Mediagazer: Cathie Black Out as NYC Schools Czar? You Don't Say. (Jeff Bercovici/Mixed Media)

9:55 PM ET, April 7, 2011

Top News:

USA Today Takes the Plunge: Paper to Pay Bonuses to Writers Based on Page Views — USA Today had a conference call last night and according to a source, the paper outlined a plan in which it will pay annual bonuses to writers based on page views. The goal, obviously, is to get writers thinking digital.

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, The Wire, The Awl and Gannett Blog

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:
USA Today: No decision on page view bonuses

Discussion: Future of Journalism and Gannett Blog

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

New York Times Paywall Cost: More Like $25 Million — Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. insists a $40 million estimate for building New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Co.'s pay scheme is “vastly wrong”. But that's where the NYTCo chairman stopped in a Q&A at Columbia University earlier this week.

Discussion: MediaPost, @on_the_media, bookforum.com, NYConvergence.com and Poynter, more at Techmeme »

Matt Shanahan / Digital Equilibrium:

Why Revenue Estimates for The New York Times Paywall Are Wrong — A digital subscription to the New York Times (NYT) is now a minimum of $195/year ($3.75 per week times 52 weeks). Chatter about the possibility of low subscribership and why $40M was too much to pay is everywhere.

Discussion: Mediaweek and New York Observer, Thanks:taylorbuley

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:
Inside the NYT Lincoln Deal: It's About Dollars, Traffic and Conversion

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Florida Quran burning, Afghanistan violence raise questions about the power of media blackouts — Last fall, pastor Terry Jones was all over the news with his threats to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11. Seven months later, he followed through, which you probably learned …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, Thanks:myersnews

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Journalism 2.0 Didn't Kill Anyone, and Neither Did Old Media

Discussion: Mixed Media, Poynter and CJR, Thanks:mathewi

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Google Saves The News! — By keeping users happy and Facebook at bay, could the search giant also fix the newspaper business? … In 2007, two years into the launch of the Huffington Post, cofounder Jonah Peretti coined a term for news sites that disguise how little investment actually goes …

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Chrystia Freeland to lead Reuters Digital — Chrystia Freeland, arguably Reuters' biggest star, just got a promotion. — Freeland, who joined the news service from The Financial Times last march as global editor-at-large, has been named editor of Thomson Reuters Digital.

Discussion: Reuters, @ronmwangaguhung and Poynter

Joe Flint / Company Town:

Time Warner Cable fires back at Viacom in dispute over streaming channels on iPad — Time Warner Cable has fired back at Viacom in a dispute the two are having over whether the cable operator has the rights to stream the programming giant's networks on an iPad.

Discussion: MediaMemo, Time Warner Cable Untangled, Lost Remote, Multichannel, paidContent, Media Decoder, Business Wire, rbr.com, Media Money …, GigaOM and @yinkareuters, more at Techmeme »

The Staggers:

World exclusive: Hugh Grant turns the tables on the phone-hackers — The bugger, bugged. — In this week's New Statesman, the actor Hugh Grant secretly records the former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan discussing phone-hacking and David Cameron's relationship with the Murdochs and News International.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, The First Post, On Media's Blog, Big News Network.com, Press Gazette, Mediaite, The 6th Floor, Jon Slattery and Guardian

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Cathie Black Out as NYC Schools Czar? You Don't Say. — When Michael Bloomberg appointed Hearst Magazines president Cathie Black chancellor of the New York City schools system despite her complete lack of experience in education, we were skeptical. Just about everyone was, in fact.

Discussion: MediaPost, GothamSchools, The Atlantic Wire, NY Daily News, Wall Street Journal, FishbowlNY and The New Yorker Blog

Carter Maness / The Awl:

I'm Permalance No More! “Thank You Very Much for Your Contributions to AOL” — I left the corporate world in 2008 to write about music and entertainment because I wanted to work from bed, only leaving to maybe smoke joints with Kid Cudi while asking him pretentious questions about string arrangements.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and American Journalism Review

Anne Thompson / Thompson on Hollywood:
AOL's Huffington Overhauls Online Brands Moviefone and Cinematical: Moviefone's Chui Loses Job

Discussion: Mediaweek, Betabeat and The Atlantic Wire

New York Times:

Beck and Fox End Relationship Grown Cold — The negotiations that led Glenn Beck to announce his departure from the Fox News Channel on Wednesday ended with an expression of “let's part as friends,” according to several people with knowledge of the talks. But behind that moment was a torrent …

AdAge:

Clear Channel's Pittman: ‘We Have to Make the Digital Revolution Come to Radio’ — While digital radio only accounts for about 3% of total radio listening, at Ad Age's Digital Conference on Thursday, Clear Channel Chairman Bob Pittman said this represents the radio industry's biggest opportunity.

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of WaPo's reader dashboard 1.0 — 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. — Don't call them pageviews— call them pages read.

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Andrew Damstedt / American Journalism Review:

Back Behind the Wheel — Why Detroit News auto critic Scott Burgess returned to the paper after resigning over changes to a review that had been challenged by an advertiser. Thurs., April 7, 2011 — Andrew Damstedt (adamstedt@ajr.umd.edu) is an AJR editorial assistant. — It was a tough call for Scott Burgess.

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

AP: Why we need to reduce our pension obligation — Romenesko Misc. — Two days after the AP union issued it's “Tweet-out” memo, the Associated Press sent a letter to employees saying that it's bargained in good faith during the last five months and that “throughout the negotiations …

Discussion: On Media's Blog

Brooks Boliek / The Politico:

Comcast to FCC: Keep Hulu info secret — Comcast has asked the FCC to put a “top secret” stamp on its deal with Hulu. — According to a letter placed in the commission's public file on Wednesday, the company contends that a document it will soon file with the FCC detailing its deal …

Discussion: Company Town

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Why Is Facebook Investor Accel Investing In Hollywood? Because It's a Facebook Investor — Why is a big Facebook investor putting money into a Hollywood movie studio? Because Facebook is going to be very important for Hollywood movie studios. — That's the takeaway from Accel Partners …

Discussion: Forbes