Mediagazer: Book Publisher Goes To Court To Recoup Hefty Advances From Prominent Writers (The Smoking Gun)

11:30 AM ET, September 27, 2012

Top News:

Christine Haughney / Media Decoder:

Times Selects Deborah Needleman to Run Its Style Magazines — Deborah Needleman, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal's style magazine, has been hired to run T: The New York Times Style Magazine, the Times announced Tuesday. Ms. Needleman is taking over a franchise …

Discussion: Capital New York, FishbowlNY, WWD, mediabistro.com, WWD Media Headlines and @amywicks01

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:

US investigates possible WikiLeaks leaker for ‘communicating with the enemy’ — A US air force systems analyst who expressed support for WikiLeaks and accused leaker Bradley Manning triggered a formal military investigation last year to determine whether she herself had leaked any documents to the group.

NBC News:

US documents reportedly refer to Assange, WikiLeaks as ‘enemy’ — The U.S. Defense Department has formally declared WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange an enemy on par with al-Qaida, according to documents that an Australian newspaper said Wednesday it had obtained under freedom of information laws.

Discussion: Sydney Morning Herald and The Huffington Post

Telegraph: Julian Assange appeals to US to stop ‘persecution’ of WikiLeaks

Amy Chozick / New York Times:

NBC Unpacks Trove of Data From Olympics — ONE afternoon in early August, a 41-year-old working mother in Los Angeles didn't get much work done. — Instead, she watched the London Olympics on television. She went to NBC's Web sites to stream the competitions, which that day included badminton …

Discussion: @jaepaik, @kt_anna, Deadline.com and Media Decoder

Jim Romenesko:

Bryan College: Ordering student newspaper to kill story about prof's arrest ‘may have been a mistake’ — Bryan College sent this statement from President Dr. Stephen Livesay about his decision to order the student newspaper to kill its story about a professor arrested for attempted child exploitation.

Discussion: College Media Matters, Freedom of the Prez and The Newspaper Guild

Jim Romenesko:
Will Bryan College force student editor to resign?

Discussion: The Huffington Post and @jeffjarvis

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Tipping Point? We're Watching More Web Video on TVs Than on PCs. — Getting Web video off your PC and onto your plasma screen used to be a niche activity. No more: Consumer-tracking service NPD says TV sets are now the most popular way to watch streaming video.

Discussion: NYT Bits, PC Magazine and The Verge

Alexander Abad-Santos / The Atlantic Wire:

Women Editors-in-Chief Make $15,000 Less Than Men — The only thing equal is the job title. Even though there are stories of editors like Anna Wintour and Janice Min pocketing seven-figure salaries, Folio magazine's annual compensation survey found that on average, male editors-in-chief …

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

Executive Producer of ‘Today’ Says Ouster of Ann Curry Was His Call — Commenting publicly for the first time about the decision to remove Ann Curry from the “Today” show's co-anchor position after only a year on the job, Jim Bell, the show's executive producer, said Wednesday that it “was absolutely my call.”

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Chickaboomer, Business Insider, Deadline.com, Media & Entertainment, Mediaite, @brianstelter, TVNewser, New York Magazine, Jezebel, The Huffington Post and Poynter

The Smoking Gun:

Book Publisher Goes To Court To Recoup Hefty Advances From Prominent Writers — Buster — A New York publisher this week filed lawsuits against several prominent writers who failed to deliver books for which they received hefty contractual advances, records show.

Discussion: Reluctant Habits, Guardian, FishbowlDC, Felix Salmon, Techdirt, GalleyCat, Melville House Books, The New York Observer, bookforum.com, New York Magazine, Publishers Lunch, Deadline.com and Boing Boing

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

The Atlantic Tries Native Ads — Jay Lauf, The Atlantic's publisher, swears he doesn't hate banner ads. The thing is, he thinks most are a waste of space for all involved. — “I would love to eliminate banners because I think most of them don't work,” said Lauf, who also has some experience as a journalist.

Discussion: Mashable!

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Quartz's practice of ‘linking out’ renews attention to aggregation debate — CJR's Hazel Sheffield took a look at the new publication Quartz and didn't like a few things: links take you away from the site, there's no commenting, infographics aren't interactive and It didn't have enough original content when she looked at it.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, MIT and CJR

Bloomberg:

Dish Said to Be in Talks With Viacom About Internet TV — Dish Network Corp. (DISH) is talking to networks such as Viacom (VIAB) Inc.'s MTV about offering their channels over the Internet, a service that could shift the economics of the pay-TV industry, five people familiar with the plan said.