Mediagazer: Pandora IPO Prices At $16; Valued At $2.56 Billion (Lynn Cowan/Venture Capital Dispatch)

12:25 PM ET, June 15, 2011

Top News:

America's Favorite Talking Hot Head — Keith Olbermann likes looking into a camera. The return of its gaze animates him and reminds him that he has a million friends on the other side of it. But he doesn't picture those people. He talks directly to the camera.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Wire, National Review and Chickaboomer

Joel Gunter / Journalism.co.uk:

BBC developing new iPhone app for field reporters — The BBC is developing an app that will allow its reporters in the field to file video, stills and audio directly into the BBC system from an iPhone or iPad. — The new app, due to be in use within a month or so, is also intended …

Discussion: Poynter, TUAW, MacNN, 10,000 Words, The Next Web, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Marketing Watch, TiPb, App Advice, Adweek and MacStories

Tarini Parti / OpenSecrets.org:

News Companies Popular Investments Among Congressmen — As recent political fiascoes involving Rep. Anthony Weiner and ex-Sen. John Edwards have shown, the power of the press carries weight, especially in Washington. Careers of high-rising politicos can be buried or propelled to new heights in a matter of minutes by the media.

Discussion: On Media's Blog and The Daily Caller

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Facebook Hires Former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart — Joe Lockhart, who served as White House press secretary during President Bill Clinton's eventful second term, will join Facebook as VP of global communications next month. — Lockhart, currently founding partner …

Discussion: Washington Post, Epicenter, Yahoo! News, Forbes.com, The Atlantic Wire, Bits, CNET News, PC Magazine, Hillicon Valley and SAI

Wayne Friedman / MediaPost:

Heavy Streaming Video Viewers Watch Less TV, Nielsen Says — The Nielsen Company now says streaming of Internet video may come at the expense of some traditional TV viewing, especially among young TV/video users. — According to Nielsen's new “State of the Media: Cross Platform Report” …

Discussion: Home Media Magazine

Lynn Cowan / Venture Capital Dispatch:

Pandora IPO Prices At $16; Valued At $2.56 Billion — Interactive Internet radio company Pandora Media Inc. continued the trend of hot Internet-related IPOs by pricing its shares at $16 apiece Tuesday night, above expectations. … The company sold 14.7 million initial public offering shares …

Discussion: Fast Company, TechCrunch, paidContent, Deal Journal, Forbes.com, GeekWire, Hillicon Valley, CNET News, GigaOM, Company Town, VentureBeat and CNBC, more at Techmeme »

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Digital Subscriptions Will Lift Magazines But Not Newspapers — Publishers of magazines and newspapers are investing millions in tablet-based editions and online paywalls in the hopes that digital subscriptions will offset the steady erosion they've been seeing in circulation revenues.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Canadian Magazines and NetNewsCheck Latest

Joe Mullin / paidContent:

Judge: Righthaven Has No Standing To File Lawsuits—Case Dismissed — The saga of controversial copyright-enforcement company Righthaven may be slowly drawing to a close. A judge has dismissed its lawsuit against the Democratic Underground website, saying that the contract Righthaven struck …

Discussion: Techdirt, Gametime IP and eMedia Vitals

Nikki Usher / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Less of less: FCC-commissioned report finds a “surprisingly small audience for local news traffic” — Local news outlets get less than one half of one percent of all pageviews in a typical market, according to a new report (pdf) called “Less of the Same: The Lack of Local News on the Internet.”

Meg James / Company Town:

Media chiefs confront challenges facing cable TV industry — A sense of urgency surrounds the annual National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. convention in Chicago this week as big media firms grapple with a host of business challenges that threaten their livelihood.

Discussion: paidContent, Technology News, GigaOM and AdPulp, more at Techmeme »

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

Does Twitter have different standards than TV news? — This is a story that will make just about anyone in TV news shudder. Last Thursday, news organizations across the world announced that 20 to 30 bodies — some of them children — had been discovered at a property outside Houston.

New York Post:

Kicking back at Newsweek — The partners behind Newsweek Daily Beast Company appear to be holding down the flow of red ink this summer by cutting back on the number of Newsweek issues. — This past Monday started a dark week for the newsweekly. It now appears that it will be one of four dark weeks …

Discussion: The Wire and FishbowlNY

Trevor Butterworth / The Daily:

Some stories need just a tweet — and some need real thought — Would you prefer to read this column as a string of tweets? After a New York Times reporter forgot his pen and tweeted a report about tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo., you might think that the future of storytelling had arrived, and that it came in increments.

Discussion: AllThingsD

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Fargo Kindle City: One small paper's experiment with publishing ebooks — When you are a 50,000-circulation daily newspaper in Fargo, North Dakota, it would be easy to leave trying new things to the big guys. — But that's not the attitude of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead …