Mediagazer: The Boston Courant: Proud not to have a website until the owner sees “a profitable end game” (Callum Borchers/Nieman Journalism Lab)

4:00 AM ET, February 18, 2012

Top News:

Should the White House stay mum on Shadid? — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today said the following in regards to Anthony Shadid, the New York Times foreign correspondent who died yesterday on assignment in Syria. From ABC's Jake Tapper: … All true. But proper?

Discussion: VOA, WWD and Poynter

Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:

Release Date Is Moved Up for Shadid Book — Anthony Shadid, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter who died on Thursday while reporting in Syria, was weeks away from embarking on a book tour. — He was scheduled to return to the United States for a 20-city tour to promote …

Discussion: Speakeasy, New York Times, msnbc.com, Poynter, The New York Observer, The New Yorker Blog, Media Nation, Online NewsHour and New York Times

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
‘Times’ staffers gather for bullpen memorial for Anthony Shadid; his final piece published today

Discussion: PRNewser, ABCNEWS, New York Times, LA Observed and The New Yorker Blog

John F. Burns / New York Times:

Murdoch Offers Reassurances to Sun Newsroom — LONDON — In his 60 years in the newspaper business, few moments could have been as charged for Rupert Murdoch as the one on Friday when he visited the London headquarters of his British newspaper arm, News International, where reporters and editors …

Mark Sweney / Guardian: Ad sources expect Sun on Sunday ‘in weeks’

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:
Murdoch: Sun on Sunday will be launched ‘very soon’

Discussion: The Staggers, Erik Wemple, Guardian, Media & Entertainment, Bloomberg, Mediaite, The Wrap, Business Insider, Journalism.co.uk, mnilive.com, Media Week, Globe and Mail, AdAge and Press Gazette

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
Rupert Murdoch Announces Sun On Sunday, Says Suspended Employees Can Return To Work

Discussion: Reuters, Gordon's Republic, Guardian, @dansabbagh, CNBC, Associated Press, @sophyridgesky, Guardian, Press Gazette, Mixed Media, Guardian, Telegraph, Media Week, Media Decoder, Jon Slattery, Capital New York and Reuters

Tim Carmody / Epicenter:

Qwikster Rebaptized: Netflix's Name Game With Disc-Only Subscriptions — Here's a new post title from Netflix's company blog that wouldn't have made sense five years ago, or even last July: “Now you can sign up directly for a DVD only plan.” — First, it's all true.

Discussion: CNET, WebProNews, PC Magazine and Home Media Magazine

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Netflix (Still) Really Doesn't Want Your DVD Money

Discussion: Fortune, VentureBeat, Softpedia News, VatorNews, Digital Media Wire, The Official Netflix Blog, TechCrunch and Gizmodo

Felix Salmon:

Gawker Media jettisons its porn blog — Back in November, Nick Denton put Gawker Media's Fleshbot up for sale. The official announcement, here, is NSFW due to the ads surrounding it — which pretty much explains why Fleshbot was being sold: its customers — porn sites — are very …

Callum Borchers / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Boston Courant: Proud not to have a website until the owner sees “a profitable end game” — Eight years ago, David Jacobs, publisher of the weekly Boston Courant, paid a web designer in Ukraine to create a website for his newspaper. On that initial investment, and on subsequent research …

Discussion: Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog and mediabistro.com

Dave Maass / San Diego CityBeat:

U-T outsources comment censorship — Move is expected to ‘refine the tone and content of the comments without hindering their flow’ — The new owners of U-T San Diego have been making a lot of changes at the city's main daily newspaper. The latest involves new policies for censoring monitoring comments on its website.

Discussion: FishbowlLA

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Iran Nuclear Coverage Echoes Iraq War Media Frenzy — NEW YORK — Military strikes expected! Weapons inspectors called in! A murky al Qaeda connection! And Cheney says time's up for Ira... Wait. Haven't we seen this movie before? — It's already been a decade since …

Discussion: Salon, FAIR Blog and prospect.org/blog/beat-press

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Analyst: News Corp. Waited Too Long to Launch Sun on Sunday — You don't see a lot of media companies launching new, mass-circulation newspapers these days. But News Corp. is a special case: The paper it's launching, The Sun on Sunday, isn't really a new paper per se but a substitution …

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Microsoft mulls plan for new music service (exclusive) — The software maker has discussed with some of the major record companies about creating a music service to serve Xbox as well as an upcoming Windows-based phone. — Microsoft is in talks with some of the major record companies …

Discussion: The Verge, Electronista, The Next Web, Gizmodo and The TechBlock, more at Techmeme »

Julie Moos / Poynter:

Inquirer, Daily News to share content, raising questions about future of separate Philly papers — In a meeting with their newsrooms Thursday, editors of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com told journalists that their rivalry would soon turn to cooperation.

Discussion: American Journalism Review, JIMROMENESKO.COM, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Newspaper Guild and Philly.com