Mediagazer: F.C.C. Commissioner Leaving to Join Comcast (Edward Wyatt/Media Decoder)

2:40 AM ET, May 12, 2011

Top News:

Edward Wyatt / Media Decoder:

F.C.C. Commissioner Leaving to Join Comcast — 8:02 p.m. | Updated WASHINGTON — Four months after the Federal Communications Commission approved a hotly contested merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, one of the commissioners who voted for the deal said on Wednesday that she would soon join Comcast's Washington lobbying office.

Discussion: paidContent, Adweek, Company Town, MediaPost, Hillicon Valley, CNET News, rbr.com, PC Magazine, Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel, CrunchGear and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

The Wrap:

Four Months After Approving Merger, FCC Commissioner Joins NBCUniversal — Only in D.C. — A mere four months after voting in favor of Comcast's controversial $13.75 billion purchase of NBC-Universal, Meredith Attwell Baker, the Republican commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission …

Discussion: Ars Technica, Washington Wire, Gawker and Broadcasting & Cable, more at Techmeme »

Nat Ives / AdAge:

New York Times' Share of Newspaper Sites' Traffic Hits 12-Month Low — April Was a Quieter Month for News Than March, But Other Newspaper Sites Maintained Traffic Better — The pay wall introduced by The New York Times at the end of March is hurting traffic to its website, as expected, but perhaps within acceptable levels.

Discussion: Media & Entertainment, Poynter, Tech Trader Daily, Future of Journalism, MediaPost, Runnin' Scared, paidContent, NetNewsCheck Latest and FishbowlNY

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Yahoo grew unique visitors in April while New York Times, others declined — Yahoo!, USA Today, ABC News and Advance saw unique visitors to their websites grow in April compared to March, while all other sites saw declines, data from comScore shows. — To determine the most viewed news websites …

Discussion: The Huffington Post

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

InsideDeal! WebMediaBrands Acquires Inside Network For $14 Million — When it comes to in-depth news about Facebook, there has been no better site than Inside Facebook. In fact, the flagship site of Inside Network became so successful alongside the meteoric rise of Facebook …

Discussion: VentureBeat and @megan

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

The Surprising Reason Publishers Are Finally Saying Yes to Apple — Earlier this week, I asked what had changed in the standoff between Apple and magazine publishers, who want to sell subscriptions to iPad editions in the iTunes store but, until last week, weren't prepared to accept Apple's rules.

Discussion: App Advice, MacStories, AppleInsider, MacRumors and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

The Atlantic Online:

'Google Doesn't Laugh': Saving Witty Headlines in the Age of SEO — If online searches are literal, what happens to headlines that involve word play? Copy editors fear they're going the way of the classified ad. — To Matthew Crowley, funny headlines are serious business.

Discussion: The Awl and @ivantohelpyou

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Is the iPad Just a New Way to Give Away Magazines? — In the last few days, there have been a flurry of deals that suggest that a level of détente between Apple and the Big Three Manhattan publishers (Condé Nast, Time Inc. and Hearst) has finally been reached.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Nxtblog

Keach Hagey / The Politico:

Erik Wemple to Washington Post — Erik Wemple, one of the most fearsome media reporters on the Washington Post beat during his days at City Paper, is leaving the editorship of TBD to take a job at the paper he long covered, a source at the Washington Post confirms.

Discussion: Poynter, Yahoo! News, The Wrap and Gawker

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

CBSNews.com to debut social show 'What's Trending' — Next week, CBSNews.com will debut a new show called “What's Trending” that bridges a live, weekly webcast with social media interaction. “What's Trending fills the gap as a broadcast show for the internet generation,” explains host and executive producer Shira Lazar.

Discussion: CBS News and NetNewsCheck Latest

Aljazeera:

Missing Al Jazeera reporter deported to Iran — Al Jazeera's Dorothy Parvaz, missing since arriving in Damascus almost two weeks ago, is now understood to be in Tehran. — Missing Al Jazeera journalist Dorothy Parvaz has been deported from Syria to Iran, the network has learned.

Discussion: Poynter, Globe and Mail, Committee to Protect …, Guardian, The Atlantic Wire, The Wire and The Daily Dish

Ben Popper / Betabeat:

For Hype Machine, iPhone is Cash Register, Android is Sandbox — It took the team at Hype Machine 18 months to complete their new iPhone app, but just one day to become the #2 program among paid music apps. — “We were working on a lot of different things at once, and with a small team …

Discussion: Gizmodo

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Fortune Decides To Let Everyone Else Get All The Traffic For Its Story On Secrets Of Apple Culture — Last year, we wrote about how Rolling Stone ceded the web to other publications on its big story about General Stanley McChrystal, which resulted in him losing his job a few days later.