Mediagazer: Ad Sales Are Either Okay, Growing Slower, or Soft. Pick Your Answer! (Peter Kafka/AllThingsD)

1:30 PM ET, October 28, 2011

Top News:

Jay Rosen / Pressthink:

Lefty journalism professor tries to discredit the Tea Party by passing along sensational footage to his buddies at the Times!!! — Yesterday I was the target of a “sting” operation by right wing trickster James O'Keefe. I will tell you what happened. — But first, here is the product of that sting …

Discussion: Poynter, On Media's Blog, Mediaite, Erik Wemple, Forbes, Globe and Mail and The Wrap

Joel B. Pollak / Big Journalism:
New O'Keefe Video: Jay Rosen, Clay Shirky Discuss How the New York Times Promoted Obama, Protected Occupy

Discussion: The New York Observer and @andrewbreitbart

Keach Hagey / On Media's Blog:
NYT says target of O'Keefe sting didn't work for them

Discussion: Mixed Media, Mediaite, Betabeat, AllThingsD, Erik Wemple and James O'Keefe's Project …

Gene Weingarten / Washington Post:

Modern journalism meets LOLcats — As you know, I sometimes worry aloud about my profession. Beset by financial pressures in a bewildering new digital world and waging a fevered, desperate battle to keep readers and attract new ones, journalism seems to be cheapening itself.

Discussion: First Draft, @geneweingarten, @jake_bernstein, @benhuh, Felix and Chickaboomer

Alexandra Petri / Washington Post:

Gene Weingarten is wrong about bacon-cats and journalism — Gene Weingarten is a cantankerous old fud. — “Every time I write despairingly about what's happening to my profession,” Gene writes this week, “there erupts an online clatter from younger journalists who contend I am …

The Official Google TV Blog:

An Update on Google TV — In the 1970s, there were just a few networks on TV. Cable changed things by adding hundreds of new channels like HBO, ESPN, and MTV. The Internet marks a new chapter for television. This chapter is not about replacing broadcast or cable TV; it's not about replicating what's on TV to the Web.

Discussion: Bits, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Between the Lines Blog, FT Tech Hub, Mashable!, Reuters, Pocket-lint, Droid Life, WebProNews, Techland, Electronista, This is my next, GigaOM, Gadget Lab and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Spooking Flipboard: Yahoo's Livestand and Google's Propeller Set to Launch Next Week — Memo to Flipboard, as well as Pulse, CNN's Zite and AOL's Editions: You might want to make some room in the already-crowded news and social reader space, because you're about to get some bigfoot company.

Discussion: paidContent, Electronista and ReadWriteWeb, more at Techmeme »

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Ad Sales Are Either Okay, Growing Slower, or Soft. Pick Your Answer! — Given that the world's economy seems to keep teetering on the precipice, it's no surprise that ad spending might pull back a bit. And we've seen predictions to that effect for some time.

Discussion: AdAge, MediaPost, Adweek, Bloomberg, Guardian and Financial Times

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Cablevision: More Video Subscriber Losses, But Rate Appears To Be Slowing — There seems to be no escaping the cable industry's continuing decline in basic video subscribers, and Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) was no exception in Q3, though the rate of those losses appeared to be slowing.

Discussion: mediabistro.com

Caitlin E. Curran / Gawker:

How Occupy Wall Street Cost Me My Job — Joining the Occupy Wall Street protests has its dangers. You could get pepper-sprayed or end up in handcuffs. Or, as Brooklyn-based journalist Caitlin Curran explains, your boss could see a photo of you holding up a sign at a protest and fire you the next day.

Discussion: Boing Boing, The New York Observer, Forbes and On Media's Blog

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Cyborg no more! The BBC moves to human-edited Twitter feeds — Move over, auto-tweets: This week, the BBC has switched its @BBCNews Twitter feed to all-human curation. (One small step for a news feed; one giant leap for newsfeedkind.) — It's a lot like the experiment The New York Times tried …

Discussion: Editors Weblog and Guardian

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Clear Channel Cuts D.J.'s Across the Country — Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio station operator in the United States, dismissed dozens of local D.J.'s this week, affecting small stations from Syracuse to Spokane, Wash., and raising fresh concerns about the homogenization of radio programming.

Discussion: Gawker, mediabistro.com, Chickaboomer and @mediaredef

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Cox Media combining jobs at AJC, other papers — Cox Media Group, which operates The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, will restructure operations throughout its newspaper division, the company announced Thursday. — The company will consolidate different newsroom and business functions …

Discussion: News & Views …, Poynter and Charles Apple

Dylan Byers / Adweek:

‘Guardian’ Correspondent Levels Plagiarism Charge at Reuters Two Moscow journalists report very similar stories By Dylan Byers — “Wow. Thanks to @Reuters for at least changing a few of the words from my story,” Miriam Elder, The Guardian's Moscow correspondent, tweeted Thursday …

Discussion: @dylanbyers, Poynter and Reuters

Eric Wilson / New York Times:

Front Row: Style.com/Print, a Fashion Web Site's Glossy Debut — NEXT week, the first issue of a glossy magazine from the editors of Style.com, with the puzzling name of Style.com/Print, will hit newsstands. The cover shows a close-up of Lindsey Wixson, the model from Kansas …

Discussion: Medacity, FishbowlNY and The New York Observer

Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:

Redbox rental prices to rise — SAN FRANCISCO - Redbox's DVD rental kiosks are attracting movie lovers fed up with Netflix's video subscription service. But now Redbox's owner, Coinstar, is risking its own customer backlash by raising its prices, the same move that triggered Netflix's recent loss of 800,000 U.S. subscribers.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Business Week, TechCrunch, CNET News, Seattle Times, ZDNet and Electronista

Joe Flint / Company Town:

DirecTV takes fight with News Corp. to the FCC — Satellite broadcaster DirecTV has taken its fight with News Corp. to the federal government. — The two sides are at odds over a new distribution agreement that would keep News Corp.-owned cable channels including FX on DirecTV.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Adweek and Multichannel