Mediagazer: Al Jazeera English to Downsize D.C. Operation (Steve Clemons/The Atlantic Online)

6:20 AM ET, March 31, 2012

Top News:

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Current TV Dismisses Keith Olbermann — 5:13 p.m. | Updated Current TV said Friday afternoon that it had terminated the contract of its lead anchor, Keith Olbermann, scarcely a year after he was hired to reboot the fledgling channel in his progressive political image.

Keith Olbermann / TwitLonger:

My full statement: — I'd like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV. Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally, while I've been not publicizing my complaints …

Discussion: Show Tracker, Adweek, Mediaite, Business Insider and TVbytheNumbers

Current TV:

Open letter to the viewers of Current — To the Viewers of Current: — We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before.

Discussion: Speakeasy, Gawker, Forbes, Top Digital Journal News, Gothamist, Guardian, Mediaite, AdAge, Media & Entertainment, The Daily Caller and paidContent

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
Keith Olbermann Out At Current TV, Replaced By Eliot Spitzer

Discussion: Forbes, msnbc.com and Business Insider

Jeane MacIntosh / New York Post:

Soccer Mom madam and The Post — Anna Gristina, the notorious soccer mom madam, does have a relationship with someone at the New York Post. It's me. — Gristina has been a source on several stories I've written at the paper, most notably on Page Six. — This week, the New York Observer published …

Discussion: The New York Observer, @dylanbyers, @mlcalderone, Gawker and Politico

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Tale of the tape: ‘Observer’ won't retract story about ‘Post’ editor Col Allan and soccer-mom madam Anna Gristina — Morning memo: The papers profit from the Super Bowl; plus Elizabeth Spiers' one-year anniversary, the big video trend, and ‘gay-bashing’ Super Bowl tweets

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and Capital New York

Martin Dunn / Guardian:
New York's uneasy tabloid truce

Discussion: New York Magazine, Politico, The New York Observer and The New York Observer

Jonathan Stempel / Thomson Reuters News …:

Unpaid bloggers' lawsuit vs Huffington Post tossed — AOL Inc on Friday won the dismissal of a lawsuit by unpaid bloggers who complained they were deprived of their fair share of the roughly $315 million that the company paid last March to buy The Huffington Post website.

Discussion: Associated Press, Bloomberg, Forbes and @dangillmor

Jim Romenesko:

Huffington Post reacts to judge's ruling — The Huffington Post has reacted to a judge's ruling against unpaid bloggers who sued Arianna & Co. Here's the statement that HuffPo sent to media reporters:

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Maxim Minimized. Big Layoffs Hit Men's Mag Web and Editorial Staff — The Internet killed the magazine star. There's been a major round of layoffs at Maxim magazine. Senior Editor Seth Porges is at least one employee who got the axe, according to our sources and confirmed by a recent update …

Discussion: Adweek and FishbowlNY, Thanks:@joshconstine

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Netflix Sharpens Focus On DVDs With DVD.com, But Don't Cry Qwikster. (It's Staying) — Netflix has been making a few moves to separate its DVD business more from its streaming operation, and today brings news of the latest move in that direction: the company has bought the domain name DVD.com, the company has confirmed to us.

Discussion: Domain Name Wire, AllThingsD, Home Media Magazine, GigaOM, The Atlantic Wire, Multichannel, The Verge, The Next Web and Engadget

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

E-Book Sales For Kids And Teens Surge — New monthly stats from the Association of American Publishers show strong growth for both print and e-books in January 2012. — The AAP is beefing up its monthly reports with data from many more publishers—1,149 for January 2012 compared to under 100 …

Discussion: the Econsultancy blog and The Verge

Robert Mackey / The Lede:

Bloggers Cherry-Pick From Social Media to Cast Trayvon Martin as a Menace — For the second time in a week, a conservative blog has published excerpts from what it described as a Twitter feed maintained by Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who was shot and killed last month …

Discussion: Journalism.org, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Mediaite, BAGnewsNotes, Poynter and Riptide 2.0

Alicia Shepard / Poynter:
The iconic photos of Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman & why you may not see the others

Discussion: Mediaite, Broadcasting & Cable, Orlando Sentinel, FishbowlDC, The Raw Story and MarketWatch

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

8 great newspaper April Fools' hoaxes — The Great Wall of China hoax of 1899 was so excellent that it engendered a separate hoax: Some have claimed since that it helped kick off the Boxer Rebellion. Even better, the hoax was perpetrated in June, well after everyone had let their guard down.

Tom Kington / Guardian:

Twitter hoaxer comes clean and says: I did it to expose weak media — Tommaso De Benedetti faked the identities of world leaders and fooled editors into publishing false stories — First it was the death of the pope - tweeted to the world from an account that belonged to the holy father's number two.