Mediagazer: AOL's New Way: Huffington Steers Portal Away From Freelancers, Ramps Up Aggregation (AdAge)

1:35 AM ET, April 8, 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: NetNewsCheck Latest, Gannett Blog and Future of Journalism

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

Matt Shanahan / Digital Equilibrium:
Why Revenue Estimates for The New York Times Paywall Are Wrong

Discussion: Mediaweek and New York Observer, Thanks:taylorbuley

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

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, Multichannel, paidContent, Lost Remote, Media Decoder, Media Money …, @yinkareuters and rbr.com

Jeff Simmermon / Time Warner Cable Untangled:

We Filed A Request For Declaratory Judgment With Viacom This Afternoon — Last week, we pulled a number of channels from our iPad app. The Internet - not exactly a haven for measured discourse or patience for complex ideas - lit up with verbiage more commonly found in war movies and interviews with professional wrestlers.

Discussion: Business Wire, App Advice, Light Reading, GigaOM, Engadget and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

Nat Worden / Wall Street Journal: Cable TV Tunes In Apps

AdAge:

AOL's New Way: Huffington Steers Portal Away From Freelancers, Ramps Up Aggregation — “If you're going to produce great journalism, you have to build a team of people who are working together and driving toward the same goals editorially,” Arianna Huffington said today at Ad Age's Digital Conference.

Carter Maness / The Awl:
I'm Permalance No More! “Thank You Very Much for Your Contributions to AOL”

Discussion: Betabeat, Wall Street Journal and Thompson on Hollywood

ASNE:

Newsroom employment up slightly, minority numbers plunge for third year — American newspapers showed a very slim increase in newsroom employees last year, finally halting a three-year exodus of journalists. — The percentage of minorities in newsrooms totaled 12.79 percent …

Discussion: Poynter, Prof Chris Daly's Blog and On Media's Blog

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Journalism 2.0 Didn't Kill Anyone, and Neither Did Old Media — Does the journalist who reported on a Quran burning by a right-wing pastor in Florida last month share some of the blame for the deaths of 24 people in Afghanistan in the wake of that event? And is the fact that they died …

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

Steve Myers / Poynter:
Florida Quran burning, Afghanistan violence raise questions about the power of media blackouts

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, Thanks:myersnews

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, Poynter and @ronmwangaguhung

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

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

Lady Gaga, Editor: Befuddling Pop Star to Guest Edit ‘Metro’ — Even the city's snobbiest subway commuters should consider leaving their Kindles at home on May 17. On that day, the free subway daily will be edited by pop performance artist Lady Gaga. — It's not entirely a gimmick!

Discussion: Mediaite and Gawker

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.

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

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

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.