Mediagazer: War at AOL as Arrington and Huffington Declare Independence (Jeff Bercovici/Mixed Media)

6:15 PM ET, September 6, 2011

Top News:

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over — This is a post I never thought I'd have to write. Unfortunately, I do. And the worst part about it is that it should be Michael Arrington writing this post, not me. — But he can't. — TechCrunch is on the precipice.

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

Editorial Independence — There's confusion - way too much confusion - about my status at TechCrunch and TechCrunch's status at Aol after last week's announcement that I was launching a venture fund, partially backed by Aol. — The multiple conflicting statements made by Aol on Thursday …

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, PC Magazine, The Awl, broadstuff, The Wrap, @danprimack, Business Insider, BetaNews, WebProNews and Daring Fireball, more at Techmeme »

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

War at AOL as Arrington and Huffington Declare Independence — Tim Armstrong, who runs AOL, in theory. Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife — It's the impossible dream of every entrepreneur: to sell one's company for a fortune without giving up control of it.

Discussion: Digits

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Give Me Back My Baby: Michael Arrington Trying to Buy Back TechCrunch From AOL — But Would AOL Sell It?

Discussion: Future of Journalism, NetNewsCheck Latest and Talking Biz News, more at Techmeme »

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:
TECHCRUNCH: If AOL Fires Mike Arrington, We're Screwed

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Noreen Malone / New York Magazine:

Slate's Jack Shafer Is Headed to Reuters [Updated] — Shafer — Jack Shafer, Slate's very recently laid-off media critic, is moving to Reuters, according to a source familiar with the matter. The deep-pocketed news service — which under the digital leadership of Chrystia Freeland …

Discussion: FishbowlDC, On Media's Blog, Future of Journalism and FishbowlNY

Dylan Byers / Adweek:
Jack Shafer Joins Reuters

Discussion: Poynter

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

NYT's Abramson names leadership team — “This is a start, explaining some changed roles,” Jill Abramson writes on her first day as Times executive editor. “Some leaders will continue in the same roles, because they've made themselves irreplaceable, at least to — us rookies in our first year.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Poynter, Gawker, The Wrap, On Media's Blog, Adweek, MediaPost, @jillabramson, FishbowlNY and mediabistro.com

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Conde Nast Spins Out Reddit, Without Letting Go — Five years after buying Reddit, Conde Nast is giving the social news site a gentle shove out the door. — The publisher isn't pushing Reddit very far away, though. It is spinning out the company as a standalone operation, but will retain full ownership of it, for now.

Discussion: Betabeat, New York Magazine, The Next Web and Business Insider, more at Techmeme »

Dylan Byers / Adweek:

Can Politico Win Again? — Ben Smith has a problem. — If there is such a thing as the prototypical political news blogger, then he's it. Smith didn't quite invent the form, but over the six years he's been blogging—first for The New York Observer, then the New York Daily News …

Discussion: Poynter, NetNewsCheck Latest and Monday Note

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Google Goes Big With Its Hulu Bid — Hulu's corporate owners are currently mulling bids from three would-be buyers: Amazon, Yahoo, and the Dish Network. — And then there's Google. The search giant has also made an offer for the video site, but it seems to be playing a different sport …

Discussion: Business Insider, Electronista, The Next Web and Softpedia News, more at Techmeme »

Guardian:

News International to cut 110 jobs — Sun and Times publisher also reveals that almost half of former News of the World staff have taken voluntary redundancy — News International is to cut 110 jobs across its workforce as the company revealed that almost half of the former News …

Discussion: Press Gazette, paidContent, NetNewsCheck Latest, totalpolitics.com and Media & Entertainment

Anna Tarkov / Knight Digital Media Center …:

Patch by the numbers — Amid much hoopla and skepticism about Patch, AOL's group of 800-plus hyperlocal news sites, little has been said about the sites themselves. How much news do they produce? How do their users interact with them? To find out, I took a closer look at four Patch sites around the country for a month.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Now on iTunes, for Free: A Show You Can't Watch on Fox for a Couple Weeks — Fox is leading the charge to take TV episodes that used to be free and easy to access on the Web, and make them more expensive and/or harder to find. — But the network doesn't always want to play hard to get.

Discussion: Variety, Techland, GigaOM, Future of Journalism and Tuned In

MediaPost:

The Pros And Cons Of Building An Audience Outside YouTube — As YouTube marches towards greater market share of viewers and video streams, “It's YouTube's world, we just stream it.” But can you build an audience on or outside YouTube? — The reality is that unless content creators rely solely …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Exclusive: Longtime Yahoo Front Page Editor Liz Lufkin Out — According to sources close to the situation, longtime Yahoo front page chief Liz Lufkin has parted ways with the company. — The departure last week appears to be related to a reorg by newish editor-in-chief Jai Singh …

Discussion: Digital Media Wire

BBC:

Phone hacking: James Murdoch ‘told of hacking email’ — Tom Crone: “It was the reason that we had to settle the case” — Former News of the World legal manager Tom Crone has told MPs he was “certain” he told James Murdoch about an email which indicated phone hacking at the paper went beyond one rogue reporter.

Discussion: Guardian, CNN, The Huffington Post and Business Insider

Patrick Smith / TheMediaBriefing:

Why it's dangerous to over-estimate how digital your audience is — Millions of people in developed nations like the UK have never used the internet and many of them never will. Whether through issues related to culture, age, lack of access or education, going online isn't a daily habit for a significant portion of today's society.

Thanks:rorybrown