Post Media Group. — The freelancers, naturally …

Discussion: Marketing Pilgrim, WebProNews, FishbowlNY, mediabistro.com and Guardian

Henry Blodget / SAI:

AOL: We're Not Firing All Our Freelancers — We're Hiring Some Of Them Full-Time — Earlier today, we published a note from an AOL freelance journalist reporting that AOL's business-and-finance freelancers had been canned. — AOL's business-and-finance editor Peter Goodman sent us the note below in response.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Associated Press:

AP source: Couric leaving news anchor post — NEW YORK (AP) — Katie Couric is leaving her anchor post at “CBS Evening News” less than five years after becoming the first woman to solely helm a network TV evening newscast. — A network executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity …

New York Times:

Katie Couric Has a Few Regrets — When you started hosting the “CBS Evening News” in 2006, there was a lot of talk about mold-breaking. Now the show looks very much like the other network broadcasts. — In retrospect I would have given people what they were used to, a traditional newscast.

Discussion: The Wire, The Huffington Post, PopWatch, newsfeed.time.com, TVNewser, Tuned In and Random Pixels and Loose Talk

Hollywood Reporter: Katie Couric Eyeing AOL, Yahoo Partnership With Talk Show

David Carr / New York Times:

Team From Engadget Makes Jump to SB Nation — In 2005, Jim Bankoff was working at AOL as executive vice president in charge of products and programming. He decided that AOL needed to move aggressively into news if the business, then still a portal clinging to dial-up customers …

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
SB Nation Sacks AOL in Raid of Former Engadget Team for Competing New Tech Site, As AOL Zeroes in on New EiC

Discussion: BoomTown, Engadget, everwas, TDW Geeks, VatorNews, mediabistro.com, Stowe Boyd, @karaswisher, Talking Biz News and Soup, more at Techmeme »

Nicholas Carlson / The Wire:
THE ENGADGET EXODUS: Hate To Be Rude, But Readers Don't Care

Discussion: Engadget

Georgina Prodhan / Reuters:

INTERVIEW-FT won't give up subscriber relationship to Apple — * Hopeful of positive outcome to negotiations with Apple — The Financial Times wants to keep selling subscriptions for its digital news directly to readers rather than surrender control of new customers who sign up via Apple's iPad, the managing director of FT.com said.

Discussion: Big News Network.com, thinq_, TUAW and App Advice, more at Techmeme »

Ian Burrell / The Independent:
FT: The Pink 'Un powers on

Discussion: Editors Weblog

rickwebb's tumblrmajig:

On The Bubble — Okay, a few more thoughts on this Chris Dixon article and whether it's a bubble, since going and reading the article, I am surprised to see Dixon arguing that not only is it a safer bubble (private investors, discussed in my last entry) but that perhaps it's not a bubble at all.

Discussion: Betabeat, AdAge and NoahBrier.com

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Newspapers get 3x too many ad dollars, says study — Even though newspapers have lost nearly half of their ad revenues in the last five years, some analysts believe they still are getting three times more advertising than their readership deserves. — This good news/bad news for publishers comes …

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:

Who's afraid of Arianna Huffington? — The New York Times has been gunning for The Huffington Post lately, which makes me wonder what exactly Arianna Huffington has done to scare or anger them so. Or perhaps that's the wrong question. Given that our enemies are often those we don't understand …

Discussion: Online Journalism Review, The Huffington Post, On Media's Blog, Stowe Boyd and New York Observer

Great Speculations: Arianna, AOL Get Nice Goose If Gray Lady Chases Away Readers

Informer:

Conde Nast Paid $8 Million To Scammer Who Sent One Email — By William P. Barrett and Janet Novack — With a Parade of fancy fraud cases centered on Wall Street so much in Vogue, here is Chatter about a swindle with no Glamour at all but still a certain amount of Allure.

Discussion: New York Magazine, FishbowlNY, Threat Level, Gawker, Poynter and Geekosystem

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:

Center for Public Integrity to Start New Site for Investigative Journalism — The Center for Public Integrity will start a new Web site this month dedicated to investigative journalism. — The Web site, called iWatch News, will be updated daily with 10 to 12 original investigative pieces and aggregated content from other sources.

Discussion: Mediaite, Big News Network.com, FishbowlNY and Free Press

Newsweek:

Save the Media! — Let the ‘Times’ charge readers, says ad titan Martin Sorrell—but news needs subsidies, too. — Sir Martin Sorrell has always been a bit of a flamethrower. Today, the British advertising tycoon—who amassed one of the largest ad-agency groups in the world …

Discussion: Poynter

Wall Street Journal:

Making Facebook Ads More Buyer-Friendly — Specialist Agencies Emerge to Offer Big Marketers Help Navigating Site's Ad System — A new generation of agencies is trying to crack the code for placing ads on Facebook Inc. in a bid to lure more big-ticket marketers to the website.

Discussion: AdExchanger.com

Jon Lafayette / Broadcasting & Cable:

EXCLUSIVE: Bounce TV, New Broadcast Net Aimed at African Americans, To Launch in Fall — Andrew Young, Martin Luther King III among founders — A group led by Ambassador Andrew Young and Martin Luther King III is expected on Monday to announce plans to launch a new over-the-air television network aimed …

Discussion: rbr.com, Multichannel News and TVWeek.com

Jared Keller / The Atlantic Online:

Photojournalism in the Age of New Media — Social media have given photojournalists a million extra eyes in conflict zones. But if a picture can say a thousand words, the trick is finding the right one. — An elderly woman kisses a riot solider in the streets of Cairo. A building collapses in Tokyo.

Thanks:jaredbkeller

Brian Steinberg / AdAge:

Why the Newspaper Ad Column Seems to Be Going the Way of the Three-Martini Lunch — Dedicated coverage of the advertising industry in U.S. newspapers may be headed for a commercial break — except this break may never end. — A host of business concerns, ranging from scarcer editorial resources …

Discussion: Poynter

Felix Salmon:

GE and the power of iterative journalism — On March 25, the NYT's David Kocieniewski splashed a bombshell of a story across the front page; its current headline, online, is “GE's Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether”: … Cue a massive scurrying sound, as dozens of journalists around …