Mediagazer: New Orleans Newspaper Scales Back in Sign of Print Upheaval (New York Times)

1:30 PM ET, May 25, 2012

Top News:

New Orleans Newspaper Scales Back in Sign of Print Upheaval — The Times-Picayune, a 175-year-old fixture in New Orleans and a symbol of the city's gritty resilience during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, has buckled under the pressures of the modern newspaper market.

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Will New Orleanians follow The Times-Picayune online after it cuts back on print? — Starting this fall, New Orleans will become the largest U.S. city to go without a daily newspaper, but it won't be the first. — That distinction is held by Ann Arbor, Mich. In 2009 …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Reinventing the Newsroom, TheLensNola.org and Newsonomics

Jed Horne / The Lens:
Opinion: Changes at TP were necessary, but are they the right ones?

Discussion: Forbes, Blog of New Orleans, Gambit, NetNewsCheck Latest and Forbes

John McQuaid / Forbes:
The Digital Future of The Times-Picayune

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, Media News, @ryanchittum and The Huffington Post

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Dish Network Doesn't Want to Blow Up TV. It Wants to Pay Less for It. — Does Charlie Ergen really want to blow up the TV business, using his ad-skipping “Auto Hop” feature? — You can make that case, and if you want to hear an entertaining rendition of it, check out Peter Lauria's live-on-tape report from Times Square here.

Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Battle Over Dish's Ad-Skipping Begins as Networks Go to Court

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, VentureBeat, Radio & Television …, Adweek, Techdirt, MediaFile, Chickaboomer, CNET, Mashable!, Media Law Prof Blog and Broadcasting & Cable

Matthew Belloni / Hollywood Reporter:
Fox, CBS, NBC Sue Dish Network Over AutoHop Ad-Skipper

Discussion: Reuters, Hollywood Reporter, Digital Trends, paidContent, Forbes, @jbflint, AdAge, The Verge, @laureni, @theharryshearer, The Next Web, Engadget, Multichannel and Lost Remote

Journalism.co.uk:

NUJ may cut one fifth of staff in face of ‘severe financial crisis’ — A leaked report to the union's National Executive Council states the union has ‘around £300,000 in cash’ said to be the equal of ‘three weeks running costs’ — The National Union of Journalists is …

Discussion: Jon Slattery and Press Gazette

Farhad Manjoo / Slate:

BOMBSHELL: Business Insider Kinda Brilliant — A defense of the rapacious news aggregator. — Imagine a used car salesman who learns that the shiny Mercedes in his lot has a busted engine. He tells his friends not to go near the lemon, but when he notices a long line of people coming in to see the car …

Discussion: Business Insider, Politico, @mattrosoff, @reformedbroker, MediaPost, Techdirt and ReadWriteWeb, Thanks:@rossneumann

New York Times:

Albany Times Union Editor Says Police Targeted His Wife's Spa — ALBANY — In early spring, the police raided a spa near the Capitol, alleging that a masseuse was actually a prostitute. — It appeared to be a minor arrest, except that the spa's owner is the wife of the investigations editor at the local newspaper, The Times Union.

Discussion: New York Magazine, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Poynter, Albany Times Union and Gothamist

Tim Carmody / The Verge:

The Indianapolis 500: a remarkable test-case in the future of transmedia programming — Sports and sports media compose a gigantic global business. Neither are untouched by technology. In many respects, sports are leading the way in bringing live video and information to alternate computing devices both inside and outside the home.

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

A push to outlaw anonymous commenters in New York gets big eye-roll from digital media — One might have expected the news that several Republican state lawmakers in New York want to pass a law essentially banning anonymous comments on the web to be met with outrage.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, CNET, Erik Wemple, ThinkProgress and Techland

Mike Shields / Adweek:

NBCU Exploring Buyback of MSNBC.com — Chris Matthews must be getting that tingling feeling down his leg again. He and his colleagues may soon have a giant news site to call their own. — That's because NBCUniversal is in serious negotiations with Microsoft to buy back MSNBC.com.

Discussion: Reuters, The Wrap, Hollywood Reporter, MediaPost, AdExchanger.com, WebProNews, New York Magazine, Inside Cable News, GeekWire and The Tech Trade

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

From cold calls to community building: ProPublica tries to make crowdsourcing more meaningful — When reporters use social media for crowdsourcing, they're often just cold calling in the form of a passing tweet — Did you lose your house to foreclosure?

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why newspapers need to lose the ‘view from nowhere’ — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett may be buying newspapers — a move that is probably as much about cash flow and real estate as it is a long-term investment thesis — but he can't possibly buy them all, and that leaves the rest …