Mediagazer: Why We Should Stop Asking Whether Bloggers Are Journalists (Rebecca J. Rosen/The Atlantic)

4:55 AM ET, December 15, 2011

Top News:

Adrianne Jeffries / Betabeat:

ReadWriteWeb's Acquisition, as Seen By a Former Employee [UPDATED] — This morning AdWeek broke the news that ReadWriteWeb had been acquired by SAY Media (which also bought Dogster and Six Apart) and appointed Dan Frommer to the editor seat. The price was not disclosed.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Afterthoughts and WebProNews

Dan Frommer / SplatF:

My new job at ReadWriteWeb, and what it means for SplatF — If you follow me on Twitter, or follow tech news in general, you may have seen the announcement this morning that I'll be joining ReadWriteWeb as Editor At Large starting in January. — SAY Media, my business-side partner for SplatF, just acquired RWW.

Discussion: Future of Journalism, ReadWriteWeb and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:

The Price For ReadWriteWeb Was Around $5 Million — Tech blog ReadWriteWeb was acquired today by SAY Media, as was previously reported. I've found out a few more details. The price SAY paid out was under $5 million, after the assumption of ReadWriteWeb's liabilities, according to a source privy to the details.

Discussion: The Wrap, Poynter, VatorNews, paidContent and Daring Fireball, more at Techmeme »

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
Say Media Eyes IPO, Buys ReadWriteWeb

Discussion: CNET News, Forbes and TechCrunch

Aaron Gell / The New York Observer:

Peter Braunstein, WWD Writer Turned Tabloid Monster, Still Has Issues — One day in October 2010, Peter Braunstein's monthly subscription copy of W magazine arrived right on time. It was one of the first under the direction of a new editor, Stefano Tonchi, and the cover featured Ryan Gosling …

Discussion: Spiersblr

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Mail: Dowler question was ‘perfectly legitimate inquiry’ — The Leveson inquiry today heard that a journalist from the Daily Mail contacted the Dowler family's lawyer to ask if they will be ‘giving their money back’ following new police information about who may have caused her messages to be deleted

David Carr / Media Decoder:
Is James Murdoch Running Out of Denials?

Discussion: CJR, Guardian and Bloomberg

Joel Gunter / Journalism.co.uk:
Tom Crone denies knowing Webb was private investigator

Discussion: Media Week, Press Gazette, Big News Network.com and Guardian

BBC: Leveson Inquiry: Prosecute NoW criminality, ex editor says

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
What James Murdoch said about the ‘for Neville’ email

Discussion: Guardian and CNN

David Leigh / Guardian:
Leveson: Milly Dowler case is not the only reason for inquiry

Discussion: Press Gazette, Daily Mail, The Sun and Press Gazette

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Huffington Post dominates Facebook's most-shared politics stories of 2011 — On Facebook's list of the 40 most-shared political articles of 2011, the most frequently appearing sources are The Huffington Post (10), CNN (7), MSNBC (6) and Fox News (5). The Washington Post had only one story on the list …

Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
The Top Political Stories On Facebook In 2011 Were Sensationalized, Polarized And Mostly Mainstream

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, VentureBeat and Facebook

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:

Live Nation Buys BigChampagne, Analyzer of Consumer Data — In a bid to expand its ability to analyze large amounts of consumer data, Live Nation Entertainment, the music giant that includes Ticketmaster, is buying BigChampagne, a small but influential company that monitors online media consumption.

Discussion: Company Town and hypebot, more at Techmeme »

Simon Owens / Nieman Journalism Lab:

NPR's StateImpact project explores regional topics through focused, data-driven journalism — Scott Detrow heard a rumor, and like any good reporter, he set out to determine whether it was true. Detrow, who has spent several years covering state politics and government …

Discussion: StateImpact Pennsylvania

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:
$1.5M Knight grant to NPR will fund digital training at 70 local stations

Discussion: Editors Weblog, rbr.com and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

What Louis CK knows that most media companies don't — Until recently, comedian Louis CK was known mostly for a hilarious clip about how “everything is amazing but no one is happy,” which lampooned our inability to recognize our own good fortune and led to a TV show.

Discussion: Techdirt, paidContent, Rolling Stone, Forbes, /Film, TeleRead, GalleyCat, AdAge and CNET News

Felix Salmon:

The value of finding content to link to — I'm convinced there's real value in driving readers to great content — and clearly I'm not alone: Outbrain has just raised another $35 million. — What's Outbrain? Well, if you look at the All Things D story announcing the new round …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Outbrain Raises $35M In Series D Funding For Content Discovery Platform

Discussion: Online Video News, AllThingsD, VentureBeat, Business Insider, Fast Company and paidContent

J. David Goodman / Media Decoder:

Times of London Cancels Comedy Podcast That Mocked Murdoch — BUGLE NEWS ALERT: The Bugle will be leaving Times Online in the near future. We will do everything we can to keep The Bugle going... The Bugle — hellobuglers — The Times of London, the British daily owned …

Discussion: New York Times

Rebecca J. Rosen / The Atlantic:

Why We Should Stop Asking Whether Bloggers Are Journalists — In the rush to defend blogs as a medium of journalism, we ask the wrong questions about what press freedom seeks to protect — Last week, a federal judge ruled that Crystal Cox, a blogger in Montana, owed $2.5 million …

Discussion: Journalism.org and Electronic Frontier Foundation, Thanks:nslayton

Richard Huff / NY Daily News:

Pulitzer Prize-winning photog John Kaplan turns camera on his own battle with cancer — WNET Documentary ‘Not As I Pictured’ recounts struggle to beat disease — After two surgeries and an unexpected lymphoma diagnosis, John Kaplan says his film project began by accident when he took a self-portrait in his bathroom mirror.

Ryan Lawler / GigaOM:

Netflix expands international support for iOS, Apple TV — Netflix is giving its subscribers in Latin America new ways to access its library of streaming video titles, by expanding availability of its app on iOS products in that region. Starting Wednesday, Netflix subscribers …

Discussion: The Official Netflix Blog, Home Media Magazine, CNET News, WebProNews and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Amanda DeMarco / paidContent:

New Site Will Offer Groupon-Style Deals On E-Books — Andrew Rhomberg thinks discovering new books online isn't much fun. It's great if you already know what you're looking for, but if you're hoping for the well-curated serendipity of a bookstore to lead you to something unique and unexpected …

Discussion: Publishing Perspectives

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Digital Content Vet David Eun Joins Samsung To Lead Global Media — Samsung makes TVs, tablets, smartphones, music players, even refrigerators with connected displays. Now it wants to have a bigger say about the content that drives the sales and use of consumer electronics and is bringing on former Google …

Discussion: mocoNews, MediaPost, The Verge, AllThingsD, Reuters and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Bloomberg:

Hollywood Said to Court Amazon in Bid for Online Film Sales — Hollywood studios, working to spur purchases of films and TV shows, are in talks to bring Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) back into their online system called UltraViolet, people with knowledge of the situation said.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Deadline.com and Electronista

Nilay Patel / The Verge:

Universal has ‘Tech News Today’ episode yanked from YouTube for reporting on MegaUpload promo video — We're still not sure what to make of the strange war that's erupted between file sharing service MegaUpload and Universal Media Group after MegaUpload posted a promo video that appears …

Discussion: Electronista, more at Techmeme »

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

Chuck Todd: NBC's new politics site is for armchair viewers, political junkies — NBC has just launched a new politics site that provides readers with a place to track political news, dig deeper into polls and make their own predictions about the outcome of the 2012 elections.

Discussion: Mashable! and NetNewsCheck Latest