Mediagazer: The (Cable) Empire Strikes Back (Ryan Lawler/GigaOM)

9:25 AM ET, May 6, 2011

Top News:

Adrian Chen / Gawker:

Don't Leak to the Wall Street Journal's New Wikileaks Knockoff — The Wall Street Journal is trying to make a play for whistleblowers with its very own Wikileaks clone, SafeHouse. But SafeHouse is the opposite of safe, thanks to basic security flaws and fine print that lets the Journal rat on leakers.

more at Techmeme »

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Can The Wall Street Journal Replace WikiLeaks? — NEW YORK — The Wall Street Journal wasn't on the receiving end of major WikiLeaks document dumps on Iraq, Afghanistan, the State Dept. and Guantanamo Bay. But the Journal may have found a way to cut out the middleman and convince leakers to go straight to the paper's editors.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, eMedia Vitals, Editors Weblog and SAI

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: Mashable!, Mixed Media, Betabeat, AdExchanger.com, Pulse2, Future of Journalism, WebProNews, Tom Foremski and FishbowlNY

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, @jason, NewsGrange and @wikileaks

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

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Does Posting Things to Twitter Make You a Journalist? — There's been a lot of discussion about what the U.S. military strike on Osama bin Laden's compound says about the state of the media today, and the latest debate is whether Sohaib Athar — the Pakistani resident who live-tweeted the raid — is a journalist or not.

Discussion: WebProNews and Poynter

Steve Myers / Poynter:
Why the man who tweeted Osama bin Laden raid is a citizen journalist

Discussion: Journalism.org, The Atlantic Wire, AndyDickinson.net and CNET News

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: On Media's Blog, Wall Street Journal, Poynter, CNN, Chickaboomer, TVWeek.com, New York Magazine, PopEater, Gothamist, rbr.com, TVNewser, TVbytheNumbers, Hollywood Life, The Wire and Deadline.com

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

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

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 Week, MinOnline, Media News International, VentureBeat and Company Town

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, FishbowlNY, Street Fight, Future of Journalism, NYConvergence.com, The Huffington Post and Mixed Media, Thanks:morisy

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

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

YouTube is Managing Graphic, Violent Videos from the Middle East with Community Help — SAN BRUNO, CA — YouTube has been an essential platform for videos of street violence in the Middle East, mostly camera phone uploads of events not covered by the news media.

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Swears He's Not Going to Kill HBO: “We Compete Like Football and Baseball” — So we've heard what Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes thinks about Netflix. What does Reed Hastings think about Time Warner? — He's full of good will, too!

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Condé leapfrogs Hearst in iPad digital mag derby — Conde Nast is very close to a deal to begin selling digital subscriptions via Apple's iPad. — The New Yorker will become the first publication from the S.I. Newhouse, Jr., empire to be available via subscription on the popular tablet …

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 …

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