Mediagazer: C-SPAN knocks, Politico answers (Erik Wemple)

3:25 AM ET, March 25, 2012

Top News:

Daily Variety up for sale — Reed Elsevier is seeking a buyer after previously offering the trade publication in 2008. Industry observers say its status as a ‘trophy brand’ might boost its sales price. — Variety, Hollywood's oldest entertainment industry trade publication, has been put up for sale.

Discussion: Beyond Search, The Wrap, LA Observed, @jeffjarvis, @romenesko, AdAge, Company Town, MediaPost, FishbowlLA, FOLIO, @tcarmody, @learmonth, Radio & Television …, The Atlantic Wire, The Huffington Post, New York Times, Deadline.com and Variety

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

James Murdoch Resigns From Another Corporate Board — In a continuing effort to distance himself from News Corporation's embattled British newspaper unit, James Murdoch has stepped down from the board of Times Newspapers Holdings. — The group, established by Rupert Murdoch …

Discussion: @jeffjarvis, Reuters and Bloomberg

Ron Howell / CJR:

The New York Times Goes to the Dogs — Canine-centric stories skyrocket during early months of Abramson's reign — There's really no other way to say this: The New York Times is going to the dogs. — Dogs have been appearing in the paper 45 percent more frequently since Jill Abramson took over as executive editor last November.

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Television News and the Incredibly Shrinking 2012 Campaign — Why television is tuning out the 2012 race. — When Mitt Romney was winning the Illinois primary on Tuesday night, Bill O'Reilly moved from a short discussion of the contest to segments on whether Barack Obama is pushing …

Discussion: Inside Cable News, FishbowlDC and TVNewser

Paul Sawers / The Next Web:

Hachette UK succeeds in having its eBooks removed from pirate website — Publisher Hachette UK has succeeded in having all its books removed from Mobiles24, a user-generated mobile content platform. — Hachette UK is is one of the largest book publishers in the UK, and consists …

Discussion: TeleRead and Bookseller news

Erik Wemple:

C-SPAN knocks, Politico answers — As a news outlet devoted to covering national politics, Politico has national ambitions. Back in September 2008, the outlet launched an elaborate beast called the Politico Network, a countrywide web of partnerships with newspapers and TV stations.

Thanks:@erikwemple

Michael Kugelman / Foreign Policy:

Pakistan's pugnacious press — In recent days, details have emerged about the Pakistani government's pursuit of Internet filtering technologies that would enable it to block up to 50 million websites. This news comes just weeks after a parliamentary committee proposed a ban on “anti-Pakistan” …

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Location, location, location: NPR customizes the news with local content — NPR is trying another experiment with geotargeted news, partnering with 13 member stations to deliver local headlines on the NPR.org home page. Location-sensing technology detects whether a user is in one of the test markets and …

Discussion: The Huffington Post

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

WSJ Can Change Digital Subscriber Price On The Fly, Says Court — In 2006, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal (NSDQ: NWS) spun off financial magazine Barron's Online and required subscribers to pay more if they wanted to keep reading Barron's. This week, angry customers who sued learned …

Discussion: TeleRead and Talking Biz News

Talking Points Memo:

Hashtags Are The New Lawn Signs: Why Twitter Won't Predict The 2012 Cycle — Hashtags Are The New Lawn Signs: Why Twitter Won't Predict The 2012 Cycle — Ask any political operative tasked with managing “presence” and volunteers in past campaigns what their biggest frustration is, and it's usually not a contest.

Eric Alterman / Center for American Progress:

Think Again: The End of Newspapers and the Decline of Democracy — A newspaper rack is shown in Palo Alto, California. Newspaper revenue fell to its lowest level since 1984 last year. — If newspapers were a baseball team, they would be the Mets—without the hope for “next year.”

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

The AP's Weak Coverage of Its New Boss — The Associated Press has a new CEO. So how does the AP cover it? Not very well. — AP hired McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt to be its new CEO, which raises a couple of obvious questions. First: The AP hired an old-line newspaper executive to be their digital-age CEO?

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Geraldo's hoodie comments: Definitely not a hoax — Despite my hopes, the Fox News segment this morning in which Geraldo Rivera blamed the hoodie for the death of Trayvon Martin is no hoax. Here's the stuff that I figured was phony: … Convinced that Geraldo hadn't actually said that …

Discussion: Poynter and TVNewser