Mediagazer: Shirky: Many news orgs must choose between ‘radical restructure and outright collapse’ (Julie Moos/Poynter)

2:55 PM ET, December 3, 2011

Top News:

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Twitter Quietly (Finally) Launches Self-Serve Ads — It's still just in test mode, and only open to a handful of advertisers. But those who can use it can now buy ads directly via Twitter, using a credit card and a Web browser, without ever having to talk to a human being.

Discussion: San Francisco Chronicle, AllTwitter, Softpedia News, the Econsultancy blog and AdExchanger.com

Chris Crum / WebProNews:

Yahoo Gets Rid of 75,000 Associated Content Articles, Launches Yahoo Voices — Presumably a late reaction to Panda — Follow @WebProNews — Yahoo has now decided to follow Demand Media's lead by deleting 75,000 articles from Associated Content, and is even going so far …

Discussion: Softpedia News and Search Engine Land

Brent Lang / The Wrap:

Yahoo Shuts Down 4 Entertainment Blogs (Updated) — Four Yahoo entertainment sites are going to the blogosphere in the sky. — The portal is letting The Projector and The Set flicker out and die, the movie and television blogs acknowledged on Twitter Friday.

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Shirky: Many news orgs must choose between ‘radical restructure and outright collapse’ — In response to an essay by Dean Starkman, NYU professor Clay Shirky has reiterated his belief that newspaper organizations are being disrupted at a rate that requires radical reinvention.

Discussion: Clay Shirky, yelvington.com, The Buttry Diary and Boing Boing

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

USA Today Turns to Private Ad Exchange in Attempt to Boost Digital Revenue — The aim of the private marketplace will be to move most unsold online ad inventory in a more controlled environment. — Nine months after its parent company started selling online ads for some of its newspapers …

Discussion: Reuters

DPA / Haaretz:

Report: Syria bans iPhone to cover up crackdown on anti-Assad protests — Statement issued by Customs Department of the Syrian Finance Ministry says, ‘The authorities warn anyone against using the iPhone in Syria’; at least six demonstrators reported killed in Syria on Friday.

Discussion: The Next Web, L.A. Times Tech Blog, ReadWriteWeb, TUAW and Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:

ABC Shake-Up: Vicki Dummer's New Times Square Studios Replaces Daytime Chief Brian Frons — Brian Frons, longtime president of ABC Daytime, will leave the company when his contract ends in January, and his departure will usher in a shakeup in the way that ABC's daytime roster will be handled, the network announced on Friday.

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

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Lee plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy to restructure debt — Lee Enterprises, the owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and one of the largest newspaper publishers in the country, announced Friday that it will file for bankruptcy on or about Dec. 12 after efforts to work out a debt exchange deal with its lenders failed.

Discussion: Poynter, Reuters and Gannett Blog

Guardian:

Iranian TV station accused of faking reports of Somalia drone strikes — No evidence of attacks reported on controversial channel Press TV as Somali charity says reports are impossible — An Iranian TV station appears to have faked dozens of accounts of US drone strikes in Somalia which it says have killed hundreds of civilians.

Discussion: Telegraph, TBIJ and Future of Journalism

Erik Sass / MediaPost:

Newspaper Revs Dive In Q3 — There has been no relief for the newspaper business in the second half of this year, judging by the latest figures from the Newspaper Association of America, which have total ad revenues declining 8.9% from $6.1 billion in the third quarter of 2010 to $5.56 billion in the third quarter of 2011.

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

With Verizon's $3.6 Billion Spectrum Deal, Cable and Wireless Inch Closer — The relationship between the cable industry and the wireless industry just got a bit cozier. — Verizon Wireless announced on Friday that it had entered into an agreement to acquire spectrum licenses from three cable companies …

Discussion: Comcast Voices, PR Newswire, GigaOM, Broadcasting & Cable, Light Reading, Susan Crawford blog, Multichannel News, DealBook, rbr.com and AllThingsD, more at Techmeme »

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Docs Boost CNBC's Primetime in November — CNBC's primetime documentaries helped boost the channel's primetime ratings by double-digits in November, while its dayside programs were a mixed bag. — According to data from Nielsen Media Research, CNBC was up +9% in total viewers and +10% …