Mediagazer: David Rakoff, Essayist and ‘This American Life’ Contributor, Has Died (David Wagner/The Atlantic Wire)

3:05 PM ET, August 10, 2012

Top News:

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Exclusive: Yahoo's Mayer Aiming for Twitter's Stanton for Big Media Role — Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been trying to recruit Katie Jacobs Stanton, Twitter's head of international markets, to take a major job on the media side of the Silicon Valley Internet giant, according to multiple sources close to the situation.

Discussion: Forbes, VentureBeat, Business Insider, ZDNet and Wall Street Journal

AllThingsD:

With Billions Burning a Hole in Her Pocket, Here Are Some Companies Yahoo's Mayer Might Be Eyeing (And Buying) — Now that she could have $4 billion more to play with from the proceeds of Yahoo's sale of its Chinese assets, here's a fun new Silicon Valley parlor game to enjoy: “What will Marissa Mayer buy?”

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, CNET, Business Insider, Telegraph and Forbes

Alexander Abad-Santos / The Atlantic Wire:

Fareed Zakaria's Take on Gun Control Strikingly Similar to The New Yorker's — Fareed Zakaria reads The New Yorker. We can only assume that because his latest column for Time on gun control, reads a lot like Jill Lepore's lengthy New Yorker article on the NRA from April.

Discussion: Poynter, Mediaite, Time, New York Magazine, National Review, @erik_maza, The Huffington Post, National Review, @penenberg, NewsBusters.org blogs, The Raw Story, The Stranger … and Chickaboomer

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Guardian sees 2.1% of iPad readers pay — Last month, Guardian Media Group used its annual financial disclosure to report it has, so far, attracted 17,000 paying iPad subscribers. — Friday's full annual report adds there have been 804,000 downloads of that app.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Media Week

Mark Sweney / Guardian:
GMG chief executive takes pay cut

Discussion: The Drum, Press Gazette and Journalism.co.uk

Andrew Tyndall / Hollywood Reporter:

How CNN Can Benefit From Being Bland (Analysis) — Andrew Tyndall writes for THR that its appealing online presence internationally should have it chasing YouTube, not Fox News. — When it was invented about 30 years ago, CNN solved one of the major shortcomings of television news in the broadcast era: It was on all the time.

Discussion: @davidfolkenflik and @jayrosen_nyu

Barry Petchesky / Deadspin:

The New York Times Tries Its Hand At Animated Gifs. It Does Not Go Well. — If Buzzfeed and the Times made a baby, and it had epilepsy, it would look like this: “10 Animated GIFs From London 2012.” These gifs are different—they're constructed from rapid fire shots taken by the Times's photographers …

Discussion: 2012 London Olympics

Foster Kamer / The New York Observer:

NPR Planet Money Host Adam Davidson Under Fire from Rogue Media Ethicists — The NPR host and New York Times Magazine contributor gets panned for ethical misgivings. What—and how real—are they? — NPR's Planet Money—which was born out of the Peabody award-winning This American Life episode …

Shalini Ramachandran / Digits:

Barrydriller.com Claims to Compete Against Barry Diller's Aereo — Lots of entertainment executives might aspire to follow in media mogul Barry Diller's footsteps. Few would go as far as Alki David. — The chief executive of FilmOn, an online video site, has started a new service …

Discussion: Radio & Television … and Deadline.com

David Wagner / The Atlantic Wire:

David Rakoff, Essayist and ‘This American Life’ Contributor, Has Died — David Rakoff, a writer known for his funny, cynical essays and frequent appearances on This American Life, has died at 47. He had been battling a malignant tumor since 2010. — According to an essay he wrote …

Discussion: This American Life, Third Beat, Reluctant Habits, Publishers Weekly, Gawker, Slate, The Huffington Post, Gothamist, GalleyCat, BuzzFeed, ArtsBeat, The Awl, Boing Boing and Towleroad News #gay

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Study: Journalists' lousy understanding of fair use leads to self-censorship — Few journalists understand the rules of fair use, but they often successfully fake their way through the issues it raises. That's one takeaway from “Copyright, Free Speech, and the Public's Right to Know …

Discussion: Zero Percent Idle and JIMROMENESKO.COM

TechCrunch:

Another Big Social Marketing Exit: Gannett Will Buy BLiNQ Media For Up To $92M — On the heels of Google buying Wildfire and Salesforce nabbing Buddy Media, we have heard from two very reliable sources, plus a third anonymous source, that Gannett Co., the media giant that owns USA Today and other properties, is buying BLiNQ Media.

Discussion: Gannett Blog

Howard Finberg / Poynter:

Knight report on training shows journalists want technology, multimedia, data skills — A new study by the Knight Foundation released today summarizes the state of journalism training. Some findings from “Digital Training Comes of Age”: … The report was authored by Eric Newton …

Discussion: Garcia Media, Media News and Knight Foundation