Mediagazer: A Hurricane of Hype — Irene fell far short of the media's … (Howard Kurtz/The Daily Beast)

10:55 AM ET, August 29, 2011

Top News:

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Hurricane Coverage Is Ratings Driver for Weather Channel — NAGS HEAD, N.C. — Standing where he warned others not to tread, the beach on the Outer Banks during Hurricane Irene's landfall, Mike Seidel had sand in his teeth, his pockets and his ears. He was soaking wet, barely able to hear — and he was beaming.

Discussion: TVNewser, The New York Observer, Company Town and Adweek

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

How NY1 won the Irene-hits-New York story, and what national cable news could learn from them — Somewhere around midmorning on the day Hurricane Irene landed in New York City, I switched from NY1 to CNN. This was a mistake. — Things had been calming down in the city …

Discussion: CJR, Future of Journalism, Forbes, FishbowlDC and Multichannel

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

A Hurricane of Hype — Irene fell far short of the media's dire warnings even before it was downgraded. Howard Kurtz on the scaremongering by television and local officials.

John Frank / Raleigh News & Observer:
It's not glamorous to cover a hurricane

Discussion: Pat's Papers

Kenneth Lovett / NY Daily News:

Chalk it up to the hacks: New York scraps $27 million education contract with Murdoch firm — ALBANY - The Rupert Murdoch phone hacking scandal has prompted the state to kill a controversial $27 million contract with one of the media mogul's subsidiary companies.

Discussion: rbr.com, paidContent:UK, FishbowlNY and The Huffington Post

Elizabeth Jensen / Media Decoder:

Anchor to Leave PBS's ‘Need to Know’ — PBS's Friday newsmagazine “Need to Know” is losing Alison Stewart, the second of its original co-anchors to depart, when it switches to a half-hour format on Sept. 16. — Ms. Stewart has been anchoring the hour-long show on her own since Jon Meacham became …

Discussion: TVWeek.com

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:

Condé Nast Deepens Its Social Connections — Readers of the online versions of Condé Nast publications will have to look no further than the bottom of their screens to see what content other readers have deemed worthy of a “Tweet” on Twitter or a “like” on Facebook.

Discussion: Adweek, eMedia Vitals and Future of Journalism

Wall Street Journal:

For Wal-Mart, a Rare Online Success — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has stumbled often in Internet retailing, but the big-box granddad has been surprisingly successful in one online venture: digital movie downloads. — A year after buying streaming service Vudu, which lets customers rent …

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog

Noam Cohen / New York Times:

Link by Link: In Times of Unrest, Social Networks Can Be a Distraction — THE mass media, including interactive social-networking tools, make you passive, can sap your initiative, leave you content to watch the spectacle of life from your couch or smartphone. — Apparently even during a revolution.

Discussion: Poynter

Brooks Barnes / New York Times:

Sony TV Aims for Prime Time — CULVER CITY, Calif. — In October 2001, an exasperated Howard Stringer, the chief executive of Sony, ordered a dramatic downsizing at the company's studio here. — Moviemaking would continue apace, but the production of new television shows …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

ScrollMotion: A Revolution in Motion Graphics, Defining a New Form of Video for Apps — ScrollMotion, a 100-person, fast-growing New York City start-up, has developed an enterprise solution for publishers and companies to create unique, video-rich Apps for the Apple iOS and Android platforms.

David Carr / New York Times:

The Media Equation: Steve Jobs Saw What Media Titans Missed - Media Equation — Earlier this year, I wrote a column about the publishing industry's resistance to the terms Apple was imposing for subscriptions on the iPad. Soon after, an e-mail was followed by a phone call and Steve Jobs was on the line to straighten me out.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and eMedia Vitals

Paul Carr / TechCrunch:

Unredacted Wikileaks Cables Found Online? Probably, Depressingly — “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” - George Orwell, Animal Farm — “Leck bei Wikileaks”.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:

Google crashes TV's Edinburgh party — What did the television industry make of Eric Schmidt's MacTaggart speech? — There are three things the TV executive audience have come to expect from the annual MacTaggart lecture: the pantomime of an inter-industry dispute, an intellectual appreciation …

Discussion: Softpedia News, Guardian and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »