Mediagazer: Al Jazeera to relaunch citizen media platform Sharek (Rachel McAthy/Journalism.co.uk)

5:00 AM ET, May 8, 2012

Top News:

John Herrman / Buzzfeed:

Facebook Social Readers Are All Collapsing — The Washington Post was the first publication to experiment with a “frictionless” social reader app, which launched last year. If you use Facebook you've probably come across it: it manifests as a clustered list of stories that are almost …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, The Verge, CNET, Inside Facebook, The Atlantic Wire and @bydanielvictor

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%.

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlDC, Broadcasting & Cable, Politico, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Business Insider, Mediaite, New York Magazine and The Huffington Post

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Decline Of Reader Apps Likely Due To News Feed Changes, Shows Facebook Controls The Traffic Faucet — No, Facebook news reader apps aren't declining because users suddenly got fed up with auto-sharing. The user loss is likely due to the transition to “trending articles” …

Michael Wines / New York Times:

China Expels Al Jazeera English-Language Channel — BEIJING — Al Jazeera, the satellite broadcasting network, has been forced by the Chinese authorities to close its China news operations of its English-language channel on Monday, the first such action in almost 14 years and the strongest sign yet …

Discussion: AJE, The Next Web and Guardian

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Journalism: Dying by a thousand cuts, or being reinvented? — There are plenty of warning signs about the ongoing disruption in the media industry, and everyone is looking for someone to blame. But when it comes to their journalistic competition, many traditional outlets still seem …

Discussion: Poynter

Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

The Pernicious Myth That Slideshows Drive ‘Traffic’ — Readers aren't stupid. They know when your product is cheap. — For a time, people measured site ‘traffic’ by the number of page views on that site. So, any time someone opened a page on that publication, it counted as one.

Discussion: CJR, The Atlantic Wire, FrontBurner, Gawker and parislemon

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

Richard Blackden / Telegraph:

Warren Buffett tells Omaha gathering he may buy more newspapers — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said that he may buy more newspapers even though the profits they make will be “nothing like the old days.” — Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, eats a Dairy Queen ice cream bar …

Discussion: Guardian and FishbowlNY

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: Poynter, PandoDaily, GigaOM, The Verge, Melville House Books, ZDNet, Betabeat, eMedia Vitals, kottke.org, Mashable!, Beet.TV and The Huffington Post, Thanks:@ilamont

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Al Jazeera to relaunch citizen media platform Sharek — New multilingual version of platform, which first launched in 2008, will ‘operate a system of accreditation which will distinguish reliable and regular submitters of content’ — Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera is to relaunch …

Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:

A Closer Look At Chorus, The Next-Generation Publishing Platform That Runs Vox Media — The modern online newsroom is a 24/7 operation. It needs power tools to work efficiently, like modern carpenters need electric drills to build houses. The problem is that most content management systems …

Discussion: Vox Product, Thanks:@ry_hudson

Kashmir Hill / The Not-So Private Parts:

Hulu To Users: Connect Your Facebook Account Or No Social For You — Some angry Hulu users created this logo to protest a push to integrate their accounts with Facebook — Last month, video provider Hulu made changes to its social sharing features. For Facebook users, it was great …

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

The Atlantic Names Its New Business News Site: ‘Quartz.’ Quartz? Yep. Quartz. — Naming a new website in the year 2012 requires a fair amount of creativity and compromise. All the obvious good domains have been taken, and plenty of the bad ones, too. — Atlantic Media went heavy …

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.