Mediagazer: Ebert measures up to celluloid's stoic heroes (Michael Miner/Chicago Reader)

6:26 AM ET, October 31, 2011

Top News:

On the Media: Will computer tablets help save newspapers? — In the fragmenting media landscape, a Philadelphia publisher embarks on a bold experiment. — The Philadelphia Media Network's Arnova 10 G2 tablet computer. (Akira Suwa, MCT / September 12, 2011)

Discussion: Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog

Nat Ives / AdAge:

What Matters Most in Magazine and Newspaper iPad Apps? Quality, Report Says — Too Many Apps Are Still Minimally Enhanced PDFs — Publishers, don't start skimping on your iPad editions now. Magazine and newspaper apps' quality seems to be the most important factor in their success with consumers …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

CNN Is Said to Be Revamping Its Morning Lineup — CNN, which remodeled its afternoon and evening schedule earlier this year, is now on the verge of remaking its morning schedule. — The channel, a unit of Time Warner, is expected to announce as early as this week that Soledad O'Brien …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, TVNewser and Inside Cable News

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of NYT's Sunday gain and paid content 2.0 — Editor's Note: Each week, Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of news for the Lab. — And on the seventh day, they didn't rest; they sped up.

Discussion: New York Times

Bloomberg:

Hollywood Studios Said to Study 60-Day Ban on DVD Rentals — Some of Hollywood's largest movie studios may seek to double a 28-day delay on DVD rentals by services including Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Coinstar Inc. (CSTR), four people with knowledge of the situation said.

Discussion: PC Magazine, Inside Movies and Deadline.com

Dahlia Lithwick / Slate:

Occupy the No-Spin Zone — I confess to being driven insane this past month by the spectacle of television pundits professing to be baffled by the meaning of Occupy Wall Street. Good grief. Isn't the ability to read still a job requirement for a career in journalism?

Discussion: Online Journalism Review

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Why Mitt Romney's Bypassing National Media — NEW YORK — When a group of national political reporters arrived at Mitt Romney's New Hampshire summer house in July 2010 for an off-the-record barbecue, the former Massachusetts governor greeted them warmly and handed out beers from a nearby cooler.

Michael Miner / Chicago Reader:

Ebert measures up to celluloid's stoic heroes — Life Itself: the new memoir from the legendary Sun-Times film critic — No one in Chicago better embodies grace at twilight than Roger Ebert, who has written openly and frankly about the physical disasters that cost him his lower face, his voice, and his ability to swallow food.

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Proof by Mask — Web design is in bad shape. In the applications boom, news-related web sites end up as collateral damage. For graphic designers, the graphics tools and the computer languages used to design apps for tablets and smartphones have unleashed a great deal of creativity.

Discussion: Common Sense Journalism

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Cable Is Holding Web TV at Bay, Earnings Show — This time a year ago, the television industry was rife with worry about so-called cord-cutting — people dropping cable subscriptions in favor of watching TV over the Internet. — But for the most part, the cords remain intact, the latest crop of earnings reports indicate.

more at Techmeme »

David Carr / New York Times:

Backpage.com Confronts New Fight Over Online Sex Ads — What if the price of having a vital, well-financed string of newspapers included rare, but inevitable, sexual predation of minors? — Not a tough call, right? But maybe more complicated than you think for the businesses involved.

MediaShift:

Is Amazon Short-Changing Authors? — This week on MediaShift, we are exploring the dramatically changing publishing industry in our Beyond the Book special series. Stay tuned for more pieces like this one in the coming days. Sign up for our new weekly newsletter on e-books and self-publishing here.

Discussion: TeleRead