Mediagazer: Washington Post launches syndication service (Jim Romenesko)

2:40 PM ET, April 2, 2012

Top News:

Keith Olbermann's Angry Email Trail Traces Breakup With Current TV — His bitter divorce from Al Gore's network followed months of escalating complaints to Current TV executives. Howard Kurtz unearths the acrimonious correspondence. — It was a terrible marriage from the beginning.

Discussion: Mixed Media, Capital New York, Company Town, The Daily Caller, Business Insider, New York Magazine and Gothamist

Marisa Guthrie / Hollywood Reporter:

Current TV Retains Crisis PR Experts for Anticipated Battle With Keith Olbermann (Exclusive) — The network retains lawyers and crisis PR experts Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane, who have represented Bill and Hillary Clinton and Lance Armstrong. — Current TV has hired crisis public relations …

Discussion: Mediaite and ThinkProgress

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

News Analysis: Olbermann Set the Tone at Current and MSNBC — Current TV was co-founded by a former Democratic vice president, but it took Keith Olbermann to give the cable channel its liberal identity. — As he did at MSNBC before it, Mr. Olbermann established himself as Current TV's star anchor …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Poynter and ShortFormBlog

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Bloomberg and Reuters: The Future of News — There's no mistaking where Andy Lack feels Bloomberg LP is positioned versus its competitors. “We may be the last man standing,” says Lack, who oversees the news organization's multimedia operations. — A veteran of network television …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

David Carr / New York Times:

A Shooting, And Instant Polarization — What seemed like a single shooting incident in a midsize Florida city — the killing in February of Trayvon Martin — now threatens to divide a country. How did that happen? — How did a discrete local event take on the scale of a presidential election …

Discussion: CJR and New York Magazine

James Crugnale / Mediaite:
Geraldo Rivera Apologizes To Trayvon Martin's Parents For Hoodie Comments

Discussion: The Huffington Post and New York Magazine

Journalism.org:
How Blogs, Twitter and Mainstream Media Have Handled the Trayvon Martin Case

Discussion: Mediaite, CJR, TVNewser and The New Yorker Blog

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Judge Clarifies That Bloggers Can Be Journalists (Just Not One in Particular) — Back in December, United States District Court Judge Marco A. Hernandez created a stir by seeming to suggest that bloggers are not journalists as defined by Oregon's shield law.

Discussion: Free Press and The Legal Satyricon

Marc Randazza / The Legal Satyricon:
Judge rules, again, that blogger Crystal Cox is not a journalist. You know why? Because she ISN'T a journalist.

Discussion: Forbes

John Koblin / WWD:

Editors and the ‘Cult of the Brand’ — Just after 1 a.m. on Jan. 31, the editor in chief of Condé Nast's Bon Appétit, Adam Rapoport, looked like he was on an infomercial. Rapoport, in a taped segment on HSN, was working hard at selling Bon Appétit's newly debuted kitchenware.

Discussion: Paul Smalera

NY Daily News:

Roger Ailes helps conservative writer out-Fox rival — What, Roger Ailes worried? We hear the Fox News CEO is helping conservative writer Zev Chafets fast-track a book about Ailes' and the “Fair and Balanced” cable-news network because he's worried about the exhaustively reported book …

Discussion: Inside Cable News

Ilaina Jonas / Reuters:

Goldman fund to exit company owning sex traffic site — A private equity fund run by Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) has agreed to sell its stake in the media company that runs a sex trafficking forum back to company's management, a spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Discussion: business.time.com

Adam Martin / The Atlantic Wire: Goldman Sach's Backpage Panic Is Real, Costly

Mike Armstrong / Philly.com:

Local group to buy Phila. Media Network for $55 million — A group of local investors agreed on Monday to buy Philadelphia Media Network Inc., the parent company of The Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, for $55 million with an additional $10 million in working capital for operations.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Politico, The Wrap, Poynter, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @wendywarren, @wendywarren and The Newspaper Guild

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

The best and worst April fools: Chicago Mayor FOIAs himself, Forbes burns Romney and Google, Onward State mocks itself — The problem with April Fools' journalism pranks isn't that they compromise the integrity of a news organization with a once-yearly joke.

Discussion: Mediaite, 10,000 Words, TechCrunch and Adweek

Louis Peitzman / Gawker:
Legitimate News Source Ditches Credibility for April Fool's Fun

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

Rob Grimshaw / Wired:

Sink or Swim: Digital Publishers Need to Be Bold — When the Financial Times decided to focus its digital model on subscriptions, the reception from commentators was skeptical to say the least. Fast-forward a few years and the criticism has melted away. With 270,000 digital subscribers …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Jim Romenesko:

Washington Post launches syndication service — The Washington Post today announced the formation of The Washington Post News Media Services, which combines The Washington Post Writers Group and The Washington Post News Service with Bloomberg News. This new syndication organization …