Mediagazer: Taxing Broadband to Save Journalism is One Big, Stupid Idea. We Need a Thousand Small, Smart Ones (Paul Carr/PandoDaily)

12:45 PM ET, September 24, 2012

Top News:

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Village Voice Media Execs Acquire The Company's Famed Alt Weeklies, Form New Holding Company — A group of long-running alternative weekly newspapers is changing hands. Village Voice Media Holdings — whose titles include the LA Weekly, Westword, and, yes, the Village Voice …

Discussion: Poynter, PR Newswire, Arizona Republic, Forbes, NetNewsCheck Latest, Street Fight, The Latest Word, @tromano, AAN, Navel Gazing, Village Voice and Guardian

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Village Voice spins off Backpage.com — New York's iconic Village Voice and a dozen other weekly newspapers are parting ways with Backpage, a controversial classified site tied to alleged sex trafficking. The split will result in the creation of a new ownership group that is focused solely on news and events.

Discussion: New York Magazine, Deadline.com, New York Post, Big News Network.com and NYConvergence.com

Mallory Russell / AdAge:

Village Voice Management Buyout Leaves Backpage.com Behind — The Move Rids Management of a Headache, Takes Away Leverage for Critics — A group of Village Voice Media's senior managers has agreed to buy from its current ownership the print publications and digital properties — with the notable exclusion of Backpage.com.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, FishbowlNY and The Raw Story

David Carr / New York Times:

Covering the World of Business, Digital Only — Business titans are generally not prone to self-appraisal, and when they do take stock, it usually begins and ends with a list of their conquests. — David G. Bradley, the owner of Atlantic Media, has never been like that.

Discussion: PandoDaily and NetNewsCheck Latest

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Quartz Shoots for Tablet and Mobile Readers, but Doesn't Arm Itself With an App — After a summer of buzz, Quartz, Atlantic Media's new business news site, lights up today. — Pro Tip 1: If you want to see what the fuss is about, head over to qz.com, not quartz.com*.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

Exit interview: Brisbane says New York Times Public Editor job is ‘not a conversation’ — Arthur Brisbane's New York Times email address has been shut off, and he sounds pretty happy about it. — “I'm trying to decompress,” he told me two days after his stint as the fourth public editor of The New York Times came to an end.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

A broadband levy to fund journalism? Now that's a very clever idea — Has David Leigh cracked it? We have been puzzling for years about how to subsidise journalism once it makes the final transition from print to net (see here and here and here). One obvious model is the funding of the BBC through its licence fee.

Discussion: AndyDickinson.net

Paul Carr / PandoDaily:

Taxing Broadband to Save Journalism is One Big, Stupid Idea. We Need a Thousand Small, Smart Ones — David Leigh was first to be right about many things. — He was first to identify Wikileaks' potential to revolutionize transparency in the digital age.

Discussion: Charlie Beckett and Forbes

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Guardian's chief investigator wants ISP tax to fund journalism

Discussion: Telegraph, on, Guardian, GigaOM, The Wall Blog, Media Week, @onthemedia, @brokenbottleboy, @benedictevans, @willardfoxton and @brokenbottleboy

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Homicide Watch DC wins Online Journalism Award for public service — Crime reporting site Homicide Watch DC, which recently crowdfunded more than $40,000 to secure its survival through the creation of a student reporting lab, was named as one of the winners of the Online Journalism Awards at the weekend.

Discussion: MediaShift and Big News Network.com

Sherrina V. Navani / The Trentonian:
The Trentonian unveils Homicide Watch

Discussion: Digital First Media

Associated Press:

New York Times closes on $300M sale of About Group — NEW YORK — The New York Times has completed its $300 million sale of The About Group to Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp. — IAC, which operates online businesses including Newsweek, The Daily Beast and dating site Match.com, announced the deal last month.

Erik Maza / WWD:

Tim Tebow Featured in Vogue, GQ — TEBOW'S CHOICE: Tim Tebow loves his fashion magazines. But fashion magazines that might actually know a thing or two about football and employ knowledgeable sports writers? Apparently, not so much. — Just ask Vogue and GQ.

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

First look: Spundge is software to help journalists to manage real-time data streams — Many power users of Twitter consider TweetDeck essential for managing multiple streams of data. Once you adapt to its overwhelming user interface, the software becomes essential. And addictive.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk