Mediagazer: California Watch's engagement efforts show staffers what hard-to-reach audiences want (Phuong Ly/Poynter)

8:45 PM ET, June 23, 2011

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Phil Bronstein / SFGate:

I was duped by Jose Vargas, illegal immigrant — I was duped. I once hired an illegal immigrant to be a reporter for the Chronicle. — “I don't think I'm a criminal,” Jose Antonio Vargas told me when we met last week, right before he announced his status to the world. “Don't make me seem guiltier than I am.”

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Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
Post responds to ex-reporter Vargas's revelation that he's an illegal immigrant

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Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

American Media Buys OK Magazine — Richard Desmond. Image by Getty Images Europe via @daylife — Richard Desmond couldn't sell OK Magazine to Time Inc. Now he's found another buyer: American Media Inc., home to the National Enquirer and Star, is buying the money-losing entertainment title.

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Instapaper Blog:

The FBI stole an Instapaper server in an unrelated raid — One of Instapaper's five leased servers was hosted at DigitalOne, a Swiss hosting company leasing blade servers from a Virginia datacenter. Early Tuesday morning, the FBI raided the datacenter to seize servers used …

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Steve Smith / MinOnline:

Top Magazine Money Makers in the iPad App Store — Maybe it is the new subscription model in the App Store? Perhaps it is just Apple making nice with publishers after seeming to have dissed the media world for so long. But whatever the motives or the reasons, even a cursory glance …

Discussion: rbr.com, eMedia Vitals, Softpedia News, The Business Insider and Canadian Magazines

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

News and Opinion Get Cozy in NY Times's New Sunday Section — Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times — The New York Times is serious about keeping the chocolate of opinion out of the peanut butter of its objective reporting. Readers, on the other hand, would often rather just have a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Discussion: MediaPost

Jake Dobkin / Gothamist:

Call For Journalists: Gothamist Wants Long-Form Features — Gothamist is interested in adding long-form non-fiction features to our website. Since we're new to this game, we're going to dip our toes in the water slowly, by publishing a single feature next month.

Discussion: paidContent, Forbes.com, Big News Network.com and FishbowlNY

Paul Sonne / Wall Street Journal:

J.K. Rowling Conjures Up Potter E-Books — LONDON—After years of refusing to release her boy-wizard books in electronic format, Harry Potter mastermind J.K. Rowling is finally taking the digital plunge, launching an online store that will sell Harry Potter e-books directly to consumers …

Phuong Ly / Poynter:

California Watch's engagement efforts show staffers what hard-to-reach audiences want — California Watch's stories about earthquake safety problems in schools reached hundreds of thousands of people through a statewide network of radio, TV and newspaper partnerships.

Discussion: Future Journalism Project

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

Joshua Hersh Leaves The Daily for The Huffington Post — The Huffington Post has poached reporter Joshua Hersh from The Daily, spokesman Mario Ruiz told The Observer. — Mr. Hersh will be a staff reporter covering foreign policy and the State Department in the Washington, D.C. bureau.

Discussion: @aarongell

Rosie Baker / New Media Age:

News International to enable PayPal payments for newspaper content — News International is to introduce PayPal's fast checkout system in a move that could bring micropayments for online content from UK titles a step closer. — Readers will be able to use PayPal to pay for The Times …

Discussion: Noted

Kate Holton / Reuters:

Google eyeing further display ad acquisitions — Google will buy more companies to boost its presence in the booming online display ad sector in a challenge to Facebook, even as European regulators examine its dominant web search position. — Speaking to a small group of reporters …

Discussion: CNET News.com, VentureBeat, FT Tech Hub and Electronista

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Good News for ‘Newsweek’ — After a year of year-on-year declines in ad pages, Newsweek has something to celebrate. For July, at least, it has stopped that decline, which could mean improved advertiser confidence in the brand. — Last year, the magazine had 52 ad pages for the month of July; this year it will be the same.

Discussion: mediabistro.com, FishbowlNY and The Wire

The Atlantic Wire:

Taegan Goddard: What I Read — How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all? What sources can't they live without? We regularly reach out to prominent figures in media, entertainment, politics, the arts and the literary world, to hear their answers to these questions.

Ingrid Lunden / paidContent:

TouchPad-Only Magazine ‘Pivot’ To Debut With Tablet, Produced By HP Itself — HP (NYSE: HPQ) must be tiring of all the news about Apple's strength in the tablet market, and trying to get its own name out in front: to coincide with the launch of its own TouchPad tablet in July …

Discussion: Business Wire, PC Magazine, Fast Company, CNET News, Mashable!, AllThingsD and NetNewsCheck Latest

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:

Twitter plans bolder advertisements — Twitter is looking at introducing advertisements among the short messages that users see in the most active part of the social networking service, according to people with direct knowledge of its plans. — The move comes as Twitter looks at a wider range …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and Electronista, more at Techmeme »