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

12:35 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.

Discussion: Poynter, Capital New York, CJR, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Gawker, Forbes, Media Decoder, Washington Post, Prof Chris Daly's Blog, New Orleans Times-Picayune, eMedia Vitals, American Journalism Review, Chicago Reader, Newspaper Death Watch, Blog of New Orleans, Gambit and TheLensNola.org

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, Capital New York, 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, NetNewsCheck Latest and Blog of New Orleans, Gambit

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

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, CJR, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Media News, @ryanchittum, The Huffington Post, Erik Wemple, The FJP, Blog of New Orleans, Gambit and Poynter

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Battle Over Dish's Ad-Skipping Begins as Networks Go to Court — THE Dish Network and three television networks filed opposing lawsuits on Thursday over Auto Hop, a feature that allows Dish subscribers to automatically skip all the advertising during most prime-time shows.

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

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.

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

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, Digital Trends, Forbes, paidContent, @jbflint, AdAge, The Verge, @laureni, The Next Web, @theharryshearer, 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: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Poynter, New York Magazine, Albany Times Union and Gothamist

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

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

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Publishers can finally sell digital subscriptions on Android devices — Publishers and other app developers can now sell subscriptions with recurring payments through their Android apps. For the past year Android developers could conduct one-time transactions, such as single-issue sales, through in-app purchases.

Discussion: InformationWeek, the Econsultancy blog, Android Developers Blog, The Verge, Business Insider, Engadget, TechCrunch and Folio

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?