Mediagazer: ESPN Starts Opening The Doors To Its Data With Developer Center, First API Program (Rip Empson/TechCrunch)

9:55 AM ET, March 6, 2012

Top News:

Rush Limbaugh, AOL Part Ways — WASHINGTON — AOL, the parent company of The Huffington Post, has become the eighth advertiser to pulls its money from Rush Limbaugh's syndicated radio program since he called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who spoke out in favor of contraception coverage, a “slut” and a “prostitute” last week.

Discussion: Forbes, msnbc.com, AlterNet.org, Daily Kos, Forbes, FishbowlNY, Boing Boing, aflcio.org, Gothamist, South Florida Daily Blog and The Newspaper Guild

James Crugnale / Mediaite:
Report: Second Radio Station Drops The Rush Limbaugh Show (Updated)

Discussion: The Hill, New England Public Radio News, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, VatorNews, Business Insider, The Raw Story, The Huffington Post and The Jane Dough

Foster Kamer / The New York Observer:
Rush Limbaugh's Consolation Prize: Twitter Followers

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Mediaite, This Just In and CNN

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
Advertisers' Boycott Won't Dent Rush Limbaugh's Earnings

Discussion: Guardian, CNN, 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com, ABCNEWS, The Huffington Post, Gawker, Daily Kos, Broadcasting & Cable and Rolling Stone

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:
As Advertisers Recoil, Limbaugh Says, ‘So Be It’

Discussion: New York Magazine, TVNewser, The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed

London Evening Standard:

Two Murdoch reporters feared to be in suicide bids — Two senior journalists at News International have apparently attempted to commit suicide as pressure mounts inside the Murdoch media empire. The reporters appeared to try to take their own lives after the company turned over 300 million emails …

Discussion: Business Insider

Ed Pilkington / Guardian:

News Corp dropped top US anti-bribery lawyer from its legal team — Amid possible US prosecution, leading expert on FCPA stopped advising Murdoch empire soon after he was hired this summer — News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's media empire that is under investigation by the FBI …

Discussion: Law Blog, Media Decoder and Company Town

David Leigh / Guardian:
Yard chief ate with ex-deputy NoW editor after bid to halt Guardian story

Discussion: Crikey and Press Gazette

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

Marie Colvin funeral to be held in New York this weekend — Body of veteran Sunday Times reporter killed covering the Syria uprising en route back to the USA — Marie Colvin: ‘died doing something she was completely passionate about’ — The funeral of Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin …

Press TV:

‘Rebels killed Western journalists in Syria, not Assad army’ — A medical source says armed groups killed the two Western journalists in Syria, rejecting allegations that they died in government shelling, Press TV reports. — According to a source working for the office of the medical examiner in Syria …

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:

Papers Put Faith in Paywalls — Digital Subscription Sales Are Slow, but Publishers Are Encouraged by Trends — As more newspapers close the door on free access to their websites, some publishers are still waiting for paying customers to pour in. — The numbers of readers signing …

Discussion: Noted and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Alt weeklies eye an AP of their own with a content exchange — The Association of Alternative Newsmedia is building out a kind of wire service to allow alternative news sites to share content with each other — and maybe make some money. — The recently launched AltWeeklies Content Exchange lets papers …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Street Fight

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

It's Time to Retire the FCC's Outdated Rules on Media Ownership — Like most industry trade groups, the Newspaper Association of America fights a lot of rearguard actions, such as trying to convince readers and advertisers that newsprint is still a vital medium even as the evidence that it's not anymore piles up left and right.

Discussion: Newspaper Association …

Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

Drudge Report Looks Old-School, But Its Ad Targeting Is State-of-the-Art — Drudge is like a 1995 Ford Escort with a 500-horsepower advertising engine under the hood. — Every major website tracks its users as they make their way through the site, but in an analysis completed by the privacy company …

Thanks:@jaredbkeller

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Former Enron guy Herbert Winokur steps down from board of ‘CJR,’ and ends his funding of its business-media blog, ‘The Audit’ — Herbert “Pug” Winokur, the former Enron board member and finance committee chairman when the company was destroyed by an accounting-fraud scandal in 2001 …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Newspapers: It's not a revenue problem, it's a culture problem — The Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Research Center has come out with a substantial new report on the efforts of newspapers both large and small to grow their digital businesses, and — not surprisingly, perhaps — the results are all over the map.

Discussion: Knight Digital Media Center …, FishbowlNY, NetNewsCheck Latest, BtoB Magazine, Fortune, Guardian and Poynter

Laura Snider / Daily Camera:

11-year-old publishes 200th issue of Boulder community newspaper — There's another Camera newspaper in town. Residents of one south Boulder neighborhood can get the Boardman Camera personally delivered once a week by the publisher (who is also the editor, reporter, illustrator, ads salesman …

Discussion: Poynter

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

ESPN Starts Opening The Doors To Its Data With Developer Center, First API Program — Geeks and sports together? It's a beautiful thing. Well, at least that's what ESPN is hoping with the announcement of its brand, spanking new Developer Center, which marks the first time that it will open …

Discussion: PC Magazine, eMedia Vitals, the Econsultancy blog, Betabeat, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, App Advice and Mashable!

Neal Ungerleider / Fast Company:

Bloomberg Expanding Tech Coverage — The financial news giant is launching a tech vertical, several new blogs, and creating original video content. — The crowded tech news scene will become even more crowded this week—Bloomberg has announced a major overhaul of their tech coverage.

Discussion: Betabeat