Mediagazer: Why it's dangerous to over-estimate how digital your audience is (Patrick Smith/TheMediaBriefing)

11:15 AM ET, September 7, 2011

Top News:

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO — According to sources at the company, Yahoo's Carol Bartz is no longer CEO of Yahoo. CFO Tim Morse has been named interim CEO. — The situation around what is clearly an ouster is uncertain, but Bartz has had a very rocky tenure in her 32 months at the company.

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Once Display's Ad Sales Leader, Trends Now Favor Yahoo Rivals — Barring some explosive revelation, Carol Bartz is out as CEO of Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) because she couldn't show any way up. During the Q2 earnings call, Bartz had to admit that at a time when others were seeing improvements …

Discussion: AllThingsD, Business Insider, TechCrunch, CNET News, MediaPost, AllThingsD, Forbes, mocoNews, VentureBeat and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

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 …

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

Discussion: Gawker, Betabeat, The Snitch, Future of Journalism and Business Insider

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

Phone hacking: Evidence to MPs gives James Murdoch room for manoeuvre — Colin Myler and Tom Crone did not deal a fatal blow — Colin Myler and Tom Crone may have come to the select committee with pistols loaded, but they did not fire the fatal shot at James Murdoch.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, The Independent, Crikey and Adweek

Caroline Binham / Financial Times:

Media groups apply for key status in inquiry — Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive officer of News International, and subjects of alleged-phone hacking, including the parents of Madeleine McCann, a missing child, are among the roster of names who presented their formal interest in a judicial inquiry into press ethics.

BBC:
Phone hacking: James Murdoch ‘told of hacking email’

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

Guardian:

Guardian journalist questioned over alleged phone-hacking leaks — Case raises concerns about attempts to criminalise contact between journalists and off-the-record sources — A Guardian journalist has been questioned by police officers investigating alleged leaks of information from Operation Weeting …

Discussion: Business Insider, Jon Slattery, Press Gazette and Telegraph

Roy J. Harris Jr / Poynter:

How The Wall Street Journal's improvised 9/11 battle plan helped it to a Pulitzer — There's an old joke that refers to newspapers as “the daily miracle.” But one edition a decade ago, assembled by Wall Street Journal staffers on Sept. 11, 2001, was truly miraculous.

Discussion: Crikey

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:
Tech reporter Nick Wingfield quits WSJ for NYT

Discussion: FishbowlNY

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: Talking Biz News, bookforum.com, On Media's Blog, FishbowlDC, Future of Journalism and FishbowlNY

Dylan Byers / Adweek:
Jack Shafer Joins Reuters

Discussion: Poynter

Poynter:

MediaNews and Journal Register Co. brought under one roof with John Paton at helm — Journal Register Co. announced Wednesday that it is creating a company called Digital First Media Inc. to manage it and MediaNewsGroup. John Paton will be CEO of Digital First and will act as CEO of MediaNews and... Read more

Discussion: Journal Register Company, The Buttry Diary and paidContent

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:

Media Analysts Begin To Slash Ad Spending Forecasts As Economy Craters... When the economy weakens, one of the first expenses that companies cut is advertising spending. — Especially advertising spending on old, dying media in which performance is unmeasurable—e.g., newspapers.

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Felix Salmon's brain, Drudged: Meet Counterparties, a personal linkblog with Reuters branding — What would a “Buzzfeed for finance” look like? — Felix Salmon and Ryan McCarthy are figuring it out — via Counterparties, the site they launched this afternoon.

Discussion: Felix Salmon, Talking Biz News and Soup

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:
Felix Salmon's New Blog Will Teach You to Read Like Felix Salmon

Discussion: AdAge and The Corsair

Steve Smith / MediaPost:

Ralph Lauren Takes Over The Times iPad App, Reminds Us What A ‘Sponsor’ Does — If you haven't yet caved to the New York Times paywall restrictions and ponied up the subscription fee, then you may have let your iPad app for the brand lie unused in recent months.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Medialets

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: Online Video News, NetNewsCheck Latest, Forbes, Softpedia News, Mercury News, Medacity, GeekWire, GigaOM, ReadWriteWeb, FT Tech Hub, Electronista, Business Insider and The Next Web, more at Techmeme »

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Newsweek Daily Beast Co. Hires New President Rob Gregory jumps from Plum TV By Lucia Moses — The Newsweek Daily Beast Co. is getting a new president. CEO Stephen Colvin picked Rob Gregory, a veteran of Maxim and Rolling Stone with whom he worked at Dennis Publishing, for the newly created position.

Discussion: MiamiHerald.com, On Media's Blog and FishbowlNY

Keach Hagey / On Media's Blog:

Jonathan Chait to New York; Timothy Noah to New Republic — Tim Noah, another of the recent Slate layoffs that causes such a furor last month, emails some major media news. … Noah, who had written Slate's “Chatterbox” column, has lately been on book leave for a book about income inequality …

Discussion: FishbowlDC, FishbowlNY, The New York Observer and Gawker

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

Al Jazeera is America's post 9-11 network — NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Al Jazeera is too smart for its own good. — And that's why I conclude that it will never become a household name in the United States. Maybe the best Al Jazeera can hope for is to attain notoriety along the lines …

Discussion: Inside Cable News