Mediagazer: Paton: Too Early To Say Whether MediaNews Paywalls Stay Up (Staci D. Kramer/paidContent)

12:50 PM ET, September 8, 2011

Top News:

Marissa Mayer / The Official Google Blog:

Google just got ZAGAT Rated! — “Did you know there's a place in Menlo Park near the Safeway that has a 27 food rating?” one of my friends asked me that about two years ago, and I was struck because I immediately knew what it meant. Food rating... 30 point scale... Zagat. And the place... had to be good.

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:

Google acquires Zagat, enters original content business — Summary: Google said that Zagat will “be a cornerstone of our local offering.” Zagat is best known for its original reviews and rating service. — Google on Thursday acquired Zagat in an effort to bolster its local products with the restaurant rating service.

Discussion: WebProNews

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Arrington out at AOL (for real this time) — Not TechCrunch editor. Not AOL Ventures employee. Michael Arrington is on his own. — It has been a very long week for AOL. And it's about to get even longer. — Last Thursday, word leaked that one of its employees …

Elias Bizannes / Elias Bizannes/blog:

The changing dynamics of news — In the recent controversy that has erupted due to the firing of Michael Arrington from TechCrunch, I believe it represents an era in innovation led by TechCrunch that we're only starting to appreciate. — To start on this thought experiment …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Chadwick Matlin / Fortune:
The “end of TechCrunch”? It might not be such a bad thing

Discussion: Medacity, digiday:DAILY, American Journalism Review and Fox News, more at Techmeme »

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Paton: Too Early To Say Whether MediaNews Paywalls Stay Up — Journal Register CEO John Paton has been a vocal opponent of using paywalls to increase digital revenue for newspapers, as have his advisory board members Jeff Jarvis, Emily Bell and Jay Rosen. But what happens now that he is also the CEO …

Discussion: Poynter, Guardian, mediabistro.com, San Francisco Peninsula …, eMedia Vitals and Nieman Journalism Lab

Felix Salmon:

When digital ads pay for local news — In the world of regional newspapers, Journal Register Company and MediaNews Group are very big fish; they're now merging, and the merged entity to be called Digital First Media, will be run by John Paton. Who writes that already he's reaching an important milestone:

Discussion: Journal Register Company, Street Fight, BrauBlog, The Buttry Diary, GigaOM and News for Digital Journalists

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The newsonomics of ComboCo — Editor's Note: Each week …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, paidContent, BuzzMachine, The Huffington Post, The Latest Word and Digital First

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Washington Post publisher Weymouth sees new media as ‘them,’ not ‘us’ — Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth draws a big, bold line between “old media” like the Post and “new media” such as blogs and citizen journalists. — The Post is embracing the new “tools” of online journalism …

Discussion: Zombie Journalism and J-Lab

Wall Street Journal:

Content Deluge Swamps Yahoo — Yahoo, Rivals Fetch Less for Ads as Services That Sift Through Web Gain an Edge — Ousted Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Carol Bartz faced a plight all too familiar to many of her peers: Making money off digital content isn't easy and it's getting harder.

Discussion: George Dearing dot com

Jim Colgan / Poynter:

How journalists are using the iPad to enhance their reporting — Many journalists know what it's like to have a source freeze when you pull out a microphone or start recording them on camera. What were once colorful anecdotes can quickly turn into stilted monologues.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:

Our Policy On Anonymous Sources — Last week, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen asked about our policy on anonymous sources. — Here is that policy: — We will grant anonymity to any source at any time for any reason. — The logic for this policy is simple.

AdAge:

Glamour Publisher Job Goes to Jason Wagenheim, Publisher of Entertainment Weekly — Conde Nast's decision to name Jason Wagenheim the new publisher at Glamour sparks yet another turnover in the publisher's job at Entertainment Weekly. Mr. Wagenheim had only been running EW since December.

Discussion: The New York Observer

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

No, licensing journalists isn't the answer — Is the media industry in turmoil? Clearly it is, with publishers fighting declines in circulation and advertising revenue, combined with competition from digital-native entities such as blog networks and the “democracy of distribution” …

Thanks:mathewi

C.W. Anderson / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Information's triumph? Three ways TechCrunch challenges ideas of journalism

Discussion: Editors Weblog, BetaNews, TheMediaBriefing and Betabeat

Los Angeles Times:

How high can fees for sports rights go? — Pay-TV distributors fret that passing along those costs could drive subscribers away — A television camera man covers action during the first half of an NFL preseason football game last month between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Atlanta Falcons.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, rbr.com, MediaPost, Multichannel and Company Town

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:
The summer of our discontent: How web TV has changed

Discussion: MediaPost

Michelle Kung / Wall Street Journal:

Hollywood Expands New-Media Reach — Two high-powered Hollywood players made separate announcements Tuesday that they are launching enterprises designed to expand into novel approaches to making and distributing entertainment. — John Fogelman, formerly an agent with William Morris Endeavor …

MediaPost:

Affinity, Zinio Team For Digital Mag Research — Responding to surging public interest in tablet-style computers and e-readers, and the associated wave of digital editions of magazines, magazine research company Affinity has partnered with Zinio, a digital magazine publisher and virtual newsstand …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Dean Starkman / CJR:

A Heavy Blow to The Wall Street Journal — Anyone who thinks the departure of Alix M. Freedman, the WSJ's Page One editor, a twenty-seven-year Journal mainstay, and winner of one of the more storied Pulitzers in my old paper's storied past, is inside-baseball for media types is dead wrong.

Discussion: The Huffington Post