Mediagazer: A Report for the Web, on TV (Brian Stelter/Media Decoder)

4:25 PM ET, April 2, 2012

Top News:

Philly papers sold at 10% of 2006 value — After changing hands three times in six troubled years, Philadelphia's legendary newspapers were sold Monday for a tenth of the half-billion dollar price they fetched as recently as 2006. — The stunning plunge in the value of the Philadelphia Inquirer …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

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

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

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: The Wrap, Forbes, 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

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, The Atlantic Wire 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: The Legal Satyricon and Free Press

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: TVNewser and 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

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: 10,000 Words, Mediaite, TechCrunch and Adweek

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

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

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Wallis: I gave PR advice to Met chiefs — The former deputy editor of the News of the World, Neil Wallis, acted as an unofficial adviser to a succession of Met police commissioners and helped Lord Stevens secure the top role in 2000, the Leveson inquiry has heard.