Mediagazer: Quiet Departure Is Stark Contrast to Heralded Arrival (Alessandra Stanley/New York Times)

11:15 AM ET, May 20, 2011

Top News:

Carly Carioli / Phlog:

Google abandons master-plan to archive the world's newspapers — In an email today to publishers including the Boston Phoenix, Google told partners in its News Archive project that it would cease accepting, scanning, and indexing microfilm and other archival material from newspapers …

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Poynter, Guardian, The Huffington Post, Softpedia News, CNET News and The Next Web

Alessandra Stanley / New York Times:

Quiet Departure Is Stark Contrast to Heralded Arrival — “CBS Evening News” bade farewell to its anchor, Katie Couric, on Thursday with a five-minute highlights reel and a rendition of the Beatles ballad “In My Life,” but there wasn't much sadness on the set.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, NY Daily News, Gothamist and The Wire

The Huffington Post:

Katie Couric Signs Off ‘CBS Evening News’ — Katie Couric ended her nearly five-year tenure as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” on Thursday. Couric looked back at some of her biggest moments during her historic run as the first solo woman anchor of a network newscast.

Discussion: Company Town, Adweek, Mediaite and TV Squad

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Breaking: Liberty Media Offers Nearly $1 Billion For Barnes & Noble — Bankrupt Borders needs a sale the most but Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), which put itself in play last August, is the book retailer with a serious suitor—and they don't come much more serious than John Malone.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Future of Journalism, CNET News, Reuters, Globe and Mail and Tech Trader Daily, more at Techmeme »

Shira Ovide / Deal Journal:
Insane! John Malone Offers to Buy Barnes & Noble

Discussion: bookforum.com and GalleyCat

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of the missing link — Picture Pre-Tablet Man (or Woman). Let's go back to the time before Palm Pilots, at the dawn of consumer digital civilization itself, a time of AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve. Hunched heavily by the analog world on his shoulders …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Scott Karp / Publish2 Blog:
How to Make It Easy for Newspapers to Link on the Web

Thanks:p2chairman

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

From Schoolhouse Rock to ‘The Fracking Song,’ explainers as ‘acts of empathy’ — In all the years he's been playing the guitar and keyboard, David Holmes never pictured himself recording a song about hydraulic fractured drilling. — But Holmes, a journalism student in New York University's …

Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:

Big Content rips into Google, the “corporate imperialist” — The knives are out for Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. Within hours of making comments to UK media during a press conference, major US rightsholders attempted to brand Google as an arrogant, out-of-control company bent …

Discussion: PC World, PC Magazine, Digital Trends, RIAA and Softpedia News

Noah Davis / The Wire:

ELIZABETH SPIERS: 'New York Observer Was Sluggish When I Got Here And Now It's Back On Track' — The visual metaphor is obvious. — Last week, Elizabeth Spiers — Gawker founder, Breaking Media founder, and currently editor-in-chief of the New York Observer — posted a picture …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and @iwantmedia

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

The Future of Media: Brands Are Publishers Now Too — As if newspapers and magazine publishers didn't have enough problems already, what with declining advertising revenue and the difficulty of getting readers to pay via iPad apps and paywalls, the number of competitors they face is expanding almost daily …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com, Associated Press, TUAW and AllTwitter, Thanks:bamonaghan

The Atlantic Online:
Did the New York Public Library Just Build the Magazine App of the Future?

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Editors Weblog, App Advice, Poynter and SocialTimes.com

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

NY Times CEO: We Jumped Onto the Horse of Change — If Twitter makes you stupid, as New York Times executive editor Bill Keller believes, then the Times is extinguishing more brain cells than any other newspaper — and CEO Janet Robinson is darn happy about that.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, digiday:DAILY, This is going to be BIG!, Future of Journalism, Forbes.com, The Buttry Diary, Most Recent Home Page Posts … and Techland

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

After Layoffs, ‘Pink Slip’ Virus Hits Dow Jones — Dow Jones has been battling the nasty “pink slip” computer virus all week. And its arrival just days after two dozen or so techs were laid off has led to speculation that the company was a victim of sabotage.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

The Atlantic Online:

South African Journalist Anton Hammerl Killed in Libya — Long thought to be alive in government captivity, the freelance photographer was shot by forces loyal to Qaddafi over six weeks ago — Freelance photographer Anton Lazarus Hammerl, a South African who also held Austrian citizenship …

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Adweek and Lens

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

The CW to reward viewers for watching commercials — At its upfront presentation today, the CW network announced an unique partnership with the shopping app Shopkick. The app serves up shopping deals and special rewards for users who visit top retailers like Target and Home Depot.

Discussion: MediaPost, Broadcasting & Cable, GigaOM and rbr.com

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

A HuffPost Scoop, Overlooked By the Mainstream Press — HUD finds big banks defrauded taxpayers, but few follow the story — Shahien Nasiripour scored a foreclosure-fraud scandal scoop for The Huffington Post on Monday, reporting that audits of the mortgage industry conducted …

Discussion: Rortybomb

Steve Green / VEGAS INC:

Denver judge stays all Righthaven cases in Colorado — A federal judge in Colorado today said there are serious questions about the validity of the Righthaven LLC/Denver Post copyright infringement lawsuits there, and he put them all on hold. — Senior U.S. District Judge John Kane in Denver …

Discussion: paidContent, NetNewsCheck Latest and Righthaven Victims

Fort Gordon Signal:

Fallen Army journalist honored at Newseum — WASHINGTON — Staff Sgt. James Hunter is remembered for lots of things. His fellow Soldiers will tell you he was a hard worker, selfless and dedicated to his Soldiers and their mission. His family will tell you that he loved Kentucky basketball and, above all else, he loved his country.

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Twitpic changes reveal conflict as users, journalists, photo sharing services have competing goals — The popular photo-sharing service Twitpic this month took more control over the photos that millions of Twitter users upload to its site each month. — Although it provoked an outcry …

Amazon.com:

Amazon.com Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books — Kindle with Special Offers for only $114 is already the bestselling member of the Kindle family — (NASDAQ:AMZN)—Amazon began selling hardcover and paperback books in July 1995. Twelve years later in November 2007 …