Mediagazer: NYTimes offers lump-sum pay or lower annuity option to ex-staff (Reuters)

2:35 PM ET, September 14, 2012

Top News:

USA Today explains its ‘cool balls’ — Gannett chief marketing officer Maryam Banikarim sent a memo to employees this morning with USA Today artist/illustrator Sam Ward's explanation of his paper's new logo and “cool balls.” — He writes: — “Just what are our balls? Well, they are what we will make of them.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Garcia Media, New York Times, AdAge and Charles Apple

Julie Moos / Poynter:
USA Today's new design debuts in print today

Discussion: Tampa Bay Times, Charles Apple, The New York Observer, Gannett Blog, @mattmansfield, USA Today, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Adweek

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Google's Islam-Baiting Video Censorship: A Well-Meaning Mistake — The line between responsibility and censorship can be hard to make out at times. Google just tripped over it. — The decision to block access on YouTube to an inflammatory movie trailer in countries where it has already …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and The Huffington Post

David Nakamura / Washington Post:

White House asked YouTube to review anti-Muslim film — The White House has asked YouTube to review an anti-Muslim film posted to the site that has been blamed for igniting the violent protests this week in the Middle East. — Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council …

Discussion: Mediaite, Mashable! and Los Angeles Times

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

BuzzFeed Hires Web Video Pioneer Ze Frank — Here's a good chocolate/peanut butter combination: Buzzfeed, the click-factory that has figured out Facebook and Twitter, plus Ze Frank, the guy who figured out Web video back in its infancy. — Together they're going to try to figure out modern-day YouTube.

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:
BuzzFeed Makes Its First Acquisition To Tackle A Big Revenue Opportunity

Discussion: Fast Company, TechCrunch and Betabeat

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

‘Village Voice’ editor Tony Ortega quits the paper; it's Maura Johnston's last day, too — Tony Ortega, editor of The Village Voice, just announced on the weekly's news blog Runnin' Scared that he's leaving the paper. — “Next week will be my last as editor of the Voice,” Ortega wrote.

Discussion: Poynter, New York Magazine, Gawker, The Atlantic Wire, Runnin' Scared, @weareyourfek, @weareyourfek, @michaelroston, Media Decoder, @camilledodero, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @zinoman, @willsommer and paidContent

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:
Runnin' Scared: Was Tony Ortega Pushed Out at the Village Voice?

Discussion: The Wrap and FishbowlNY

Joseph Ax / Reuters:

Twitter surrenders Occupy protester's tweets — (Reuters) - Twitter handed over tweets from an Occupy Wall Street protester to a New York criminal judge on Friday after months of fighting a subpoena from prosecutors. — The company surrendered the micro-blogging posts …

Discussion: Forbes, PC Magazine, Bloomberg, Engadget, Hillicon Valley, CNET, Marketing Pilgrim and GigaOM

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Study: Smaller news websites depend more on social media for traffic than larger sites — In any local market, the dozens or hundreds of available news websites make up a news ecosystem. — In any real-life nature ecosystem — think of the food chain diagram you learned in 5th grade — the many species develop their own roles.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Street Fight, The Huffington Post and Knight Digital Media Center

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

Time Inc.'s CEO Aims to Unify Print and Online Fiefdoms — Time Inc. Chief Executive Officer Laura Lang, hired last year to revive the struggling magazine publisher, is forging a plan to unify its long-sparring online and print fiefdoms. — Lang wants to give customers the ability …

Tim Carman / Washington Post:

Producer of ‘pink slime’ textured beef suing ABC and ABC News — Of all the media outlets that have taken shots at Beef Products and its “lean, finely textured beef,” the South Dakota-based company apparently feels slimed by only one: ABC and its ABC News division.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, TVNewser, The Rural Blog and AdAge

Dean Starkman / CJR:

The hamster wheel vs. the quality imperative — The real problem with JRC/Advance free model and the unappreciated benefit of a paywall … The Journal Register Company has cast itself as an avatar of the future of news, making tough decisions now that other, less stout-hearted …

Discussion: It's All Journalism

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘Glamour’ editor Emma Rosenblum moves to ‘Businessweek’ — Bloomberg Businessweek has a new editor for the features section at the back of the magazine. — Emma Rosenblum, an editor at Glamour, will oversee the closing section, called “Etc.,” which blends eccentric features about business trends …

Reuters:

NYTimes offers lump-sum pay or lower annuity option to ex-staff — (Reuters) - The New York Times Co said it informed some former employees that it will offer pensioners the option to receive a one-time lump sum payment or start a lower monthly annuity now, in a bid to reduce its pension liabilities.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Thomson IR, mediabistro.com, @edmundlee and @sdkstl

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Chicago Tribune combines local editions as Journatic suspension continues — The Chicago Tribune has cut the number of its local editions by “about half” since suspending work with journalism-outsourcing company Journatic, Lynne Marek reports. “For instance, coverage of Evanston formerly appeared …

Discussion: Chicago Business

Patrick Lannin / Reuters:

Freed Swedish journalists say faced mock execution in Ethiopia — (Reuters) - Two Swedish journalists pardoned by Ethiopia after spending 11 months in jail for aiding a rebel group said on Friday they had been subjected to a mock execution, and accused the country of using anti-terrorism laws to stifle journalism.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Wall Street Journal removes two Jonah Lehrer essays, corrects two others — Jonah Lehrer “inappropriately reused passages from articles he wrote for the Boston Globe in two essays that he later wrote for the Journal's Review section,” The Wall Street Journal reported in a correction Thursday.

Discussion: Erik Wemple and Wall Street Journal