Mediagazer: Colombia Rebels Confirm Kidnapping of French Journalist (William Neuman/New York Times)

3:15 PM ET, May 7, 2012

Top News:

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Secret Meeting Has ‘Washington Post’ Buzzing — Washington Post staffers are buzzing about a secret meeting between some 10 big-name Post journalists including Dana Priest, David Finkel and Carol Leonnig, and Steve Hills, the president and gm of the newspaper.

Discussion: FishbowlDC, Poynter, Broadcasting & Cable, JIMROMENESKO.COM, New York Magazine, Mediaite, Business Insider, @dylanbyers, @digitalshields and The Awl

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

The Washington Post Is In Even Worse Shape Than You Think — The Washington Post Co. reported its first-quarter earnings on Friday, and the news coming out of the newspaper division was mostly grim. The unit lost $22.6 million in the quarter, with revenue down 8% and revenue from print advertising specifically falling 17%.

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

From ABC News and Univision, an English-Language Channel for Hispanics — The Walt Disney Company's ABC News division and Univision have tentatively agreed to create an English-language cable television channel for Hispanics in the United States. — The companies, which will each own 50 percent …

Discussion: Adweek, AdAge, Yahoo! News, Multichannel, Radio & Television …, Media & Entertainment, The Huffington Post, Broadcasting & Cable, NetNewsCheck Latest, mediabistro.com, Wall Street Journal, Riptide 2.0 and Company Town

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Google Gets Deeper Into the Content Business, By Putting Money Into Machinima — Google has been handing out money to video-makers so they'll make more stuff for YouTube. Now it's putting money into a video-maker itself. The search giant is set to invest in Machinima …

Discussion: VentureBeat, The Verge, WebProNews, Beet.TV, Digital Media Wire, eMedia Vitals and Softpedia News

Jason Pontin / Technology Review:

Why Publishers Don't Like Apps — By the time Apple released the iPad in April of 2010, just four months after Steve Jobs first announced his “magical and revolutionary” new machines in San Francisco, traditional publishers had been overtaken by a collective delusion.

Discussion: Betabeat, Poynter, GigaOM, Mashable!, Beet.TV and The Huffington Post, Thanks:@ilamont

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

‘60 Minutes’ Gets Younger, and Its Viewers Do Too — The oldest newsmagazine on television, “60 Minutes,” might have figured out how to halt the aging process. — Purposefully but almost imperceptibly, the CBS News program, the most popular of its genre, has become younger in recent years.

Discussion: The New York Observer, TVNewser and Chickaboomer

Jim Romenesko:

Milwaukee Police Department website corrects media errors — The Milwaukee Police Department says its The Source website “provides the whole story — the one that television, radio and newspapers don't have space or time to provide their audiences.” Also, “we'll correct the news stories …

Discussion: @niemanreports and @producermatthew

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Exclusive: Publisher sues Tumblr over porn pics — It's finally happened. In a case with big implications for the booming market in photo-sharing, a publisher is suing popular blogging site Tumblr for copyright infringement. — In a complaint filed Friday in Manhattan …

Discussion: the Econsultancy blog, The Consumerist, PandoDaily and @producermatthew

Eduardo Garcia / Reuters:

Colombia rebels want media debate for Frenchman's release — Colombia's leftist FARC rebels demanded a debate on freedom of information Monday as a first step toward the release of a French reporter kidnapped nine days ago, as they accused the government of manipulating journalists.

William Neuman / New York Times:
Colombia Rebels Confirm Kidnapping of French Journalist

Discussion: MiamiHerald.com and Big News Network.com

David Carr / New York Times:

The Cozy Compliance of the News Corp. Board — If you sat on the board of a company that was raked over the coals by a British parliamentary committee in a 121-page document, accused of a pattern of corporate misconduct that included widespread phone hacking and an ensuing cover-up by senior officials …

Discussion: Poynter, Capital New York, Free Press, Media Decoder, @jayrosen_nyu, Erik Wemple, Associated Press, @antderosa, New York Magazine and Chickaboomer

Julie Moos / Poynter:

How 2 twentysomething journalists brought down a corrupt Kentucky sheriff — Samantha Swindler, then 27, had been managing editor of the Corbin (Ky.) Times-Tribune for about three years when she asked 20-year-old Adam Sulfridge to report on a corrupt sheriff, Lawrence Hodge, who was involved in trading guns, drugs and favors.

Discussion: @dancow

Stijn Debrouwere / stdout.be:

FUNGIBLE — We don't realize how much news media has changed in the past fifteen years. We really don't. I'm not talking about digital first or about blogging or about data journalism or the mobile web or the curation craze. Yes, journalism has evolved and is better for it. I'm talking beyond that.

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

Isabel Kershner / New York Times:

Arab Spring Spurs Palestinian Journalists to Test Free Speech Limits — RAMALLAH, West Bank — Yousef Shayeb, 37, a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah, published an article in a Jordanian newspaper this year charging officials at the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Paris with corruption and espionage.

Discussion: Free Press and Big News Network.com