Mediagazer: WaPo must transform to survive (Clay Shirky/CJR)

11:20 PM ET, May 31, 2012

Top News:

To GOP, blatant bias in vetting — On the front page of its Sunday edition, the New York Times gave a big spread to Ann Romney spending lots of time and tons of money on an exotic genre of horse-riding. The clear implication: The Romneys are silly rich, move in rarefied and exotic circles, and are perhaps a tad shady.

Discussion: Slate, The Atlantic Online, Mediaite, Erik Wemple, Poynter, Gawker, The Huffington Post, Poynter, Mother Jones, @dylanbyers, @antderosa, @weareyourfek, Capital New York, The New York Observer, New York Magazine, NewsBusters.org blogs and Weekly Standard

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

New York Times, Washington Post Defend Against Politico's Media Bias Claims — NEW YORK — Politico's executive editor, Jim VandeHei, and chief White House correspondent, Mike Allen, suggested Thursday that The New York Times and Washington Post are biased in favor of President Barack Obama …

Devin Gordon / GQ:

Five Points About Politico's Hatchet Job On NYT and WaPo — Here's the piece, published this morning. The upshot: The political coverage of The New York Times and The Washington Post is “blatantly biased” in their vetting of Romney versus Obama. (Guess which way they supposedly lean.)

Discussion: Weekly Standard, Politico, Talking Points Memo and Erik Wemple

Oliver Burkeman / Guardian:

Perhaps I'm biased, but can we please stop talking about ‘media bias’? — No human can adopt a position of perfect neutrality. Can we at least agree on that? — There is something brain-stretchingly confusing about today's article on media bias in Politico, headlined “To GOP, Blatant Bias In Vetting”.

Discussion: @antderosa, @jayrosen_nyu, Erik Wemple and NewsBusters.org blogs

Jeremy W. Peters / Media Decoder:

Producer of Obama Video on Fox News Loses CNN Job Offer — The Fox News producer behind a provocative four-minute anti-Obama video that aired Wednesday and caused the network considerable embarrassment has found his career on ice. — The producer, Chris White, had been offered a job by CNN before the video was broadcast.

Discussion: New York Magazine, AintItCool, Mediaite, Inside Cable News, TVNewser, entertainment.time.com, AdAge, NewsBusters.org blogs, Media Matters for America, Media Decoder, Guardian and The Daily Beast

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:
Cable News Ratings Fall Across the Board, From Fox to MSNBC

Discussion: TVNewser, Capital New York, Erik Wemple, Inside Cable News, The Huffington Post, Radio & Television … and Los Angeles Times

John Hudson / The Atlantic Wire:
MSNBC Produced Its Own Anti-Romney Video in February

Discussion: @jwpetersnyt, Mediaite, Inside Cable News, The Week, NewsBusters.org blogs, The Huffington Post, Baltimore Sun, Chickaboomer, TVNewser and Hot Air

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

What the Forbes model of contributed content means for journalism — Two years ago, Forbes.com was a news website like most others. — Today, it is less website, more operating system — an underlying layer of technology that hundreds of contributors use to publish independently.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and GigaOM

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Judge gives OK to authors, photographers to sue Google over book scanning (Updated) — In a major development in the long-running case over Google's unauthorized book-scanning, a federal judge ruled today that groups representing authors and photographers could go forward with a class action.

Discussion: Media Decoder and Jacket Copy

Dylan Tweney / VentureBeat:

Digital news pioneer Michael Bloomberg reads 8 newspapers a day — New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made billions of dollars as the founder of the disruptive digital news and data service that bears his name, prefers to get his news the old-fashioned way: On dead trees.

Discussion: The Tech Trade, JIMROMENESKO.COM, AllThingsD, mediabistro.com, Capital New York, FishbowlNY, Poynter and New York Times

Anna Heim / The Next Web:

Amazon nabs Dilbert and Doonesbury digital comics anthologies as a Kindle Fire exclusive — Two anthologies of Doonesbury and Dilbert comic strips will be available in digital format for the first time as a Kindle Fire exclusive, Amazon announced today. This is the result of a deal between the company and Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Jim Romenesko:

Times-Picayune editor on reporting ambitions, salary rumors — New Orleans Times-Picayune editor's memo to staff, sent this morning: From: Jim Amoss Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 7:18 AM To: Newsroom Staff Subject: some facts Dear colleagues, In our meetings at Howard Avenue and the East Jefferson bureau …

Steve Myers / Poynter:
Will other Advance newspapers face cuts like Times-Picayune, Alabama papers?

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:

Dudley Clendinen Dies at 67; Wrote About Civil Rights, Aging and His Impending Death — Dudley Clendinen, a courtly Southern journalist and author who wrote lyrically about civil rights, aging in America, the poignancy of ordinary lives and his own approaching death as a gay alcoholic victim …

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Now playing: The New York Times signs on to Hulu to reach a new audience for its long videos — You can now find videos from The New York Times on Hulu, thanks to a content licensing agreement between the paper and the popular video site. — Video produced for NYTimes.com …

Discussion: New York Times

Dan Kennedy / Nieman Journalism Lab:

How news executives can fend off the Wolff at their door — Facebook's disappointing IPO may be indicative of a larger problem: the declining value of online advertising, an inexorable force that will eventually destroy not just Facebook, but the web itself. — Sound nuts?

Discussion: The Wall Blog and Forbes

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic Online:

This Graph Is Disastrous for Print and Great for Facebook—or the Opposite! — If you work anywhere near media, you'll want to take a long look at this graph. It tells you where Americans direct our attention (in BLUE) and where advertisers pay money to capture our attention (in RED).

Discussion: The Daily and FishbowlNY