Mediagazer: Moneyball and paywalls: Lessons on paid content from smaller papers (Justin Ellis/Nieman Journalism Lab)

6:00 PM ET, May 16, 2011

Top News:

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Drudge influence may remain, but numbers show his audience waxes and wanes — Among the findings of last week's Pew report on what drives traffic to — and from — news websites, David Carr today highlights the continuing influence of the Drudge Report. — As Carr noted, Nielsen numbers cited …

Discussion: @megan

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Washington Post Disputes Study Touting Drudge's Influence — NEW YORK — The Washington Post is pushing back against a much-discussed new study that claims the Drudge Report website drives 15 percent of the paper's online traffic. — A Post spokeswoman told The Huffington Post …

David Carr / New York Times:

How Drudge Has Stayed on Top — For most big news Web sites, about 60 percent of the traffic is homegrown, people who come directly to the site by dint of a bookmark or typing in www.latimes.com or www.huffingtonpost.com. The other critical 40 percent comes by referrals …

Discussion: ZDNet, NoahBrier.com, The Wire, Media and Communications …, The Atlantic Wire, CyberJournalist.net, @carr2n, @carr2n, @jwherrman, Future of Journalism, @jayrosen_nyu, @jwherrman, @jeffsonderman, @bgrueskin, @dangillmor, @scottkarp, ShortFormBlog and @mlcalderone

Chase Hensel / The Official Google Blog:

Expanding Google News for more variety and multimedia — (Cross-posted from the Google News blog) — Every day, Google News crawls through thousands of news articles to present you with the most relevant and recent stories. For a long time, we've realized that bringing relevant news …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, CNET News, PC Magazine, Search Engine Land, NewsGrange and ReadWriteWeb, more at Techmeme »

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

Look Out Blogs: Google News Gains Options To Drop Blogs & Press Releases — Tired of seeing blogs or press releases in your Google News homepage? Google's got a cure for that, new settings that allow you to see fewer results from these sources, or none at all.

Discussion: Search Engine Roundtable and WebProNews, more at Techmeme »

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism:

Columbia Journalism School to launch The New York World — Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism is launching an ambitious digital project - The New York World - designed to provide New York City citizens with accountability journalism about government operations that affect their lives.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Future of Journalism, CJR, NetNewsCheck Latest, Editors Weblog, FishbowlNY and ShortFormBlog

David Kaplan / paidContent:

AOL HuffPo Media Group On Editorial Hiring Spree Following Layoffs — After a raft of layoffs and departures that followed AOL's $315 million acquisition of The Huffington Post in February, Arianna Huffington is hiring a bunch of new editors to reset the combined entities' newsroom …

Discussion: Poynter, Saul Hansell's Blog, Forbes.com, Techland and The Wire

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL Huffpo Goes Trade with Energy, Gov't and Defense Sites — It's war! Except for the lady on the right. She has no beef here. Image by Getty Images via @daylife — Don't ever accuse Arianna Huffington of lacking ambition. For her next act, the AOL Huffington Post editor in chief …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Reuters and MarketingVOX, more at Techmeme »

Jean-Louis Gassée / Monday Note:
Dangerous Blend — Last week, the Columbia School …

Discussion: Capital New York, Adweek, The Wire, Guardian, On Media's Blog, FishbowlNY and MediaPost

Bill Carter / New York Times:

Gay CNN Anchor Sees Risk in Book — Don Lemon, the weekend prime-time anchor for CNN, was on the air on Sunday night this month when the news broke that President Obama would address the nation at the unusual hour of 10:30 p.m. — By the time the news network was confirming the reports …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, NPR, The Atlantic Wire, Adweek, Poynter, Jezebel, Yahoo! News, New York Magazine, iCelebrity, @donlemoncnn, The New Yorker Blog, Mediaite, PopEater, On Media's Blog, Gawker, ShortFormBlog and Inside Cable News

John C Abell / Epicenter:

Four More Conde Nast Titles Begin Digital Subscriptions — Four more Conde Nast titles began digital subscriptions Monday — Vanity Fair, Glamour, Golf Digest and Allure — bringing to five the number now available via Apple's iTunes store. — “Today's rollout follows last Monday's successful debut …

Discussion: Gizmodo

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:
Many Formats, One Price — More Publications Begin Bundling …

Discussion: GigaOM and Adweek

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Moneyball and paywalls: Lessons on paid content from smaller papers — It's not that hard to find similarities between baseball and the newspaper industry. On one side you've got the New York Yankees: big payroll, extensive resources, and a renowned line-up.

Emma Barnett / Telegraph:

Forbes chief's digital approach should be mimicked — Steve Forbes, the billionaire chairman and editor-in chief of Forbes Media, has been able to launch a new European print edition, having made digital pay. — Forbes Media has launched an European version of its flagship title.

Discussion: MediaPost

Steve Grove / The Official Google Blog:

Remembering fallen journalists on video — We live in a world that feels smaller every day. As we become accustomed to nearly ubiquitous coverage of the news and events unfolding around the world, it's easy to forget the price that is sometimes paid to obtain quality …

Discussion: Yahoo! News and ReadWriteWeb

Jane Mayer / New Yorker:

Is Thomas Drake an enemy of the state? — Is Thomas Drake an enemy of the state? — Drake, a former senior executive at the National Security Agency, faces some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. Photograph by Martin Schoeller.

Discussion: Techdirt and MetaFilter

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

At Bloomberg, Twitter Grabs an Unlikely Convert — Twitter is old news to lots of journalists, but not all of them. Last week, for instance, Matthew Winkler, Bloomberg News' editor in chief, sent out his very first tweet. — Straightforward stuff, but still enough to cause a minor stir among the Bloomberg ranks.

Discussion: Talking Biz News