Mediagazer: Lawyer Sues Legal Blog for $50M Over Rape Story (Jeff Bercovici/Mixed Media)

9:15 AM ET, May 12, 2011

Top News:

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: Fast Company, Tech Trader Daily, Poynter, Media & Entertainment, MediaPost, paidContent, Future of Journalism, Runnin' Scared and FishbowlNY, more at Techmeme »

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 …

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

How The New York Times Will Shake Up Its Weekly Section — NEW YORK — New York Times staffers in the editorial and news departments have been working for several months to reinvent the paper's “Week in Review” section, a Sunday staple for more than 75 years.

Discussion: NewsBusters.org and coverawards.com

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: Adweek, Hillicon Valley, paidContent, MediaPost, Company Town, Multichannel News, CNET News, CrunchGear, PC Magazine, Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel, rbr.com 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: Gawker, Ars Technica, Washington Wire and Broadcasting & Cable, more at Techmeme »

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: paidContent, NetworkEffect, MinOnline, VentureBeat and @megan, more at Techmeme »

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: Fortune, App Advice, TUAW, MacStories, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Future of Journalism 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

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

The New York Times to Debut “UGC” Wedding Announcements This Weekend — The New York Times, which features a short article and photo of a couple of dozen newly-weds every Sunday in the Style section, will be adding short videos created by the couples. The first user-generated video will be published this weekend.

Discussion: New York Times and Poynter

The Atlantic Wire:

The New York Times's Bill Keller Riles Up Twitter — New York Times executive editor Bill Keller likes things stirred-up, as his recent public spats with The Huffington Post and Fox News demonstrated. This afternoon he took the fight to Twitter, posting a message to his seldom used …

Discussion: @mikeriggs, @mlcalderone, @weareyourfek, @nytkeller, @jeffjarvis, @emmagkeller, @carr2n, Online NewsHour and Soup

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Gawker sites see page views begin to return as Jezebel's April traffic bests last year's — Since Gawker Media relaunched its network of websites in February, there has been much talk about the immediate drop in unique visitors and page views. But three months later, the numbers look a little different.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Lawyer Sues Legal Blog for $50M Over Rape Story — Getting publicly accused of committing rape is bad enough. Getting publicly accused of committing multiple rapes is considerably worse. Is the difference between the first and the second worth $50 million?

Discussion: Associated Press, Jezebel, FishbowlNY and The Wire

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Michael Moore, Ken Burns Tapped as Contributors for Keith Olbermann's Current TV Show — “Countdown” will return to TV on Current June 20, and host Keith Olbermann is lining up a stable of contributors to appear regularly on the program. — TVNewser has learned that filmmaker Michael Moore …

Discussion: The Wire, Broadcasting & Cable and On Media's Blog

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, more at Techmeme »