Mediagazer: 8 great newspaper April Fools' hoaxes (Andrew Beaujon/Poynter)

1:10 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: Mediaite, Show Tracker, Adweek, 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: Gawker, Media & Entertainment, ThinkProgress, Forbes, Guardian, Gothamist, Mediaite, paidContent, AdAge and The Daily Caller

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: msnbc.com, Forbes 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: Gawker, The New York Observer, @mlcalderone, @dylanbyers 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, Capital New York and New York Magazine

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

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

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, FishbowlNY and AdAge, 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, Home Media Magazine, Multichannel, GigaOM, The Verge, The Atlantic Wire, The Next Web, Engadget and AllThingsD

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, The Daily Caller, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, ThinkProgress, Mediaite, BAGnewsNotes and Poynter

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

Discussion: Mediaite, Multichannel, FishbowlDC, The Raw Story and MarketWatch

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.

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.