Mediagazer: DirecTV and Tribune Fail to Reach Deal (Brian Stelter/Media Decoder)

6:10 PM ET, April 1, 2012

Top News:

Keith Olbermann: Machine Gun for Hire — Given his abrupt removal at Current and his typically temperate response — “Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently” — it seems as if his next stop will be a puppet show shot from a basement somewhere.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, Gothamist, Business Insider, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

Current TV:
Open letter to the viewers of Current

Keith Olbermann / TwitLonger:
My full statement:

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Mediaite, TVNewser, Business Insider, Show Tracker, Gawker, Politicker, Adweek, @keitholbermann, The FJP, The New York Observer, JIMROMENESKO.COM, RumorFix, Politico and TVbytheNumbers

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

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Politico and TMZ.com

Erik Wemple:

NBC to do ‘internal investigation’ on Zimmerman segment — NBC told this blog today that it would investigate its handling of a piece on the “Today” show that ham-handedly abridged the conversation between George Zimmerman and a dispatcher in the moments before the death of Trayvon Martin.

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, Mediaite, @romenesko, americanthinker.com, The Volokh Conspiracy and Mother Jones

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

DirecTV and Tribune Fail to Reach Deal — Some DirecTV customers woke up on Sunday without Fox or the CW networks on their television sets, the result of a failed negotiation with Tribune Broadcasting, which owns or operates 23 television stations across the United States.

Discussion: Company Town, The Wrap, Hillicon Valley, Multichannel, Adweek, Chicago Tribune and Bloomberg

Louis Peitzman / Gawker:

Legitimate News Source Ditches Credibility for April Fool's Fun — For a brief moment, Google News' top story was “Romney Drops Out of Race, Endorses Santorum.” This is decidedly untrue — but hey, it was published by Forbes, so it must be worth something, right?

Discussion: ShortFormBlog, The Impertinent Economist, The Impertinent Economist, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Runnin' Scared, @lenburman, @antderosa, Mashable! and americanthinker.com

Diane Bartz / Reuters:

E-books settlement talks advancing: sources — (Reuters) - The Justice Department could reach a settlement in the next few weeks with Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and some of the major publishers suspected of colluding to push up electronic book prices, according to two people close to the negotiations.

Discussion: CNET, Digitopoly, The Verge and MacRumors

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

NUJ: statutory reform of press regulation has become ‘inevitable’ — Journalists' union also calls for communications bill to tackle issue of who regulates websites belonging to a broadcaster or newspaper publisher — NUJ Newsquest members at a recent strike. The union has submitted new proposals to the Leveson inquiry

Discussion: Big News Network.com

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Twitter UK boss says social TV happens whether broadcasters like it or not — ‘But they have a choice about how to harness that social TV energy’ explains Tony Wang — Twitter's UK general manager Tony Wang expects broadcasters to start using the microblogging service in more “artful” …

Discussion: WatchingTV Online

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

Bleacher Report Doubles Down On Personalized Content, Brings Team Stream To The Web — It's been fun to watch Bleacher Report grow from some random publishing site for amateur sports writers to a full-blown digital sports network backed by $40+ million in venture capital.

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

Why the next News Corp. scandal may be harder to understand and much more important — What if that last Murdoch scandal turns out to have been the little one, in business terms? — You've read, or heard, about the phone-hacking scandal in Great Britain involving newspapers owned …

Discussion: TorrentFreak, Sydney Morning Herald and Guardian

Matt Sanchez / AdAge:

Take a Lesson from Print Media: Clean Up Web Layouts — Amid the Clutter, With Too Many Entry Points, Viewers Can't Focus on the the Content — 5,000. That's the average number of ads and marketing messages Americans are exposed to each day, and if you're online reading this, I'd skew that number higher.

Tania Branigan / Guardian:

Censorship in China: Crackdown on bloggers as rumours of coup swirl — Six people are held and 16 websites shut down as political crisis grips Beijing after sacking — China has intensified online censorship by closing 16 websites, taking the toughest steps yet against major microblogs …

Discussion: BBC, Wall Street Journal, @jeffjarvis and The Next Web

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: Net Worked and @jayrosen_nyu