Mediagazer: Service launched for publishers to evade Apple cut (Georgina Prodhan/Reuters)

10:10 PM ET, May 5, 2011

Top News:

Katie Couric On the Verge of $20 Million ABC Deal — Katie Couric and ABC television are on the verge of signing a $20 million deal, which would give Katie her own talk show, as well as significant involvement in ABC News — and the big casualty could be “General Hospital.”

Discussion: TVWeek.com, New York Magazine, rbr.com, TVbytheNumbers, Gothamist, Chickaboomer, PopEater, Hollywood Life, TVNewser, The Wire, Deadline.com and TVGuide.com

New York Post:
NBC exec out over ‘Couric link’

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Company Town, Mogulite and TVWeek.com

Georgina Prodhan / Reuters:

Service launched for publishers to evade Apple cut — (Reuters) - Digital technology company Yudu launched a service on Thursday to help magazine publishers evade the 30 percent commission that Apple charges to deliver content to iPhones and iPads through its App Store.

Discussion: YUDU Blog, TeleRead, Gizmodo, ReadWriteWeb, Mobile Marketing Watch, Media Week, App Advice, Pulse2 and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:

Telegraph Goes With Apple Subs For Newspaper-Like iPad Edition — The Telegraph, with its long-awaited version-two iPad app, out today, is the latest news publisher to try reasserting a paid news economy for its newspaper in digital tablet form. — The publisher's upgraded app …

Discussion: Telegraph, TUAW, Electronista, App Advice, Mobile Entertainment, Media Week, MacStories, Press Gazette, The Next Web, One Man & His Blog and Garcia Media, more at Techmeme »

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Why the man who tweeted Osama bin Laden raid is a citizen journalist — When I wrote earlier this week about how quickly people around the world learned that Sohaib Athar had “live tweeted” the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, I thought carefully before calling him a citizen journalist.

Discussion: GigaOM, Journalism.org, AndyDickinson.net, The Atlantic Wire, WebProNews, CNET News, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, The 6th Floor, The Lede and MediaMemo

Rem Rieder / American Journalism Review:
Passing on Rumors — Why it's a bad idea to glorify …

Discussion: Poynter, Storyful and The Atlantic Wire

MG Siegler / parislemon:
On Bin Laden Killing Tech Blogging

Discussion: TechCrunch, WebProNews, ChasNote, @fredericl, @sg and broadstuff

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:

Fox ends contracts of Gingrich, Santorum — Fox News has terminated its contracts with former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senator Rick Santorum after the deadline for them to decide on presidential bids passed on May 1, a source familiar with the move told POLITICO.

Discussion: Real Clear Politics, Media Decoder, The Huffington Post, Mediaite, On Media's Blog, The Daily Caller, The Atlantic Wire, Adweek, TVNewser, Vanity Fair, Inside Cable News, Poynter and The Page

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Can Patch Become the Huffington Post of Local News? — Updated: AOL continues to pour millions of dollars into its Patch.com “hyperlocal” news project, the company confirmed on Wednesday as it released its latest financial statements. But it's also rolling out an expansion of that project aimed …

Discussion: Street Fight, Future of Journalism, Reuters, Mixed Media and SAI, Thanks:morisy

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Hot Damn, AOL Is Making One Big, Expensive Bet on Patch

Discussion: FishbowlNY, SAI and NYConvergence.com

Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:
Local Voices: Hyperlocal Blogging Comes to Patch

Discussion: MediaShift Idea Lab

Amy Tennery / Mogulite:

Did CEO McGrath Hate “Electric Barbarellas” so Much She Left MTV? — She was the leader behind MTV's reality show boom, championing programs like “Jersey Shore” and “Teen Mom” — but, in an ironic turn of events, we suspect network veteran Judy McGrath is now ditching her CEO spot over true-life T.V.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire and New York Magazine

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Judy McGrath Leaving MTV Networks; The Memo

Discussion: Company Town, PR Newswire, @kenli729, Adweek, The Wrap, rbr.com, AdAge, MediaPost, Broadcasting & Cable and Media Decoder

The Atlantic Online:

The Wall Street Journal Launches a WikiLeaks Competitor, SafeHouse — The respected Washington, D.C.-based newspaper has built a site for securely uploading documents to its own internal servers — Once upon a time, WikiLeaks was just a place where a would-be whistleblower could submit documents …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Betabeat, Mashable!, WebProNews, Tom Foremski and FishbowlNY, more at Techmeme »

Wall Street Journal / @wsj:
Introducing WSJ SafeHouse, a secure way to share confidential documents with us. Check it out: https://www.wsjsafehouse.com/

Discussion: Guardian, Poynter, Mixed Media, Journalism.co.uk, @wikileaks, @jason and NewsGrange

Bill Keller / New York Times:

The Inner Lives of Wartime Photographers — This has been a grievous season for the tight-knit tribe of combat photographers. For The Times, the sorrow began last October, when a land mine exploded under Joao Silva while he was shooting pictures of an American patrol near Kandahar …

Discussion: Lens, Forbes.com and The 6th Floor

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Confirmed: IGN Buys UGO, Hearst Gets Equity In New Venture That Will Soon Spin Out — News Corp's IGN gaming and entertainment property has just acquired Hearst's gaming and entertainment property UGO, we've confirmed with the company. And yes, the move is step one towards News Corp. spinning …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Company Town and NYConvergence.com

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

A Tight Deadline, 4,000 Words, Then Ten Years of Waiting — A Q&A with Kate Zernike, Osama bin Laden's obituarist for the NYT — When the news of Osama bin Laden's death broke on Sunday night, every night editor's dream—or nightmare—came true at The New York Times …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Twitter Blog:

Watching Together: Twitter and TV — TV and Twitter have a special connection. Broadcasters are eager to provide new ways to drive viewer engagement. Twitter provides a forum for real-time context and commentary that turns watchers into participants. — Over the past few years …

Discussion: SocialTimes.com, WebProNews, Softpedia News and On The Air

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon to Publish New Line of Romances — Amazon.com Inc. is expanding its fast-growing publishing business with a new line of romance books, its latest quest for original content to distinguish its print and digital bookselling services. — The imprint, Montlake Romance, will publish digital …

Discussion: Guardian, O'Reilly Radar, Digital Trends and GeekWire

Al Diamon / Al Diamon's blog:

Maine Papers: We Deserve Tax Dollars — Fuddy-duddy study: The Maine Press Association held a State House news conference on May 3 to announce that the state's newspaper industry is “an economic engine.” To prove it, the group released a study by Planning Decisions Inc. of South Portland …

Discussion: Portland Press-Herald, MediaPost and On Media's Blog

Simon Owens / Nieman Journalism Lab:

A place for Homicide Watch: Can a local blog fill some of the gaps in Washington, D.C.'s crime coverage? — While I was sitting with Laura and Chris Amico in their apartment in the Adams Morgan area of Washington, D.C., Chris suddenly sat upright and began reading aloud a comment that had just come …