Mediagazer: Dorothy Parvaz is free (Aljazeera)

1:30 PM ET, May 18, 2011

Top News:

The Twitter Trap — Last week my wife and I told our 13-year-old daughter she could join Facebook. Within a few hours she had accumulated 171 friends, and I felt a little as if I had passed my child a pipe of crystal meth. — I don't mean to be a spoilsport, and I don't think I'm a Luddite.

Discussion: Betabeat, SAI, Poynter and Boing Boing, more at Techmeme »

Aljazeera:

Dorothy Parvaz is free — The Al Jazeera journalist, who disappeared in Syria 19 days ago, is back in Doha. — Al Jazeera journalist Dorothy Parvaz has been released nearly three weeks after she went missing after arriving in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where she was to cover the protests.

Discussion: Press Gazette, Seattle Times, New York Times, Mediaite, Canadian Press, Nieman Storyboard, ProducerMatthew.com and J-Source

Wall Street Journal:

Hulu Near Deal to Keep Shows Coming — Hulu LLC is close to renewing its deal for TV shows from its media-company owners in a move that would secure the future of the online-video site but could delay Hulu's access to some shows for its free service, people familiar with the matter said.

Discussion: Adweek, Online Video News, Company Town and Los Angeles Times

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

“Hulu For Magazines” Opens Its Android Newsstand — Apple has won over some of the big magazine publishers, who have reached deals to sell subscriptions via iTunes. But it's not an exclusive arrangement: Now the magazine guys are starting to sell on Google's Android, too.

Discussion: paidContent, PC Magazine, MarketingVOX, eBookNewser, Adweek, AppleInsider, Engadget, AdAge, SAI, Electronista and eMedia Vitals, more at Techmeme »

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Say hello to Encyclo, our new encyclopedia of the future of news — Today, the Nieman Journalism Lab unveils Encyclo, an encyclopedia of the future of news. We've put a lot of work into it, and I hope you'll check it out. — So what is Encyclo? It's an attempt to figure …

Discussion: Poynter, Journalism.co.uk, Poynter. and mediabistro.com

Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:

Why Do We Link in News Stories? A Discussion — What bothers me is when articles link words to a company site and you realize, 'awww man that's an ad!' It's worse than a pop-up ad because you've been tricked into serving it to yourself. What an affront.

Discussion: Poynter and GigaOM

The Atlantic Wire:

Aaron Sorkin: What I Read — How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all? Do they have some secret? Perhaps. We are asking various people who seem well-informed to describe their media diets. This is from a conversation with Oscar-winning screenwriter …

Discussion: TVNewser, Reason, SAI, BBC College of Journalism Blog and Cision

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

Q&A: David Plotz, Editor of Slate, on Aggregation — “It was never simply an act of summarizing.” — Last week, CJR released a new report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, entitled “The Story So Far: What we know about the business of journalism.”

Discussion: FishbowlNY

John Koblin / WWD Media Headlines:

Dude, Where's My Magazine? — NEW YORK — A few weeks ago, Bon Appétit editor in chief Adam Rapoport and New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren went out to dinner at Veritas with Times food critic Sam Sifton and Random House editor Andy Ward. It was, in Rapoport's words, a “very dude dinner.”

Discussion: Gawker

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

On the Media: What went wrong with Katie Couric and ‘CBS Evening News’? — A marquee star proved not to be what viewers of the venerable newscast wanted. Her nearly five-year reign ends Thursday. — Katie Couric has poise, good looks, smarts and the kind of warmth on camera that a lot of other news people would love to duplicate.

Discussion: NewsBusters.org

James Barron / City Room:

Elaine's to Close — Six months after the death of its legendary proprietor, Elaine's restaurant will close its doors next week. — On Tuesday, Elaine's longtime manager, who inherited the restaurant from Elaine Kaufman, said that the business was no longer viable. She said that Elaine's last night would be May 26.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Movieline, The Book Bench, Gothamist and The Corsair

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:

Nielsen: Tablets Are Money Spinners, But Less Than 5% Use Them Today — Of all the wireless devices that have hit the market in the past several years, tablets present the biggest commercial opportunity for media owners, in terms of what consumers are willing to pay for and consume on the devices.

Discussion: TechCrunch, GigaOM and Deal Journal

Alex Murray / BBC College of Journalism Blog:

bbcsms: BBC processes for verifying social media content — From Tunisia, via Egypt, to Libya and Syria, verifying and acquiring eyewitness/citizen journalist/user-generated content has become increasingly complicated as the material has become more sophisticated.

Charles V. Bagli / New York Times:

Condé Nast Will Be Anchor of 1 World Trade Center — Condé Nast Publications, whose stable of magazines chronicles the American zeitgeist as meticulously as any anthropologist, has reached an agreement to lease one million square feet at 1 World Trade Center …

Discussion: MinOnline, New York Observer, The Atlantic Wire, New York Post, Felix Salmon, Gothamist, Curbed NY, Adweek, On Media's Blog, Curbed National, FishbowlNY, New York Magazine and The Wire

ProPublica:

Schwarzenegger and DSK: When Powerful Men Cross Lines — The week's news about the sexual conduct of politically powerful men gives me a queasy feeling of déjà vu. — As the French agonize over whether Dominique Strauss-Kahn's star power quashed past allegations, I can respond cynically: Yes, that probably happened.

Discussion: LA Observed and The Wire