Mediagazer: Obama releases birth form, decries ‘silliness’ (Associated Press)

10:35 AM ET, April 27, 2011

Top News:

Obama Scolds Media For Focusing On Birthers: ‘We Do Not Have Time For This Kind Of Silliness’ … At his press conference on Wednesday, President Obama scolded the media for focusing on his birth certificate instead of more important issues. — He started the conference by calling out NBC's Chuck Todd directly.

Discussion: Yahoo! News

Associated Press:

Obama releases birth form, decries ‘silliness’ — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he's releasing his long-form birth certificate because the country doesn't have time for the “distraction” and “silliness” of questions being persistently raised about where he was born.

Discussion: White House.gov Blog, Mediaite, Mediaite, MediaMemo, Hit & Run, New York Magazine, The Politico, The Politico, Pajamas Media, The Wire, Runnin' Scared, Guardian, The Maddow Blog, New York Times, The Wire, The Raw Story and New York Observer

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: paidContent, Marketing Pilgrim, SAI, Street Fight, FishbowlLA, FishbowlNY, The Atlantic Wire, LA Observed and Poynter

Elliot Jay Stocks:

Adobe's Digital Publishing mistake — It's Easter Monday (a public holiday here in the UK) and I'm sitting outside in the garden, enjoying some much-needed downtime. I've spent he last half hour or so casually flicking through the latest issue of MacUser magazine, which has a large feature …

Discussion: Boing Boing

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: The Huffington Post, Speakeasy, TVNewser, Reuters, TVGuide.com, Media Decoder, Hollywood Life, MediaPost, The Wire, msnbc.com, On Media's Blog, The Wrap, MyFox New York, TVNewser, Mediaite, Inside TV, rbr.com, Adweek, Yahoo! News, New York Magazine and Bloomberg

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

Village Voice Media Getting Down and Dirty with Escort Ads — Last week, deputies in Polk County, Fla., arrested 60 people—including a Disney employee, a man with breast implants, a 15-year-old runaway with a 2-year-old infant, and her pimp—in an online prostitution bust dubbed Operation Curtain Call.

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

Media companies haven't exploited opportunities created by iPad and mobile technology — I helped launch the Mobile Media blog in January 2010, days before Apple unveiled the iPad. Now, 15 months and 20 million iPads later, this is my last week as a daily contributor to Poynter.org.

Mike Melanson / ReadWriteWeb:

Instapaper Founder: Apps Don't Need To Be Free — Have you noticed that the free version of Instapaper, the app that captures online articles and stores them for offline reading on your mobile device, disappeared from the app store about a month ago? Neither had we, but today …

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Fox News Pushes Mike Huckabee on 2012 Decision — THE DAILY BEAST ON: — The network wants a yes or no on whether the governor-turned-TV host is running for the White House. But Huckabee tells Howard Kurtz he feels no pressure at all. — Mike Huckabee may be running out of time to make a decision on running for president.

Discussion: Poynter and On Media's Blog

Gabriel Snyder / The Atlantic Wire:

Malcolm Gladwell: What I Read — How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all? Do they have some secret? Perhaps. We are asking various people who seem well-informed to describe their media diets. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point …

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Thanks:deliacabe

Sam Gustin / Epicenter:

Wired.com Q&A: New MIT Media Lab Director Joichi Ito on ‘Context and Connection’ — Joichi Ito, tapped as only the fourth director of the MIT Media Lab, says having a bio that seems “scatterbrained” will make the 25-year-old institution — already famous for its unorthodox research approach — seem just like home.

Greg Avery / bizjournals:

Arianna Huffington sets direction for MapQuest — MapQuest's move to new headquarters in Denver was timed to celebrate the online mapping company's 15th anniversary. But the relocation from 17th Street to the trendier SugarCube building in Lower Downtown is more about the rebirth …

Discussion: FishbowlLA

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

Village Voice taps Harry Siegel as metro columnist — The Village Voice has been without a metro columnist since the abrupt departure of longtime staffer Tom Robbins back in January. — Starting in June, however, a new name will appear where Robbins' once did on the the masthead …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared and FishbowlNY