Mediagazer: Hulu Equity Owners Announce Decision To Terminate The Hulu Sale Process (Hulu Blog)

11:40 PM ET, October 13, 2011

Top News:

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

New York Times Plans Staff Reductions — In the midst of a deteriorating advertising climate, The New York Times plans to eliminate up to 20 newsroom positions and seek additional savings in the business units, the company said Thursday. — The reductions, described by the New York Times Company …

Discussion: Huffington Post, Business Insider, paidContent, FishbowlNY, Adweek, The New York Observer, New York Magazine, AllThingsD, Poynter, On Media's Blog and Gawker

Felix Salmon:

On George Soros, Occupy Wall Street, and Reuters — Wouldn't it be ironic if Occupy Wall Street — the soi-disant “99%” — were being secretly funded by billionaire Davos Man George Soros, exemplar of the 1%? Well, no, it wouldn't, actually. As Noreen Malone points out, lots of the 1% have …

Discussion: Reuters, The New York Observer, The New York Observer, The Awl, The Lede, Gothamist, The Huffington Post and Guardian

Noreen Malone / New York Magazine:

Why Is Reuters Trying to Link George Soros to Occupy Wall Street? [Updated] — Soros is puzzled, too. — The wire service and aspiring “best journalism organization in the world” ran an odd story this morning, insinuating that billionaire financier George Soros is secretly funding the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Discussion: Reuters, New York Post, Slate, Gothamist, The Huffington Post, On Media's Blog and Guardian

Steve Myers / Poynter:

WSJ confirms side deals in paid circulation boost at Journal's Europe edition — The Wall Street Journal follows the Guardian's story about a circulation scheme at the Journal's sister paper in Europe with its own story confirming many of the details first reported by its competitor.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, CJR, Talking Biz News, Felix Salmon and Future of Journalism

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
WSJ circulation figures to be investigated

Discussion: Forbes, Journalism.co.uk and Press Gazette

Ryan Chittum / CJR:
Wall Street Journal Europe Sourcing Was Unusual

Discussion: Forbes, Deadline.com, msnbc.com, FishbowlNY and The New Republic

Hulu Blog:

Hulu Equity Owners Announce Decision To Terminate The Hulu Sale Process — The following is a joint statement from Hulu owners News Corporation, Providence Equity Partners, The Walt Disney Company and the Hulu senior management team: — “Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value …

Discussion: TechCrunch, paidContent, AllThingsD, VentureBeat, CNNMoney.com, Techdirt, Engadget, GigaOM, Electronista and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Michael Montgomery / California Watch:

Feds to target newspapers, radio for marijuana ads — Federal prosecutors are preparing to target newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise medical marijuana dispensaries in California, another escalation in the Obama administration's newly invigorated war against the state's pot industry.

Discussion: Poynter, ThinkProgress, The Snitch, FishbowlLA, The Daily Weekly, On Media's Blog, Future Journalism Project, Seattle Times and LA Observed

Paul Thomasch / Reuters:

In Wall Street protests, TV news finds battleground — * Critics says networks too positive in reporting — Just as Fox News has staked out the conservative Tea Party movement as a pet topic, the unabashedly liberal MSNBC television news network appears to be doing the same with the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Discussion: TVNewser, The Huffington Post and Future of Journalism

Brian Stelter / New York Times:
A News Story Is Growing With ‘Occupy’ Protests

Discussion: Media Research Center, Poynter, The Huffington Post, Chickaboomer, The Millions, Capital New York and Journalism.org

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Worldwide, newspapers reach more people than the Internet, WAN-IFRA survey shows — WAN-IFRA — At the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Vienna, Austria, a survey of 69 countries showed where print circulation, revenue and mobile use were rising for newspapers, and where they are declining.

Discussion: WAN-IFRA

Steve Myers / Poynter:

FBI: We didn't raise concerns about Globe naming Bulger informant, but that doesn't mean we approved it — The Boston Herald continues its criticism of rival Boston Globe's decision to publish the name of the informant who tipped off the FBI to the whereabouts of James “Whitey” Bulger.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Boston Herald, Media Nation and CJR

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

‘Arab spring’ revolutions fail to provide greater press freedom — The fall of repressive regimes in north Africa and the Middle East, in the so-called Arab spring, has failed to usher in greater press freedom, according to a global media organisation. — A report by the World Association …

Discussion: Media Network

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:
WEF calls for pressure on Eritrea to release journalists

Discussion: Reporters Without Borders

Glen Warchol / Salt Lake Tribune:

KCPW insists city loan does not change its journalism — A Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency loan that bails out public radio station KPCW from potentially defaulting on one of its loans brings other questions including journalistic credibility in light of the station's finances and its relationship with the city.

Merrill Knox / TVNewser:

Ted Koppel Named Special Correspondent For NBC's ‘Rock Center with Brian Williams’ — In a move that has been widely speculated, NBC News has named Ted Koppel as a special correspondent to “Rock Center With Brian Williams.” — Koppel, who left ABC News in 2005, began his career as an NBC page.

Discussion: @nbcnewspr, Media Decoder, Broadcasting & Cable, On Media's Blog and MediaPost

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Editor Janine Gibson banks on 'The Guardian's' distinctly British appeal to the ‘internationalist’ Yank — One morning just a day or two into the new year of 2011, Janine Gibson was curled up on a couch in Soho, where she'd been staying for a winter vacation from her native England.

Pierre-Antoine Souchard / Associated Press:

French prosecutor drops Strauss-Kahn case — PARIS (AP) — The Paris prosecutor's office on Thursday dropped its investigation into a writer's claim that Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her, though it said the former IMF chief admitted to behavior that could qualify as sexual assault.

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog and New York Magazine

Suzanne Perry / The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

Nonprofit News Outlets Face Long Waits for IRS Approval — When SF Public Press, a nonprofit news organization in San Francisco, applied to the Internal Revenue Service for a tax exemption in January 2010, its founder, Michael Stoll, thought the bid would be a “slam dunk.”

Discussion: Poynter

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Bloomsburg Press Enterprise's post-floods paywall a folly or financially sound? — Journalists are reacting strongly to the Bloomsburg Press Enterprise's stance that anyone who wants its news should have to pay for it. Readers had asked the paper to drop its website paywall for an extended …

Discussion: The Bloomsburg Daily

Noah Davis / Business Insider:

Demand Media's Secret Weapon: A Super Fast Payment System For Its Freelance Writers — One of the most overlooked aspects of Demand Media's success is the super efficient payment system the company uses handle its thousands of freelance writers. — We learned about it when we were reporting …

Discussion: WebProNews and Medacity

Ben Fritz / Company Town:

Apple prepping movie cloud service — Apple Inc. is preparing to put movies in the cloud, entering a market in which it may be both competitor and ally to a similar offering backed by most Hollywood studios. — Representatives of the iPhone and iPad maker have been meeting with studios …

MediaMonkey / Guardian:

Financial Times's FT Tilt service to close — Puzzling news out of FT Towers on London's South Bank: the pink 'un's flagship online emerging markets service, FT Tilt, is being shut down after just nine months. The reason? Slow subscription sales, apparently - showing once again how difficult …

Discussion: paidContent, Felix Salmon, Folio and Talking Biz News

Greg Sandoval / CNET News:

Netflix licenses reruns from CW Network — The CW Network series “The Vampire Diaries” is coming to Netflix's streaming library. — Netflix has licensed content from CBS and Time Warner's jointly operated CW Network, the companies announced today. — The agreement is for four years …

Discussion: Company Town, Media Money …, Mashable!, Online Video News, Media Decoder, VatorNews, AllThingsD, Business Insider, Broadcasting & Cable, rbr.com and TVbytheNumbers, more at Techmeme »

Newsosaur / Reflections of a Newsosaur:

Engagement: The new digital metric — Everyone knows you have to measure things correctly to manage a business well. But the converse of this axiom is that you can get into a lot of trouble if you measure the wrong things. — Unfortunately, this has happened in the newspaper industry with respect to the digital media.