Mediagazer: Analyst: News Corp. Waited Too Long to Launch Sun on Sunday (Jeff Bercovici/Forbes)

8:40 PM ET, February 17, 2012

Top News:

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, The New York Observer, New York Times, The New Yorker Blog, Guardian, Washington Post and Poynter

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

Discussion: ABCNEWS and The New Yorker Blog

Rick Gladstone / New York Times:
Anthony Shadid, A New York Times Reporter Dies in Syria

Erik Wemple:
Should the White House stay mum on Shadid?

Discussion: Poynter and TVNewser

Margalit Fox / New York Times:
Anthony Shadid, Reporter in the Middle East, Dies at 43

Discussion: Washington Post, VOA, NPR, Poynter, The Huffington Post, Poynter, JSOnline, Guardian, Capital New York, CJR, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @pjtobia, LA Observed, @nirrosen, @sultanalqassemi, @adamweinstein, @trdeghett, @andrewphelps, FishbowlLA, Politico, The Huffington Post and Poynter

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’ — Rupert Murdoch to accelerate timeline for launch, say reports, while media agencies warn of ‘stressed’ Sunday market — Media buying agencies believe that the Sun on Sunday is set to launch “within weeks”, but warn of a vicious price …

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

Murdoch: Sun on Sunday will be launched ‘very soon’ — News Corporation chairman sends internal email also announcing that staff suspensions will be lifted — News International will launch its new national Sunday tabloid, The Sun on Sunday, “very soon”, Rupert Murdoch told staff today.

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Media Week, Guardian, Media & Entertainment, Business Insider, The Staggers, Bloomberg, The Independent, Mediaite, mnilive.com, AdAge, Journalism.co.uk, Globe and Mail 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, Press Gazette, Mixed Media, Telegraph, Guardian, Jon Slattery, Media Decoder, Media Week and Reuters

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

BBC World Service to broadcast morning news conference — Global broadcaster to use Twitter, Facebook and Skype to encourage listener input in news meeting on 29 February — The World Service is celebrating its 80th anniversary — The BBC World Service is to open up its morning editorial meeting …

Discussion: Guardian

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Arianna Huffington's loyal flack departs to hang up his own shingle — Mario Ruiz, head of communications for The Huffington Post, is leaving the company to start his own agency after five years of doing P.R. for the website. — And, as is so often the case in these sorts …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, PRNewser and Poynter

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

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

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 …

Matthew Creamer / AdAge:

Reuters' U.S. News Push Signs on Yahoo, AOL, MSNBC.com — Reuters introduced its general U.S. news service, Reuters America, in late 2010 with one client, the Tribune Co. Now three major portals — Yahoo, AOL and MSNBC.com — have signed on to Reuters' U.S. news push.

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 …

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 and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Mike Armstrong / Philly.com:
Papers, website to begin sharing some news coverage

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and The Newspaper Guild

Cotton Delo / AdAge:

Twitter Opens Up Self-Serve Ad Platform to 10,000 Small Businesses — American Express Cardmembers and Merchants Are Eligible to Register for Platform Starting Tonight — Twitter is rolling out the self-serve ad platform it's been testing to 10,000 small and midsize businesses next month through …

Discussion: PandoDaily, Media Week, CNET, Twitter Blog, Marketing Pilgrim, The Wall Blog, TechCrunch, WebProNews, Wall Street Journal, AllThingsD and MediaPost

New York Times:

Congress to Sell Public Airwaves to Pay Benefits — WASHINGTON — The need for revenue to partly cover the extension of the payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits has pushed Congress to embrace a generational shift in the country's media landscape: the auction of public airwaves …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Forbes, Mashable!, Prof Chris Daly's Blog, The Caucus and The New Republic

John Jurgensen / Wall Street Journal:

Web TV's New Lineup — Fueled by a wave of investment from Silicon Valley's deepest pockets, Hollywood players are lining up to create original online shows. Tom Hanks vs. piano-playing cats. — Hollywood veteran Brian Robbins has a new production studio under construction and 35 shows in development.

Discussion: Company Town