Mediagazer: Live chat today: What are investors looking for in journalism startups? (Joe Grimm/Poynter)

1:30 AM ET, April 13, 2011

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL, Arianna Huffington Hit with Class Action Suit — Jonathan Tasini. Image via Wikipedia — Huffington Post bloggers who think they ought to get paid for their volunteer writing have been litigating their case in the court of public opinion. Now they're taking it to a real one.

Alfred Hermida / Reportr.net:

Canadians would rather give up newspapers than the internet — Canadians love the internet. That's the conclusion of a study that found that Canadians value their home Internet connection more than any other medium — An online survey of 1,682 adults, conducted by the Canadian Media Research Consortium …

Matthew Creamer / AdAge:

How The New Yorker Learned to Stop Worrying About Facebook and Love the Weak Tie — Sometimes a ‘Like’ Is Good Enough — To a certain kind of person, Jonathan Franzen going to the deserted island that served as the setting for “Robinson Crusoe” so he can write about David Foster Wallace is an intellectual SCHWING! moment.

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:
The New Yorker uses a ‘like-gate’ to find fans of long-form journalism on Facebook

Discussion: Boing Boing, Forbes.com, Switched, bookforum.com, NYConvergence.com, Mashable!, Editors Weblog, The Atlantic Online, MediaPost, Bloggasm, FishbowlNY and Journalism.co.uk

Eric Savitz / The Tech Trade:

Apple To Launch Video-Focused Cloud Service, Jefferies Contends — Apple (AAPL) “is about to launch a new video-focused cloud-based service,” Jefferies analyst Peter Misek asserts in a research note this morning. He thinks that Apple will offer a subscription-based service …

Discussion: GigaOM, International Business Times, Lost Remote and NetNewsCheck Latest, more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Former CNN Anchor Tony Harris Now Anchoring For Al Jazeera English — Former CNN anchor Tony Harris, who left CNN in December after more than six years at the cable channel, appears to have found a new gig. — Harris was anchoring on Al Jazeera English beginning at noon ET today.

Discussion: Mediaite, Inside Cable News, TVWeek.com and FishbowlDC

Noah Davis / The Wire:

Here Are The 6(!) Ads In Newsweek's Latest Issue — Newsweek, the only newsweekly to lose advertising in during the first quarter of 2011, continues to struggle. — The April 18, 2011 issue features just six ads, plus an endemic one for “Newsweek's Digital Companion” The Daily Beast …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Gawker

Eliza Gray / The New Republic:

Vanity Fair's Absurd Preoccupation with the Kennedys — “Kate Middleton: A Kennedy?” Vanity Fair tweeted on April 1, linking to a story that purported to uncover a genealogical link between the princess-to-be and the Kennedy family. The story was based on a “never-before-seen” …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Awl, Canadian Magazines, MediaPost, The 6th Floor, On Media's Blog and Poynter

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

The NYT Paywall Is Working — It's Keeping People Out — We're still in the early days of the New York Times paywall, but traffic-measurement firm Hitwise already has some numbers on how the subscription plan has affected the newspaper's readership. The bottom line?

Discussion: The Wire, Editors Weblog, Yahoo! News, PC Magazine, Future of Journalism, Techdirt and The Atlantic Wire, Thanks:mathewi

Joe Grimm / Poynter:

Live chat today: What are investors looking for in journalism startups? — In this week's career chat, our guest will be Dan Gordon, director of research at Valhalla Partners. This investment company helps information technology entrepreneurs build their businesses, and has invested in some journalism companies.

Tom Krazit / paidContent:

NPR Launches New Facebook App As iPad Downloads Top 1 Million — They're app-happy over at NPR these days, with over 1 million people having downloaded the organization's iPad app over the last year and plans to introduce a new Facebook app that will let NPR listeners meet each other on Facebook and play trivia games.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Joe Flint / Company Town:

CBS chief Leslie Moonves takes shot at USA Network, tells government to stay out of distribution fights — In an interview at the National Assn. of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves took issue with the value of USA Network, warned the government to stay …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel

Hugh Grant / New Statesman:

The bugger, bugged — After a chance meeting with a former News of the World executive who told him his phone had been hacked, Hugh Grant couldn't resist going back to him - with a hidden tape recorder - to find out if there was more to the story . . . When I broke down in my midlife crisis car …

Discussion: The Wire

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

A call to copy-geeks — I love the copy desk. For some reason I find style and copy questions absorbing and fascinating, so I'll just start by saying you should just hit the back button if you don't. — There's a new play by Stephen Adly Guirgis; an irreverent and comic romp through …

Discussion: Variety and New York Times

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

Federal aid story prompted Falwell to block Lynchburg paper — News & Advance reporter Liz Barry wrote today that Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Liberty University blocked access to N&A's website for at least one day last week, and that “Falwell did not elaborate on the reason.”

Discussion: www2.newsadvance.com

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Bid duel likely for Orange County Register — A bidding war appears to be shaping up for the Orange County Register, where the winner could emerge as the dominant player in a series of consolidations that eventually puts the major dailies in Southern California in the hands of a single owner.

Discussion: Poynter, Company Town and LA Observed

Stan Schroeder / Mashable!:

AOL Shuts Down Software Blog Download Squad — In a somewhat surprising move, AOL/Huffington Post has shut down popular software blog Download Squad, according to its editor, Sebastian Anthony, who shared the news on Twitter. — The site itself is still available, with the last post dated yesterday, April 11.

Discussion: mediabistro.com