Mediagazer: Facebook trying to ‘friend’ journalists (Mark Milian/CNN)

11:25 AM ET, April 15, 2011

Top News:

Mark Milian / CNN:

Facebook trying to ‘friend’ journalists — New York (CNN) — Facebook is taking major steps to ensure that its News Feeds contain more actual news. — The social media giant is hiring someone to build relationships with reporters and news organizations. The new hire also will help …

Discussion: Poynter, VentureBeat, eMedia Vitals, Lost Remote, Facebook, @lavrusik and Soup, more at Techmeme »

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Blogging for HuffPo Is Like Writing Open-Source Code — There's been a lot of sturm und drang recently about the lawsuit that some bloggers have launched against The Huffington Post, arguing they deserve to be compensated for their writing, despite having agreed to provide their work knowing full well they wouldn't be paid.

Discussion: MediaPost, MediaVidea, Future of Journalism, New York Observer, PC Magazine and Mediaite

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
An Hour In A Room With Arianna Huffington (Guest Starring Biz Stone!)

Discussion: paidContent, Globe and Mail, Communications … and L.A. Times Tech Blog

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: Flipboard Confirms $50 Million Funding at $200 Million Valuation — Late last month, BoomTown posted about a huge venture funding effort by the high-profile and even more highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, Flipboard. — Today, its co-founder …

Discussion: paidContent, ReadWriteWeb, Electronista, VentureBeat, Forbes.com, PE Hub Blog, SocialTimes.com, Mashable! and SAI, more at Techmeme »

Harry McCracken / Time:
Personalized Magazine Apps: Cutting the Web Down to Size

Discussion: Techland

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:
Flipboard Gets Oprah

Discussion: MinOnline, Media Decoder, Multichannel, digiday:DAILY, Speakeasy, PC Magazine and paidContent

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Wired's Newest iPad Issue Boasts Its Best Feature Yet: Free — Remember when iPad magazine apps-and Wired's app in particular-were big news? That was a year ago. — Now Wired would like to remind you that it's still publishing on the iPad, and the Conde Nast title is offering a pretty …

Discussion: AdAge, FishbowlNY, Talking Biz News and MacStories

Kelly Reeves / The Outbrain Blog:

Outbrain Study Gives Insight Into Content Discovery Trends Across the Web's Leading Publishers — We're excited to announce our inaugural study on how people discover and engage with content on the web! — In the first quarter of 2011, for the first time ever, we decided to analyze …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, WebProNews and Search Engine Land, Thanks:nitwitty

Sharon Shahid / Newseum:

Handwritten Newspapers From Ravaged Japan at Newseum — When the worst earthquake in Japan's history and the subsequent tsunami knocked out all power in the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, editors at the Ishinomaki Hibi Shimbun, the city's daily newspaper, printed news of the disaster the only way they could: by pen and paper.

Discussion: Mediaite, Poynter and MediaVidea

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Kurt Bardella Joins Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller … The Daily Caller has hired Kurt Bardella, the former spokesman for Republican Rep. Darrell Issa who was fired last month following a leaked email controversy, as the site's new communications director. — Neil Patel, who co-founded …

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of the digital cafeteria — 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. — Here's how newspapers sell what they do to would-be readers.

Stephanie Rosenbloom / New York Times:

Would You Sign My Kindle? — SITTING at a table in a Barnes & Noble in St. Petersburg, Fla., T. J. Waters was signing copies of his book “Hyperformance” when a fan standing in line with the eBook version walked up and said, “It's too bad you can't sign my Kindle.”

Discussion: TeleRead and Techland

Andrew Hammond / Reuters:

Gulf media find their red line in uprisings: Bahrain — DUBAI (Reuters) - Pan-Arab broadcasters who played a key role reporting Arab uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt are helping dynastic rulers police the gates of the Gulf to stop the revolts from spreading on their patch, analysts say.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire

Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:

Newsweek's Future: Sidney's Gone, What About Barry? — This morning's papers were full of hand-wringing about what will happen to Newsweek now that its savior, stereo magnate Sidney Harman, has passed away. After all, Harman bought the magazine for $1 and assumed a reported $47 million in debt …

Discussion: Poynter, The Atlantic Wire and FishbowlNY

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Should a journalism school be hosting ‘off the record’ public events? Graydon Carter thinks so! — On Thursday evenings in the winter and spring, Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism hosts a lecture series. The idea is for established magazine editors to share informal observations …

Discussion: Poynter

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:

No Bob Woodward, Google Did Not Kill Newspapers — The tombstone of Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt will read “I killed newspapers,” Bob Woodward said yesterday. With all due respect to the celebrated reporter and author, this is a misguided way of looking at Google, or newspapers, for at least three reasons.

Stuart Elliott / Media Decoder:

Altoona Becomes ‘Pom Wonderful’ — For a Price — The filmmaker Morgan Spurlock in Times Square. His new documentary, “The Greatest Story Ever Sold,” explores product placement. — The documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock has found another catchy way to promote his next release …

Discussion: New York Observer and Gawker

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Source Interlink, American Media set licensing deal for Soap Opera Weekly, other titles — Source Interlink is shedding staff and turning its struggling soap opera titles, along with a handful of other magazines, to American Media Inc. — Soap Opera Weekly, Soap Opera Digest …