Mediagazer: Decline, plateau, decline: New data on The Daily suggests a social media decline and a tough road ahead (Joshua Benton/Nieman Journalism Lab)

6:55 PM ET, April 5, 2011

Top News:

Decline, plateau, decline: New data on The Daily suggests a social media decline and a tough road ahead — While the news industry looks at smartphone and tablet apps as a chance to build more engaged readers — and maybe even get people to pay! — for those of us who watch the business, apps are frustratingly opaque.

Discussion: Mixed Media, IntoMobile, Epicenter, I4U News, MacStories, Yahoo! News, Betabeat, Technologizer and FishbowlNY

zunguzungu:

Why Arianna Huffington is Bill Keller's Somali Pirate … Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis and Felix Salmon (and Felix Salmon) and all sorts of people have been following and commenting on the New York Times' rhetorical war against Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post. If you want a close look at it, you should read them.

Discussion: American Journalism Review, Making Light, The Monkey Cage, Runnin' Scared and Rebooting The News

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Newspapers and Social Media: Still Not Really Getting It — Updated: Many traditional media entities have embraced social-media services like Twitter and Facebook and blogs — at least to some extent — as tools for reporting and journalism, using them to publish and curate news reports.

The Center for Public Integrity:

Agents treated reporter like informant, raising question: Who else? — A once-classified FBI memo reveals that the bureau treated a senior ABC News journalist as a potential confidential informant in the 1990s, pumping the reporter to ascertain the source of a sensational but uncorroborated tip …

Discussion: Gawker, Mediaite, The Wire, On Media's Blog, Poynter, Yahoo! News, The Daily Beast, rbr.com and TVNewser

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Vice Media Empire Is Near a Big Infusion of Cash — Vice was born in 1994 as an underground magazine in Montreal, financed by a government subsidy and run by three friends who started their own company because no one else would hire them. — Today it is a pan-media confederation with a record label …

Discussion: MediaPost, Runnin' Scared, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, Canadian Magazines and paidContent:UK

Jason Kilar / Hulu Blog:

Q1 — We just completed the first quarter of 2011. Given the ongoing discussion around the evolution of premium content distribution — and Hulu's role in it — we thought it would be worthwhile to share some of our progress from the first 90 days of 2011:

Discussion: MediaMemo, CNET News, GigaOM, Epicenter, Betabeat, NetNewsCheck Latest and The Wire

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Hulu Q1 By The Numbers: On Pace For $500 Million 2011

Discussion: GigaOM

Omar L. Gallaga / Austin American-Statesman:

Former NPR chief optimistic about future of journalism — Vivian Schiller praises local affiliate KUT but does not discuss her recent departure from National Public Radio. — National Public Radio's former Chief Executive Officer and President Vivian Schiller came to Austin on Friday …

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:
‘The conditions are finally right to give newspaper paywalls a fair shake’

Discussion: Editors Weblog and CJR

Alex Weprin / mediabistro.com:

Jeff Greenfield Leaving CBS News — Breaking: CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield is leaving the network. — In an email to staff Monday night, Greenfield said he will be departing CBS at the end of April. It does not sound like the decision to leave was his own, if the email was any indication:

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Can a Content Farm Do Quality? How Examiner's Trying — Sick of all the shoddy articles content farms churn out? Well, guess what? So are some of the content farms, and they're even sicker of the perception that everything they publish is badly-written Google clutter.

Discussion: paidContent and Examiner

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Is Righthaven the copyright enforcer news needs, or the one it deserves? How its suits could affect journalism — Could Righthaven be the enforcer publishers deserve, but not the one it needs right now? Yes, I'm shamelessly co-opting a line from The Dark Knight — partly out of love for that movie …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Amelia Hill / Guardian:

Phone hacking: NoW journalists arrested — Former news editor and current chief reporter arrested after presenting themselves at separate London police stations — The former news editor and current chief reporter from the News of the World have been arrested on suspicion of unlawfully intercepting mobile phone voicemail messages.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Yahoo! News, The Atlantic Wire, Press Gazette, The Wire, On Media's Blog and Big News Network.com

Facebook:

Facebook & social journalism — Over the past year, we've worked with media organizations to help make their content more social and empower readers to experience news through their friends. Since we first launched these initiatives at the beginning of 2010, the average media organization …

Discussion: Mashable! and newsplexer, Thanks:malliegator

Patrick May / Mercury News:

Apple makes bid to become gatekeeper for newspapers and magazines — Apple's (AAPL) bold foray into the world of digital publishing could make it the online gatekeeper for newspaper and magazine content, just as it is for music. — But for a plan ostensibly designed to help ailing print publishers sign …

Discussion: Noted

Markcuban / blog maverick:

Whats the role of media for sports teams ? — I'm going to make this short and sweet. In the year 2011, I'm not sure I have a need for beat writers from ESPN.com, Yahoo, or any website for that matter to ever be in our locker room before or after a game.

Discussion: Nodes - Quickish

Ted Nesi / WPRI.com Blogs:

Projo parent A.H. Belo's execs get $1.6M in bonuses — Providence Journal parent A.H. Belo awarded its top five executives nearly $1.6 million in cash bonuses last year, the company disclosed Monday in an SEC filing. — A.H. Belo CEO Robert Decherd's total compensation more than tripled …

Discussion: Poynter

Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:

AOL to Movie Writers: You're Fired, But We'd Love It If You Write for Free — Until this morning, it wasn't clear what would happen to freelance writers for AOL properties Moviefone and Cinematical in the wake of the Huffington Post takeover of the editorial side of the company-especially since editor-in-chief Erik Davis just resigned.

Discussion: GalleyCat, TechCrunch and Mediaweek

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

@FakeAPStylebook's ‘Write More Good’ honors, mocks journalism — The folks behind @FakeAPStylebook have spent the past year turning their popular Twitter account into a book that they've dubbed “an absolutely phony guide” for writers. — The book, titled “Write More Good,” …