Mediagazer: A Tight Deadline, 4,000 Words, Then Ten Years of Waiting (Lauren Kirchner/CJR)

2:50 AM ET, May 6, 2011

Top News:

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

TMZ.com:

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: Chickaboomer, New York Magazine, TVWeek.com, PopEater, Gothamist, rbr.com, TVbytheNumbers, TVNewser, Hollywood Life, 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, Mobile Marketing Watch, Media Week, ReadWriteWeb, App Advice, TeleRead, Future of Journalism and Pulse2, more at Techmeme »

Robert Andrews / paidContent:UK:
Telegraph Goes With Apple Subs For Newspaper-Like iPad Edition

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

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:
Hearst, Apple Reach iPad Deal

Discussion: MediaPost, Mobile Entertainment, Guardian, Media Week, eBookNewser, Adweek, FierceMobileContent, dailywireless.org, Folio, App Advice, TUAW, Editors Weblog and Poynter

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: Stowe Boyd, NetNewsCheck Latest, Street Fight and Future of Journalism, Thanks:morisy

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

Discussion: mediabistro.com, FishbowlNY, NYConvergence.com and SAI

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

Discussion: MediaShift Idea Lab

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, Future of Journalism, Mashable!, AdExchanger.com, Betabeat, Pulse2, 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: Journalism.co.uk, Poynter, Guardian, Mixed Media, @jason, NewsGrange and @wikileaks

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, WebProNews, The Atlantic Wire, AndyDickinson.net, CNET News, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, The 6th Floor 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 / 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: Media News International, VentureBeat and Company Town

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, Media News International, PR Newswire, @kenli729, The Wrap, Adweek, rbr.com, AdAge, MediaPost, Media Decoder and Broadcasting & Cable

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

New: Google Showing Recent Stories From News Sites With News Snippet — Search for [news] or [new york times] or [fox news] or other queries that would bring up a popular news site and you will see a new search snippet displayed within the search results for these news sites.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

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

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:

The (Cable) Empire Strikes Back — Pay TV is alive and well, and now has more subscribers than ever. There was some consternation in the second and third quarters of last year, when the industry reported its first ever declines in the number of pay TV subscribers.

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 …

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