Mediagazer: Comcast, NBCU Combine Venture Capital Affiliates to Form New $750M Joint Venture (Tim Molloy/The Wrap)

ABC Deal Close for Katie Couric — THE DAILY BEAST ON: — The network is nearing an agreement with Katie Couric after upping the ante on a lucrative syndication offer. Howard Kurtz reports on the behind-the-scenes bidding for Couric's daytime show. — When Katie Couric started looking …

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Mediaite and TVNewser

Noah Davis / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

Magazine Editors Are 100% Sure Tumblrs Are Driving Subscriptions, But They Can't Prove It — The stunning success of Tumblr continues to filter its way across the internet landscape. — The rapidly maturing microblogging platform recently passed 250 million page views per day, shocking even founder David Karp.

Discussion: MediaPost, The Wire and NYConvergence.com

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Zuckerberg: All Of Media Should Go Social Like Games Have — Facebook won't try to offer music, movie or book services - but CEO Mark Zuckerberg has grand pronouncements for those sectors nevertheless. … Whilst almost religiously celebrating internet users' ability to share …

Discussion: Pulse2, digiday:DAILY, Media News, Daily Mail, Consumer Reports News, Digits, The Consumerist, AllThingsD, ZDNet, SAI, Mashable! and Disruptors, more at Techmeme »

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Topolsky and Bankoff on Engadget, SB Nation, and the new tech site that's bringing them together — There can be a very real “through the looking glass” feel to working on a site that covers technology, especially when you start contemplating the technology of publishing.

Lauren Goode / Venture Capital Dispatch:

Groupon Founders Turn To Financial News With Benzinga Investment — In their latest investment through a separate seed fund, two Groupon founders are turning their attention towards a new area: financial news. … Lightbank, the seed fund created by Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell …

Discussion: Forbes.com and DailyDeal Media

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Huffington-ization Of AOL Continues With Daily Finance Reset — AOL's Daily Finance channel has been one of its most highly trafficked over the past few years, but as the integration with Huffington Post continues apace, changes are coming. The company is announcing several new hires for the site …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, FishbowlNY and The Wire

Discussion: Yahoo! News, FishbowlNY, NetNewsCheck Latest, Future of Journalism and SAI

Tim Molloy / The Wrap:

Comcast, NBCU Combine Venture Capital Affiliates to Form New $750M Joint Venture — Comcast announced Thursday that is has combined its venture capital affiliate with the former venture capital affiliate of NBCUNiversal and General Electric to form the new Comcast Ventures, a joint portfolio valued at about $750 million.

Discussion: Company Town, rbr.com and Multichannel

Andrew Pugh / Press Gazette:

DMGT: Profits tumble in regions but rise for Daily Mail — Profits at Daily Mail and General Trust's Northcliffe regional newspapers division halved to £4m in the first half of this year. — But there was better news for Mail Online, the Daily Mail website, where its 66 million monthly browsers …

Discussion: Media Week, Guardian and paidContent:UK

Brian McGrory / Boston Globe:

Connors joins group of investors looking to purchase Globe — (Dominic Chavez/Globe Staff/File 2008) — Prominent Boston businessman Jack Connors has joined a group of investors preparing an offer to buy The Boston Globe, adding new credibility to an investment team that has worked for over a year to raise funds.

Discussion: Poynter, mediabistro.com and DailyDeal Media

Andrew Damstedt / American Journalism Review:

A Critic Joins the Post — Long known for his stinging commentaries on its foibles, Erik Wemple soon will be blogging about the media and politics for the Washington Post. Thurs. May 26, 2011 — Andrew Damstedt (adamstedt@ajr.umd.edu) is an AJR editorial assistant.

Discussion: Poynter and Cision

Noah Davis / The Wire:

Meet The Man Making Non-Profit News Organizations Sustainable — In 2009, Evan Smith left Texas Monthly to start a revolution. — Nineteen months later, he is still just getting started. — The award-winning journalist is editor-in-chief and CEO of Texas Tribune, “a nonpartisan …

Discussion: Forbes.com

The Huffington Post:

Family Of Journalist Killed In Libya Trying To Get Body Home — JOHANNESBURG — The family of a South African photographer slain while covering turmoil in Libya is pleading with South Africa's president to help bring his remains home. — Bronwyn Friedlander, a spokeswoman for the family of Anton Hammerl …

Callum Borchers / NetNewsCheck Latest:

Online News Competition A Big Deal In Big D — Dallas-Fort Worth features a fragmented online news market, in which many outfits thrive in their chosen subjects, however narrow. Even those that are part of Dallas-Fort Worth's “Big Six” — the major newspaper and TV sites — display penchants for local and niche content.

ProPublica:

Podcast: Richard Tofel on the Future of News — ProPublica General Manager Richard Tofel joins the podcast this week to discuss the future of the news industry and where ProPublica's work fits in as a leading nonprofit outlet. — Although Tofel emphasizes that ProPublica alone cannot save …

Discussion: Poynter

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Web Ads Taking Off Again: Q1 Revenues A Record $7.3 Billion — Remember when the economy was so lousy that even Web ads were down? — Ancient history, at least as far as the Internet's concerned: Marketers spent $7.3 billion on U.S. Web ads in the first three months of the 2011.

Discussion: IAB, Search Engine Land and rbr.com, more at Techmeme »