Mediagazer: Americans Regain Some Confidence in Newspapers, TV News (Lymari Morales/Gallup)

4:10 PM ET, June 28, 2011

Top News:

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

AOL Consolidates 53 Brands Down To 20 “Power Brands;” The Huffington Post Gets Bigger — AOL CEO Tim Armstrong likes to streamline things. And he is about to streamline AOL even more. Somewhat reversing the anti-portal strategy he inherited, he will start to consolidate 53 different content brands into 20 “power brands.”

Discussion: The Business Insider, The Wire and Future of Journalism

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

AOL Moves the Furniture Around Some More, With Brod to Patch — Here's an internal memo, titled “Platform for Growth,” just sent out by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, in which he buries the lede by noting the business partner of content czar Arianna Huffington, Jon Brod, will move to work …

Discussion: paidContent, The Business Insider, Digital Trends and mediabistro.com, more at Techmeme »

Lymari Morales / Gallup:

Americans Regain Some Confidence in Newspapers, TV News — Confidence still lags behind levels of trust seen through much of the 1990s and into 2003 — WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans' confidence in newspapers and television news rebounded slightly in the past year, having been stuck at record lows since 2007.

Discussion: CJR, MediaPost, TVWeek.com, On Media's Blog, Poynter, Media Buyer Planner, Forbes.com, TVNewser, Free Press and Hot Air

Ed Yong / Discover Blogs:

Am I a science journalist? — I've just spoken at the opening plenary of the second day of the World Conference of Science Journalists at Doha, Qatar. It's a panel called “Am I a science journalist?"with myself, my fellow Discover blogger Chris Mooney, Mo Costandi, Homayoun Kheyri, and Cristine Russell.

Discussion: Future Journalism Project, Adam Westbrook and Poynter

Johann Hari:

Interview etiquette — I've recently been asked to clarify something about a few of the interviews I've done in the past. When I've interviewed a writer, it's quite common that they will express an idea or sentiment to me that they have expressed before in their writing - and, almost always …

Discussion: blogs.journalism.co.uk, brianwhelan.net, FleetStreetBlues, Guardian, Guy Fawkes' blog, The Wire and themediablog.typepad.com

Mark Joyella / Mediaite:

CNN Names Jessica Yellin Chief White House Correspondent — CNN has named Jessica Yellin its new chief White House correspondent, replacing Ed Henry. A CNN insider tells Mediaite Yellin has been the network's choice since Spring. Yellin had been serving as the network's national political correspondent …

Discussion: TVNewser, FishbowlDC, The Wire, Adweek, On Media's Blog, Multichannel and Broadcasting & Cable

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

How you can use social machinery to power personalized news delivery — People have spent the past five years in Social Networking 101. We figured out what social networks are, created our profiles and connected with friends. We rethought fundamental aspects of human relationships …

Discussion: 10,000 Words

Kristen Purcell / Pew Internet:

E-reader ownership doubles in six months — e-Reader ownership surges since last November; tablet ownership grows more slowly — The share of adults in the United States who own an e-book reader doubled to 12% in May, 2011 from 6% in November 2010. E-readers, such as a Kindle or Nook …

Florence Pichon / Editors Weblog:

Sylvain Parasie investigates where data journalists fit in at a traditional paper — Where exactly does data journalism fit in a traditional press organization? Sylvain Parasie from Paris-Est University conducted research on this question, taking the case of the Chicago Tribune.

Discussion: Bloomberg

The Real Voice:

STRIKE LOOMS AT VILLAGE VOICE — The current three-year contract between Village Voice Media and UAW Local 2110, representing the workers of The Village Voice, expires midnight June 30. The membership has unanimously passed a strike authorization vote. — Over the past three years …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Amazon Starts an Ad Network, Powered by Your Data — You can buy just about anything on Amazon.com, including advertising. Now Amazon is selling ads on other people's sites, too. — The e-commerce giant has started what is effectively an ad network* where it buys Web advertising inventory and resells it to marketers at a premium.

Discussion: Techland, more at Techmeme »

David Weigel / Slate:

The RT network: Russia's answer to Fox News and MSNBC. — Alyona Minkovski is on a rant. The rants are essential parts of The Alyona Show," the series she's hosted on Russia Today—RT, if you please—since 2009. They can be about anything, but they are usually about the rest of the media.

Discussion: Forbes.com

Mindy McAdams / Teaching Online Journalism:

Journalists, take another look at Tumblr — For a long time I had trouble appreciating Tumblr, but I think I finally understand its strengths — and I must not be the only one. — Tumblr is now one of the top 25 websites in the U.S., according to data from Quancast, as reported in a new article at TechCrunch.

Discussion: TechCrunch, GigaOM and Softpedia News

Tom Hals / Reuters:

Tribune's creditors make final bankruptcy pitch — (Reuters) - Two years after real-estate mogul Sam Zell's brief control of Tribune Co ended in bankruptcy, warring creditors made their final pitches on Monday for the best way to get the owner of the Los Angeles Times out of Chapter 11.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Poynter, Chicago Tribune and The New York Observer

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Why is The Washington Post's iPad app still free? — When The Washington Post released its iPad app in November, the company said it would be free until mid-February. That date passed more than four months ago, yet the app and content are still available for free in the iTunes Store.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Hulu Buyers Would Get Exclusive Content, With Strings Attached — A few days after the news first broke that Hulu is for sale, we know a bit more about what, exactly, that means. Here's where things stand right now. — Hulu's owner/partners — Disney's ABC and News Corp.'s Fox …

Discussion: Betabeat, PC Magazine, Electronista, VentureBeat, NetNewsCheck Latest and Electronista

Keach Hagey / On Media's Blog:

CNN takes a stand — In the U.S., CNN may be kicked around by everyone from Jon Stewart to Jay Rosen for tending to present both sides of the story and then just “leaving it there,” but on the international issue of human trafficking, the broadcaster has decided to make a stand.

Discussion: The Stream and Inside Cable News