Mediagazer: The great newspaper liquidation (Jack Shafer)

1:35 PM ET, June 6, 2012

Top News:

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

How things went bad at GOOD magazine, what's next for fired staff and the company they left — Max Schorr isn't interested in engaging in what he calls “he said/she said back and forth” with the former staffers of GOOD, the magazine he cofounded that laid off most of its editorial staff last Friday.

Discussion: The Wrap, @editorialiste, The Informer, Erik Wemple and The Raw Story

TOMORROW:

Hello Tomorrow — “What is best in life?” This is our colleague Cord Jefferson's refrain. This brilliant little rhetorical question has a way of stopping everyone in the moment—usually a drunken moment, always a really great moment—to make sure we all recognize and remember it.

Discussion: The Other NWA, Newsweek and Megan Greenwell

Ann Friedman: About GOOD and on to TOMORROW

Alysia Santo / CJR:
GOOD Mag to be ‘a Reddit for social good’ (updated)

Discussion: Capital New York, The Atlantic Wire, @clarajeffery and Poynter

Telegraph:

Barbara Walters: the key emails — Following her exclusive interview with Bashar al-Assad, Barbara Walters tried to use her influence to help one of the Syrian dictator's former aides. Here are the key emails. December 8, 2011 - Sheherazad Jaafari to Barbara Walters …

Discussion: Gawker, Guardian, New York Post, The Daily Beast, New York Magazine, Daily Mail, Mediaite, TVNewser, The Huffington Post and Big News Network.com

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Barbara Walters Apologizes for Helping Aide to Assad of Syria — In the months after her exclusive interview last year with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Barbara Walters tried to intercede to get a job for a former aide of his, who Ms. Walters acknowledged helped arrange the interview.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Telegraph, The Lede, The Daily Beast, Daily Mail, Deadline.com and Telegraph

Jim Romenesko:

Warren Buffett buys 3.2% stake in Lee Enterprises — Warren Buffett hoped Berkshire Hathaway could keep quiet about its investment in struggling Lee Enterprises, but the SEC wouldn't allow it. On Tuesday, the billionaire investor disclosed that Berkshire purchased 1.66 million shares of Lee …

Discussion: Media Decoder and Wall Street Journal

Jack Shafer:

The great newspaper liquidation — In his 2004 book The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age, Philip Meyer imagined “the final stages” of a “squeeze scenario” by a newspaper owner who wanted to exit the business but didn't want to actually sell the title …

Discussion: The Daily Beast

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Wattpad raises $17 million to become the YouTube of writing — Wattpad, which describes itself as the world's largest online community of readers and writers, has raised a Series B funding round of $17.3 million from a group of venture funds led by Khosla Ventures and including Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Betabeat, TechCrunch, MarketWatch and Digital Book World

Salvador Rodriguez / Los Angeles Times:

Pandora is lobbying Congress to keep online radio royalties low — Pandora has reportedly spent more than $50,000 during the first quarter alone on two lobbying firms to keep royalties for online radio low. — Pandora has reportedly spent more than $50,000 this year lobbying Congress …

Discussion: Free Press, WebProNews and Hillicon Valley

John Koblin / Deadspin:

How A Teenager With A Fake Escort Service Duped Darren Rovell And CNBC — An 18-year-old high school senior named Tim was bored one day last November when CNBC's sports biz guy, Darren Rovell, sent out the following tweet: If you are losing a paycheck/business because of the NBA, I want to tell your story.

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

Shake Up Shack: New York Times Has New Police Bureau Chief — After more than a half a decade as police headquarters bureau chief for The New York Times, Al Baker has vacated the mouse-infested reporters' “shack” at One Police Plaza, making way for some rare new blood at the Times.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

MSNBC:

Bradley Manning's Wikileaks hearing opens as defense seeks dismissal of 10 counts — FORT MEADE, Md. — WikiLeaks suspect Pvt. Bradley Manning appeared at a military court outside Washington on Wednesday for a three-day pretrial hearing at which his lawyers were seeking dismissal of 10 of the 22 counts against him.

Ben Popper / The Verge:

RebelMouse turns your social streams into a dynamic personal homepage — Paul Berry is famous in tech and media circles as the brains behind The Huffington Post's incredible success with social media and search engine optimization. Today he is taking the wraps off RebelMouse …

Discussion: Business Insider, Betabeat and @benpopper

Howard Owens / CJR:

How David Simon is wrong about paywalls — Let me count the ways. Ten, in fact. — David Simon is a talented writer and storyteller, but is he qualified to give advice to publishers about how to save their dying industry? — As qualified as anybody else, I suppose.

Discussion: THE OUTSIDER, Poynter, The Buttry Diary, @jeffjarvis, @palafo, @jasonhirschhorn, @jeffjarvis, @palafo, @mathewi, @froomkin and @stevebuttry

Dylan Byers / Politico:

WashPost's Watergate anniversary party — The Washington Post is holding a celebration for the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal next week, POLITICO has learned. — Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and editor Ben Bradlee will all take turns delivering speeches at the party, which takes place June 11 at the Watergate Building.

Marin Cogan / GQ:

“I'm sort of fatalistic ... It's in rich peoples' hands now”: The Last Days of The American Prospect? — It could have been an editorial meeting for any small political magazine in Washington. The staff of The American Prospect gathered for a daily web meeting in a large windowed corner office overlooking …

Discussion: bookforum.com