Mediagazer: Rethinking the jobs newspapers do (Kevin/Strange Attractor)

7:45 AM ET, April 14, 2011

Top News:

Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:

About That Lawsuit... The lawsuit filed Tuesday by Jonathan Tasini is so utterly without merit, and has been so thoroughly eviscerated in the media — including being ridiculed as the “dumbest lawsuit ever” — I am hesitant to take any time away from aggregating adorable kitten videos to respond.

Discussion: Joe Manna, The Volokh Conspiracy, Media Law Prof Blog, GigaOM, The Atlantic Wire, The Wire and WebProNews

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:
Does HuffPo even need its unpaid bloggers anymore?

Discussion: Poynter, B2B Memes and Mixed Media

Brett Pulley / Bloomberg:
AOL's Huffington to Add News Staff in Local Site Revamp

Discussion: Street Fight, Digital Trends, Poynter, VatorNews, FishbowlNY, paidContent, Future of Journalism, NetNewsCheck Latest and Noted

Jack Shafer / Slate:
Huffington Post lawsuit: The bloggers' class action against Arianna's site is pure bunk.

Discussion: MediaPost, The Wrap, Forbes.com, Editors Weblog, The Atlantic Online, The First Post, VentureBeat, NYConvergence.com, Techland, PC Magazine, L.A. Times Tech Blog and Digital Media Wire

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Harman Family to Keep Its Stake in Newsweek — In the weeks before his death, Sidney Harman acted every bit the proud new business owner he was. He took part in meetings. When he could not be there in person, he dialed in by video conference. He answered his own phone when colleagues called.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Samantha Henig / The New Yorker Blog:
Postscript: Sidney Harman

Discussion: The Daily Beast and American Journalism Review

Media Decoder:
For Newsweek's Future, More Questions

Discussion: The Daily Beast, The Wrap and DealBook

The Daily Beast:
Sidney Harman 1918-2011 — Sidney Harman died last night …

Nat Worden / Wall Street Journal:

Web Advertising Eclipsed Newspapers in 2010 — Web advertising in the U.S. resumed double-digit growth in 2010, outpacing traditional media and surpassing newspaper ad revenue for the first time, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. — In an annual report prepared …

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:
Online Ad Revenue Continues to Rise

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, Media News, TechCrunch, Folio, GigaOM, FishbowlNY and NetNewsCheck Latest

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

Spotify mulls plan to limit free music — Spotify is considering a plan to further cut back the amount of free music it offers to users and is expected to impose new limits perhaps as soon as this week, sources with knowledge of the plans told CNET. — Spotify, the online music service …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Anthony DeRosa:

Traditional media's refusal to enter the link economy — Blogger ethics tend to be better than traditional journalism ethics when it comes to linking to sources. It's actually far more likely you won't find a single link in any articles in most mainstream news publications online.

Associated Press:

AP Mistakenly Reports on Fake GE Press Release — AP mistakenly publishes story about General Electric that was based on a fake press release — The Associated Press mistakenly published a story Wednesday about General Electric Co. that was based on a fake press release.

Discussion: genewscenters.com, CNBC, Associated Press, Reuters, bizjournals, Talking Biz News, AOL News and On Media's Blog

Joe Weisenthal / The Wire:
WHOOPS: AP Falls For Hoax Press Release Saying That GE Will Repay Government $3.8 Billion Tax Break

Discussion: Poynter, CJR, Associated Press, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, Hot Air, Regret the Error and FishbowlNY

msnbc.com:
‘Yes Men’ claim hoax GE tax press release

Discussion: Poynter and New York Observer

C.W. Anderson / Nieman Journalism Lab:

David Levy and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen on the future of journalism beyond America's borders — Much of the discussion in the United States about the future of journalism has tended to revolve around a cluster of key themes: What are the business models for digital news? Is there a market failure for journalism?

Glynnis MacNicol / The Wire:

Glenn Beck Set To Hire 50 People By Year's End — In the midst of a segment about why it's a bad idea to overtax the rich — they create jobs — Glenn Beck dropped this little nugget: He plans to hire an additional 50 people by the end of the year. — Since the recession hit I've hired an additional 40 people.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Yahoo! News, Poynter and New York Observer

UPI:

Woodward blames Web for newspaper ills — The U.S. Internet search engine Google is killing newspapers, investigative reporter Bob Woodward says. — Speaking at Benedictine University in Lisle, Ill., Tuesday night, Woodward said he once told Eric Schmidt, then chief executive officer of Google …

Discussion: Lisle Patch

Douglas Martin / New York Times:

Charles Laufer, Founder of Tiger Beat, Dies at 87 — Charles Laufer, who as a high school teacher in 1955 despaired that his students had nothing entertaining to read and responded with magazines aimed at teenage girls desperate to know much, much more about the lives of their favorite cute stars …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, FishbowlNY and PopEater

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Financial newsletter files plagiarism suit against competitor — Next Inning Technology Research, an online investment newsletter focused on semiconductor and technology stocks, has filed suit to stop the plagiarism of its content by New World Investor and its editor Michael Murphy.

Discussion: EE Times, Thanks:jspepper

Kevin / Strange Attractor:

Rethinking the jobs newspapers do — It's time, actually past time, for a radical rethink of newspapers as a product. Mobile apps and mobile content are finally going mainstream with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, and consumers are finding that these do the job better than print.

Discussion: Strange Attractor

Subtraction.com:

Commented Out — Last week I had to shut down the comment thread for a post I wrote about The Daily when it turned into an unexpectedly snarky exchange on the merits of various approaches to iPad publishing. To look at the twenty comments that were published before I shut it off …

Forbes Blogs / Forbes.com:

Zynga Says No To Ads, Yes To In-Game Promotions — Zynga does not run any advertisements in its games, but it is running large customized in-game campaigns for advertisers to reach Zynga's 250 million users. — “We don't sell advertising,” said Manny Anekal, global director of brand advertising …

Nellie Andreeva / Deadline.com:

Hit YouTube Series ‘The Annoying Orange’ To Become Animated TV Show — Management/production company The Collective has teamed with Dane Boedigheimer, creator of the popular YouTube series The Annoying Orange, to produce The Annoying Orange animated TV comedy series.

Discussion: BoomTown