Mediagazer: Starkman on the Decline of Business Journalism (Robert Teitelman/The Huffington Post)

7:45 PM ET, January 15, 2012

Top News:

Obama Administration Responds to We the People Petitions on SOPA and Online Piracy — The White House has responded to two petitions about legislative approaches to combat online piracy. In their response, Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Pirates! Rupert Murdoch Rails About Obama, Google, and Silicon Valley — On Friday, Rupert Murdoch and his top executives gathered for a day-long private confab in Las Vegas to think big thoughts about digital stuff. I'm guessing there wasn't a session entitled “How Great is Google?”.

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
SOPA Delayed; Cantor Promises It Won't Be Brought To The Floor Until ‘Issues Are Addressed’

Discussion: TorrentFreak, Hillicon Valley, CNET, WebProNews, Ars Technica and VentureBeat, more at Techmeme »

Dean Starkman / CJR:

A Narrowed Gaze — How the business press forgot the rest of us — Steve Lipin didn't fit the profile of a transformative media figure when he took over the mergers-and-acquisitions beat for The Wall Street Journal in 1995. His look was studious, his manner remarkably affable and low key, given the stress of his new job.

Robert Teitelman / The Huffington Post:

Starkman on the Decline of Business Journalism — The Audit's Dean Starkman, writing the cover story in the most recent Columbia Journalism Review, has produced a longish essay that attempts to advance a critique he's been making for awhile now. Starkman several years ago argued that business journalism …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Bloomberg:
Bloomberg View Expands Editorial Board

Discussion: The New York Observer

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

News exec John Paton is out to stop the presses — Digital First Media CEO says his company's moniker is its mandate, and he's pushing past newspapers' print era at warp speed. — John Paton, chief executive officer of Digital First Media, the Journal Register Company and Media News.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Justin Martin / Poynter:

Why Christian Science Monitor stories have too many links, wrong ones — I often don't read my own articles in The Christian Science Monitor. The volume of hyperlinks the publication drops in their copy is just too distracting. Consider this Op-Ed on volunteerism among Millennials.

Discussion: @mathewi

Andy Fixmer / Bloomberg:

Hulu Plans to Raise Money to Fund Expansion Into Original Shows — Hulu LLC, the online TV service owned by ABC, NBC and Fox, is ratcheting up competition with Netflix Inc. (NFLX) with plans to raise money for an expansion into original programs. — Hulu will release “Battleground,” …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Hollywood Reporter, Company Town, The Next Web, Reuters, Associated Press, Medacity, SocialTimes.com and Epicenter, more at Techmeme »

Declan Fahy / CJR:

Media Made Hawking Famous — Amid 70th birthday adoration, reporters ignored their role in the physicist's celebrity — The extensive coverage of Stephen Hawking's seventieth birthday on January 8 focused on the physicist's status as the world's most famous living scientist.

Discussion: @tcarmody

Steve Huff / The New York Observer:

Huffington Post Twitter Account Hacked-Homophobic and Racist Tweets Ensue — The Huffington Post's Twitter account was hacked Sunday afternoon and it wasn't even fun, just offensive. In a rapid-fire series of tweets containing grandiloquent soliloquies like “hello gay boys” and …

Discussion: BuzzFeed, @huffingtonpost, Mediaite, The Next Web, CNET and Runnin' Scared

Markcuban / blog maverick:

The TV Business Keeps Getting Stronger ! — Back in my broadcast.com days we had a saying that “bits are bits”. That once content becomes digital, it is naturally going to become available on any and all digital devices. Based on this, we always made the point to be platform and device agnostic.

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

Plagiarism may be part of ‘weeding out’ at Journal Register — Can plagiarism be a byproduct of progress? — That's the contradictory question I'm pondering after a conversation with Matt DeRienzo, group editor of Journal Register Company's publications in Connecticut.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

People using pseudonyms post the highest-quality comments, Disqus says — One of the most popular commenting services for news websites and blogs says its data shows that commenters using pseudonyms are “the most important contributors to online communities.”

Discussion: Future of Journalism and eMedia Vitals

Josh Stearns / Groundswell:

The Missed Opportunity of HuffPost's “Good News” — Today the Huffington Post introduced a new section of its website called “Good News.” In her introduction to the new feature Arianna Huffington wrote: … Trying to emphasize positive news rooted in “what is working” is good …

Felicia Pride / FishbowlNY: Arianna Huffington Says Media Needs More Good News, Launches Vertical