Mediagazer: Product placement guru explains how it's done (Steven Zeitchik/Los Angeles Times)

1:40 PM ET, April 21, 2011

Top News:

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Times Company Profit Falls on Weak Ad Revenue — The New York Times Company reported a sharp drop in net income in the first quarter as the print advertising market remained stubbornly depressed for newspapers. — The company said net income fell 57.6 percent to $5.4 million, compared with $12.8 million in the quarter a year ago.

Discussion: The New York Times Company, paidContent, paidContent, Poynter, The Wrap, FishbowlNY, Tech Trader Daily, @lkramer and Mashable!

Nat Ives / AdAge:

New York Times Pay Wall Gets More Than 100,000 Takers in Early Weeks — No Word on Impact to Web Traffic or Ad Revenue, but 100,000 New Credit Cards for The Times — More than 100,000 people have forked over credit-card numbers to get through the digital pay wall erected by the New York Times on March 28.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Mixed Media, MediaMemo, The Wire, TechCrunch, Globe and Mail, Geekosystem, Gizmodo and Noted, more at Techmeme »

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Tina Brown's ‘Newsweek’ a Hit on Newsstands Magazine still has to deal with sluggish ad sales — Newsweek's been under the microscope since Tina Brown took over. So far, things haven't looked good: First-quarter ad pages were down 31 percent year-over-year, and the April 12 issue had just six ads.

Discussion: Poynter and @editorialiste

Jonathan Stray:

Measuring and increasing accuracy in journalism — Professional journalism is supposed to be “factual,” “accurate,” or just plain true. Is it? Has news accuracy been getting better or worse in the last decade? How does it vary between news organizations, and how do other information sources rate?

Discussion: Regret the Error

cjchivers.com:

Almost Dawn in Libya: Chris & Tim, Heading Home. — We're numb here as the clock nears 4:30 a.m., and we're not quite sure what to do. The deaths of Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington on Tripoli Street still seem unreal. Bryan just walked off from the little space we've been huddled in, working.

Discussion: Poynter, The Wire, New York Times, Invisible Inkling and Online NewsHour

C.J. Chivers / New York Times:
‘Restrepo’ Director Is Killed While Working in Libya

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Vanity Fair, CJR, Vanity Fair, TVNewser, Lens, Guardian, Reuters, Press Gazette, Guardian, ABCNEWS, Online NewsHour, bjp-online.com, Poynter, Gawker, Raleigh News & Observer, The Atlantic Online, The New Yorker Blog, @lexinyt, Kempton, @vanityfair, nppa.org, CJR, ReadWriteWeb, Agence France Presse, Vanity Fair, CNN, Washington Post, The Big Picture, New York Magazine, Speakeasy, Runnin' Scared, Fox News, The Huffington Post, @acarvin, @andersoncooper, CNN, Washington Post, @carr2n, NY Daily News, BlackBook Magazine …, Wall Street Journal, Stars & Stripes, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic Wire, The Daily Beast, LA Observed, shergawia, Gothamist, The Daily Caller, GalleyCat, Mashable!, HitFix, The New Yorker Blog, Photography Blog, Riptide 2.0, NationalJournal.com, Globe and Mail, MetaFilter, Adweek, Screen Junkies, The Daily What, On Media's Blog, E! Online, The Huffington Post, The Informer, The A.V. Club, Outside the Beltway, Change of Subject and The Wire

Steven Zeitchik / Los Angeles Times:

Product placement guru explains how it's done — ‘Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold’ includes product placement expert Norm Marshall, who has navigated Hollywood for decades, quietly adding his clients' goods to movies whenever possible. — Norm Marshall is the marketing …

Discussion: indieWIRE News

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Apple's 92% earnings windfall: The bloggers nail it, the pros miss by a mile — The shortfall in iPad sales was one of the few categories the Street called correctly — Click to enlarge. — The Wall Street analysts who get paid to cover Apple (AAPL) got some things right.

Discussion: Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com and CNET News

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:

‘We Were Definitely Tweeting Before Twitter’ — A Q&A With Television Without Pity Director Daniel Manu — It's TV Week at Ad Age — you've already devoured our special TV Issue package, right? — and to extend the festivities, today we present a conversation with Daniel Manu …

Alex Alvarez / Mediaite:

Interview: Michael Wolff On The Irrelevance Of Media Reporters — Adweek has recently undergone an image overhaul, merging Adweek, Mediaweek and Brandweek into one, single brand and honing its focus in on the intersection of advertising, marketing and media.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Sherry Ricchiardi / American Journalism Review:

The Al Jazeera Effect — The Qatar-based channel's extensive coverage of the Arab Spring underscores its emerging role as a major player. But controversy continues to swirl about its coverage. Posted: Thurs, April 21, 2011 — Sherry Ricchiardi (sricchia@iupui.edu) …

Roy Greenslade / paidContent:UK:

Brooks Aims To Change News International's Game With Big Review — News International's chief executive Rebekah Brooks has launched a three-year internal review of the company under the slogan “changing the game.” — Every division - including editorial, advertising and marketing …

Discussion: Marketing Week and Guardian

Jessica Roy / 10,000 Words:

The 5 Best iPad Apps For Consuming The News That's Important To You — With the recent release of the iPad 2, the Apple App Store is swarming with new and updated apps tailored for interactive news consumption. Some of the most compelling news apps are those that take a familiar concept …

Discussion: Crikey

Matt Kinsman / Folio:

Reader's Digest Buys Haven Home Media — Online vertical network joins RDA's Family Handyman, Fresh Home — The Reader's Digest Association today announced the acquisition of Haven Home Media, an online vertical network serving the do-it-yourself home and shelter category.

Discussion: Media News International, eMedia Vitals, NYConvergence.com, MediaPost and paidContent

Mike Fleming / Deadline.com:

HBO Sets Pulitzer Prize Winner ‘A Visit From The Goon Squad’ For Series Treatment — EXCLUSIVE: It has been some week for Brooklyn-based author Jennifer Egan. Her novel A Visit From The Goon Squad won the Pulitzer Prize and she cited the HBO series The Sopranos as her inspiration.

Discussion: ArtsBeat, Jacket Copy, TVWeek.com, Movieline and Screen Junkies

Andrea Morabito / B&C:

NBC News Brings the Monarch into the Digital Age — The royal wedding may still be more than a week away, but the conversation around the upcoming marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton has already started trending on Twitter. — Last week alone, 43,000 tweets mentioned the impending royal nuptials.

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, Reuters and The Wire

Amazon.com:

Amazon to Launch Library Lending for Kindle Books — Customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 local libraries to read on Kindle and free Kindle reading apps — Whispersyncing of notes, highlights and last page read to work for Kindle library books