Mediagazer: MIT management professor Tom Malone on collective intelligence and the “genetic” structure of groups (Megan Garber/Nieman Journalism Lab)

1:45 PM ET, May 4, 2011

Top News:

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

NY Daily News Got Tip of Bin Laden Death Hours Early Tabloid heard from FDNY source, editor says — Most of the world learned about Osama bin Laden's death when President Obama announced it late Sunday evening. But the New York Daily News says it was leaked the biggest story of the year …

Discussion: NPR, FishbowlNY, New York Observer, The AfPak Channel, The Politico and Sunshine State Sarah

New York Observer:

Hot Damn! Behind the Young Rummy Aide Who Broke Bin Laden's Bust — Late Friday night, according to his now-infamous Twitter feed, Keith Urbahn toasted the end of the work week with a tall mint julep on a warm Washington evening, made from mint from his garden and 1792 small-batch Kentucky bourbon.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Broadcasting & Cable, Mediaite and The Daily Beast

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Operation Geronimo, Part 2: Targeting the Media — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney — In retrospect, the week leading up to the killing of Osama bin Laden seems like the christening scene in The Godfather. The birth certificate, the tornado response, the correspondents' dinner …

Discussion: Poynter, The AfPak Channel, News Desk, ABCNEWS and The Politico

Chris Lehmann / Yahoo! News:
Bin Laden news finds pundits forsaking usual comfort zones

Discussion: Gothamist and Mediaite

Steve Myers / Poynter:
How 4 people & their social network turned an unwitting witness to bin Laden's death into a citizen journalist

Discussion: The 6th Floor, The AfPak Channel, ThinkProgress, Nieman Journalism Lab, New York Magazine and The Business Insider

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism:

Al Jazeera English to be honored with Columbia Journalism Award — Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism will bestow its highest honor, the Columbia Journalism Award, to Al Jazeera English. The award is given annually during the school's commencement ceremony to recognize …

Discussion: Poynter and @niemanlab

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Why Rush for an iPad App? Fortune's New Web App Starts With Your Browser — Web Apps Are on the Rise, but Will Consumers Adopt Them? — Instead of limiting its next app to one device like the iPad, Fortune magazine has built a new app to run inside web browsers on a variety of platforms.

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

MIT management professor Tom Malone on collective intelligence and the “genetic” structure of groups — Do groups have genetic structures? If so, can they be modified? — Those are two central questions for Thomas Malone, a professor of management and an expert in organizational structure …

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Tim Armstrong Finally Gets To Boast: AOL Ad Sales Moving Up — It's taken Tim Armstrong a couple years, but he finally has some good news to share about AOL's ad business: It actually grew last quarter. — Or at least part of it did: Display ads were up four percent for the first quarter …

Discussion: CNET News, paidContent, mediabistro.com and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

David Kaplan / paidContent:
Hearst Adopts AOL ‘Large Format’ Ads

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and FishbowlNY

Oliver Reichenstein / Information Architects:

Business Class: Freemium for News? — I had a perspective changing talk on the subject of pay walls with the chief executive of a big publishing company (no, I can't tell you who). He asked me what I think about pay walls. I told him what I always say: The main currency of news sites …

Discussion: GigaOM

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

Google Takes to TV to Promote Browser — SAN FRANCISCO — Google is once again taking up arms in the browser wars, in the belief that people who use its Chrome Web browser will be more likely to keep using Google search. — The company is taking the battle to mainstream America …

Discussion: paidContent, MediaMemo, Digital Trends, CNET News, The Next Web, Gawker and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Sam Gustin / Epicenter:

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: No Armageddon Battle With Cable Giants — NEW YORK — In many ways, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was the perfect choice to close out this year's Wired Business Conference. — After all, perhaps no company better represents disruption than the DVD-rental …

Discussion: AdAge, paidContent, The Tech Trade, Technology Review, Hacking NetFlix, DSLreports, Mobile Marketing Watch, FierceCable, Home Media Magazine, Company Town, Free Press, GigaOM and SAI

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Reuters Bringing Live Video News to Publishers Big and Small — Reuters, a leading provider of live news video to television broadcasters around the globe, is now making a rich offering of live video feeds available to digital publishers, says Chris Ahearn, president of media for Thomson Reuters, in this interview with Beet.TV

Discussion: paidContent and Talking Biz News

New York Observer:

The Situation and the Story: Press Corps Parties While White House Makes History … It was Wednesday morning at 9:47 a.m. in the White House Press Briefing Room. The president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, took the podium. Major television networks had interrupted coverage to broadcast the president's address.

Discussion: New York Magazine, Poynter and Guardian

Jeremy Greenfield / FINS.com:

The Risk Taker in Hearst's David Carey — David Carey had led a charmed life in magazine publishing — until the 2007 launch of Conde Nast Portfolio. Two years and a reported $100 million later, the business publication went down in what Carey calls a “radioactive” environment for business publications.

Martin Robbins / Guardian:

Libel law makes web hosts the Achilles heel of online journalism | Martin Robbins — Much attention has been focused on the chilling effects of Britain's libel laws on writers, but standing up to threats counts for little when websites can be shut down on a whim

John Hudson / The Atlantic Wire:

Adam Moss: 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. Adam Moss, editor-in-chief of New York magazine …

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Pandora Internet Radio Service to Offer Large Archive of Comedy Clips — Since it began six years ago, the Internet radio service Pandora has changed the way millions of people listen to music online. Now the company wants to do the same for comedy. — On Wednesday Pandora will add 10,000 clips …

Discussion: Pandora, WebProNews, Richmond BizSense and NetworkEffect, more at Techmeme »