Mediagazer: Open letter to the viewers of Current (Current TV)

12:20 PM 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, Mediaite, Adweek, Business Insider, RumorFix, The FJP 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: Gawker, Speakeasy, Top Digital Journal News, Gothamist, Forbes, Media & Entertainment, Guardian, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, AdAge and paidContent

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Keith Olbermann Out At Current TV, Replaced By Eliot Spitzer — Keith Olbermann has been fired by Current TV, the network announced Friday. He will be replaced by former New York governor and CNN host Eliot Spitzer. — Olbermann had hosted “Countdown,” which he brought from MSNBC after his exit there, since June.

Discussion: Forbes, Business Insider and msnbc.com

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: Politico, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Forbes and @dangillmor

Jim Romenesko: Huffington Post reacts to judge's ruling

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

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Healthy snacks, ‘digital first’ and the speed of the news industry's transformation — Reading stories about the travails of non-media companies, I find myself drawn to analogies to the plight of the newspaper industry. — Thus I was stopped short a few weeks back by a New York Times report on a strategy shift at PepsiCo.

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu

Walter Shapiro / CJR:

Why is the Press So Ready to Count Santorum Out? — Voters think their primary choices still matter — The front-page story in the March 18th New York Times seemed a case of political life imitating art. A revival of The Best Man—Gore Vidal's 1960 ode to the drama of a brokered convention—was in previews on Broadway.

Discussion: Washington Wire

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

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.