Mediagazer: Ask Josh Harris: A Fireside Chat on the Future of Media (Ben Popper/Betabeat)

5:50 PM ET, April 26, 2011

Top News:

Alicia Dennis / People.com:

Katie Couric: I Am Leaving CBS Evening News — After weeks of widespread speculation about her future, Katie Couric is finally ready to go on the record. — “I have decided to step down from the CBS Evening News,” Couric tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I'm really proud of the talented team …

Discussion: Reuters, TVNewser, On Media's Blog, The Wire, TVGuide.com, Media Decoder, rbr.com, Yahoo! News, The Wrap, Mediaite, TVNewser, NY Daily News, New York Magazine, Gothamist, msnbc.com, Hot Air, The Daily Caller, Tuned In, MyFox New York, Inside TV and PopEater

Bloomberg:

Couric Said to Weigh Move to ABC as CBS Anchor Job Ends — Katie Couric is contemplating a move to ABC as she prepares to end her five-year run as the “CBS Evening News” anchor, according to people with knowledge of the situation. — Couric, 54, is expected to announce this week …

Discussion: TVNewser, Broadcasting & Cable, The Wrap, Vanity Fair, CBS News, Bloomberg and Media Decoder

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

EXCLUSIVE: YouTube Finally Goes Hollywood With New Movies on Demand Service (Updated) — YouTube will imminently launch a movie-on-demand service charging users to stream movies off the world's largest video sharing site, TheWrap has learned. — The new service means a full-bore challenge …

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

What I Think I Know About Journalism — Next month I will have taught journalism at New York University for 25 years, an occasion that has led me to reflect on what I have tried to profess in that time. — Or, to put it another way, what I think I know about journalism. — It comes down to these four ideas.

Discussion: Poynter and FishbowlNY

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL's Patch Adding 8,000 Bloggers in ‘Full-On Course Correction’ — Ah, memories. Image via Wikipedia — Arianna Huffington must not be taking that class action lawsuit against her too seriously. Not only is AOL's new content chief not cutting down on the use of unpaid bloggers, she's doubling down — literally.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, LA Observed and SAI

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Keith Olbermann's new show with a familiar name will premiere June 20 on Current TV — When Current TV announced in early February that Keith Olbermann was joining its prime-time lineup, the emerging cable news network set “spring” as the targeted launch date for the bombastic former MSNBC anchor's new show.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Media Decoder

Burgess Everett / On Media's Blog:
Olbermann announcement planned Tuesday

Discussion: Speakeasy, rbr.com, MediaPost, Mediaite, MyFox New York, The Wire, The Atlantic Wire, Multichannel and Broadcasting & Cable

Ivanoransky / Retraction Watch:

More details emerge on ScienceBlogs-National Geographic deal — Yesterday, we reported that National Geographic had bought ScienceBlogs. We've now obtained a recording of a conference call between various members of National Geographic senior management, ScienceBlogs management …

Ivanoransky / Retraction Watch:
So who bought ScienceBlogs? Retraction Watch exclusive: National Geographic

Discussion: Pharyngula, Poynter. and CJR

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

The New York Times' Subscription Ad Campaign Costs $13 Million — The New York Times wants everyone to sign up for one of its subscription plans, so to help spread the word, the company launched a massive ad campaign. — WWD reports that the effort - which runs through 2011 …

Discussion: SocialTimes.com, UnBeige and TVSpy

Zeke Turner / WWD Media Headlines:
Memo Pad: New York Times' Subscription Push... Mary Berner Opts Out...

Discussion: Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Breaking News on YouTube and the Emerging Role of the Citizen Editor/Curator — SAN BRUNO, CA — While YouTube is playing a unique role in providing raw video of the unrest in the Middle East to the Web, and to many of the the world's news organizations, the giant video site doesn't actually organize or vet video.

Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:

How TV & The Web Are Merging: Al Jazeera's New Show, The Stream — As television continues to adapt to the Web, expect to see new forms of content emerge that are a hybrid of traditional TV and the latest Web technologies. Last week, television news network Al Jazeera launched a new TV show and website.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Editors Weblog, Free Press, MediaPost and New York Times

Glynnis MacNicol / The Wire:
Take A Look Inside The Swanky Studio Of Al Jazeera's New Social Media Show

Discussion: The Corsair and Multichannel

Bradley Johnson / AdAge:

Tweet This: Agencies Get 28% of Revenue From Digital — Mad Ave Better Take Note — You Are Digital, or You Are Very, Very Unimportant — Digital services accounted for an estimated $8.5 billion (28%) of the $30.4 billion in 2010 U.S. revenue generated by the 900-plus advertising …

Discussion: MinOnline and Techland

Betsy Rothstein / FishbowlDC:

Michael Kinsley Heads to Bloomberg View — New York Magazine National Affairs Correspondent John Heilemann released the tip just minutes ago of a possible job prospect for Bloomberg View. He wrote, “Just ran into Mike Kinsley in lobby of offices of Bloomberg View, getting tour from DShipley.

Discussion: On Media's Blog, @jheil and The Atlantic Wire

David Kaplan / paidContent:

IAC Profits, Revenues Surge; Cites Reduced Losses At Daily Beast — IAC (NSDQ: IACI) turned in another solid quarter as revenues from search, dating site Match and local home improvement site ServiceMagic all rose in double digits. Even the media segment, which absorbed Newsweek as part …

Discussion: Mixed Media and Forbes.com

SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

The Incredible Shrinking New York Times — The New York Times has righted its ship after a near-death experience during the last recession. — Thanks to sharp cost-cutting, the company has returned to profitability. And thanks to frantic debt restructuring, the NYT has also removed …

Discussion: The Wire

David Hirschman / Street Fight:

EveryBlock's Adrian Holovaty: Enabling Community Conversation — Journalist and programmer Adrian Holovaty has been building out local news databases for a while now. A former Washington Post staffer, Holovaty is also the creator of the open-source platform Django, as well as chicagocrime.org (which later was folded into EveryBlock).

Discussion: Future of Journalism, NetNewsCheck Latest and Poynter

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Slate rethinks aggregation (again) with a Slatest redesign — Slate was arguably the first major news site to care about aggregation, starting back in 1996, when we only thought we suffered from information overload. (They didn't even call it “aggregation” yet. It was “meta-news.")

Discussion: Slate, Editors Weblog and eMedia Vitals

Dan Snyder / Washington Post:

Why I am suing Washington City Paper — On Tuesday I am refiling my lawsuit against Washington City Paper, a tabloid paper that published false and reckless charges about me in November 2010. The case needed to be refiled in Washington, not New York, for legal reasons; the rest of the complaint is essentially the same.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, FishbowlDC, The Atlantic Wire, SportsGrid, Forbes.com, Deadspin, DCist and Poynter

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

The Times Gains New Subscribers With Groupon Discount — Times Newspapers has added nearly two percent more digital subscribers in the last three days, after discounting its online rates by 70 percent in a deal through Groupon. — On Easter Sunday morning, Groupon recipients received …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Joseph P. Kahn / Boston Globe:

‘Frontline’ team investigates its options for digital future — In its 28 years on air, “Frontline” has broadcast more than 500 documentaries and won a slew of awards for investigative reporting. But change is in the air at the Brighton offices of the national award-winning public affairs show.

Discussion: Poynter and Free Press

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:

Faced With Declines, McClatchy Weighs Digital Subscriptions — The newspaper industry continues to take a major hit as reflected by earnings reported on Tuesday by The McClatchy Company, the parent company to newspapers like The Kansas City Star, The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.

Discussion: The McClatchy Company and paidContent

Benjamin Wallace-Wells / New York Magazine:

What's Left of the Left — Paul Krugman's lonely crusade. — If you are looking not only for clues into Barack Obama's character but for a definition of what his presidency will mean to the country, then the speech on fiscal policy that he delivered at George Washington University …

Discussion: Forbes.com, Mother Jones, Yglesias and Dealbreaker

Julie Moos / Poynter:

The obligatory and the original: 3 things I learned from our week as Romenesko — In the eight-plus years I've worked with Jim Romenesko, I've spent some time talking with him, more time emailing with him, and — most of all — I've admired and observed how he does what he does.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire