Mediagazer: Hit YouTube Series ‘The Annoying Orange’ To Become Animated TV Show (Nellie Andreeva/Deadline.com)

12:55 PM 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.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Why the Times Pays Writers Even When It Doesn't Have To — This guy doesn't need your stinkin' 50 bucks, okay? Image via Wikipedia — In the great debate over whether the Huffington Post should/must/will pay its bloggers, there's one refrain you keep hearing from the site's defenders …

Discussion: Poynter and The Atlantic Online

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

Discussion: B2B Memes, Poynter and MediaPost

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: FishbowlNY, Wall Street Journal, Deal Journal and Poynter

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

Discussion: The Daily Beast, American Journalism Review, Bloomberg and The Huffington Post

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 …

Discussion: Noted and Street Fight

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

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

Amelia Hill / Guardian:

Third senior News of the World journalist arrested — James Weatherup in custody as further searches of News of the World offices are expected — Profile: who is James Weatherup? — The police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World has taken a dramatic turn …

Discussion: The Wire, Press Gazette and New York Observer

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

Six Lessons for News Publishers from Seth Godin — Seth Godin is the marketer's marketer, somewhere beyond guru. — He's now poking the edges of publishing. After 13 bestsellers, manufactured and sold through the traditional industry, he's causing quite a stir in the book world …

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Love me, love my NPR: Public radio listeners can show off their loyalty — NPR executives have been known to brag that theirs is just about the only news organization to show up in people's personal ads. For example: “I am in need of some intelligent male company...I am an avid reader …

Mark Colvin / ABC News:

Journalism's new wave: the world in a tweet — One steamy night in February 1974, I went with friends to hear the great blues guitarist B B King in concert at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion. — All went well until, an hour or so in, King collapsed on stage and had to be carried off.

Discussion: Washington Post

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: Spotify, paidContent, VentureBeat, broadstuff, ReadWriteWeb and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

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: TVWeek.com and BoomTown

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Flipboard Gets Oprah — Big Partnership for Popular Social Magazine App Puts Oprah on Par With Facebook, Twitter — Oprah is getting equal billing to Facebook and Twitter in the latest update to Flipboard's iPad app. — The app, which allows users to create personalized magazines …

John Cook / Gawker:

The New York Observer's Trump Problem — Pouty fathead Donald Trump is a tailor-made character for the New York Observer, which purports to monitor Manhattan's smug oligarchy with a gimlet-eyed detachment. And his semi-coherent presidential grumblings, which count as news just about everywhere else …

Discussion: New York Observer, The Wire, FishbowlNY and New York Observer

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Should TV get on Tumblr? KABC gives it a try — Tumblr is a relatively unexplored world for media organizations — especially in television — but today there's a new TV station giving Tumblr a try. KABC in Los Angeles just debuted this Tumblr a few days ago with the goal to provide …

David Kaplan / paidContent:

AOL Realigns Ad Sales Along Specific Categories; Five New ‘Practice Heads’ — As AOL's dismal display revenues appears to have put the worst behind it, the company is refining its ad sales approach in the hopes of developing stronger focus on specific ad categories, including CPG/Health, Travel, Automotive, Finance and Entertainment.

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, New York Observer and Poynter

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 …