Mediagazer: News companies see a financial future in brand-sponsored digital content (Jeff Sonderman/Poynter)

1:10 PM ET, November 14, 2012

Top News:

Stray penises and politicos — I can remember the specific moment when I swore off the sex lives of the famous as journalistic currency. It was the case of a national sportscaster — I won't name him, but, alas, most of those old enough will remember the name, which is regrettable — whose sex life had suddenly become the media chow.

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:

The Quandary for Biographers: Get Up Close, but How Personal? — When Doris Kearns Goodwin was still young and unknown and writing her biography of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, she stayed at his Texas ranch. Sometimes, she said in the book's prologue, when he could not sleep …

Discussion: Guardian, Business Insider and The Daily Beast

Chuck Klosterman / Grantland:
I Lived a CIA Conspiracy Theory

Discussion: Poynter, Washington Post, The Public Editor's Journal, Telegraph, USA Today, Gawker, Business Week, Los Angeles Times, The Week, The New Republic, FishbowlNY, Pressing Issues, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal

Patrick Radden Keefe / The New Yorker Blog:
The Surveillance State Takes Friendly Fire

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Mediaite, Telegraph, The Daily Beast, Forbes and Poynter

Joe Coscarelli / New York Magazine:
The Media's Five Stages of David Petraeus Grief

Discussion: Business Insider and BuzzFeed

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Kickstarter-backed journalism startup Matter publishes its first story — Matter, the science and technology journalism startup that raised over $140,000 from 2,566 backers on Kickstarter, is launching with its first article Wednesday. GigaOM readers are already quite familiar …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, NetNewsCheck Latest and kottke.org

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

New longform science journalism site ‘Matter’ launches today — Matter, a site that publishes longform stories about science and technology, launched today. The site, which will publish one story per month, is open to people who sign up as members. For 99 cents, they'll get access to monthly stories …

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

News companies see a financial future in brand-sponsored digital content — More and more media organizations are declaring that content sponsored or produced by brands (the new buzzword is “native advertising") is a major part of their future digital business models.

Discussion: CJR, Noted, eMedia Vitals, AdAge and Marketing Pilgrim

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Ads That Get More Love Than the Stories Around Them? Pulse Has Them — If there's a holy grail in digital media, it's advertising that's the equivalent of a Super Bowl commercial or a glossy page in Vogue — an ad that users regard as part of the experience and worth their attention.

Jack Marshall / Digiday:
The Mobile Banner: A Dog That Won't Hunt

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Nxtblog

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Google TV update adds voice control, taps into Knowledge Graph — Google announced the next big update for Google TV Wednesday, bringing advanced voice control, a new programming guide app and all kinds of smarts derived from Google's Knowledge Graph to the platform.

Discussion: Forbes, TechCrunch, The Official Google TV Blog, Fast Company and CNET

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
After Flipboard and Tumblr, Chernin bets on YouTube video boom

Discussion: Media Week and Business Wire

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD: YouTube's Magic Number

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Marty Baron stories dwell on cuts at The Washington Post — Boston Globe Editor Marty Baron is The Washington Post's incoming executive editor. Profiles and accounts of his ascendance all praise his journalism career, then rue the cuts that presumably face him.

Discussion: Washington Post and Memex 1.1

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Katharine Weymouth: Stepping down was Brauchli's decision

Discussion: Media Decoder, Washington Post, Jack Shafer, The Daily Beast, Media Decoder and Washington Post

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
Washington Post Hires New Top Editor; Here Are The Memos

Discussion: City Desk

McKay Coppins / BuzzFeed:

A Mormon Reporter On The Romney Bus — On the night of the South Carolina Republican primary in January, I sat near the front of a dark campaign press bus, and listened to reporters talk about Mitt Romney's underwear. — Earlier in the day, one of them had happened upon the candidate …

Richard Sandomir / New York Times:

Producer Leaves ‘Today’ Show to Direct Olympics for NBC Universal — When Jim Bell was in charge of production of the London Olympics for NBC Universal, he was still the executive producer of the “Today” show. — His double duty officially ended on Tuesday when he left “Today,” …

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Time to go for Huey — Editor-in-chief likely to step down for Nelson — John Huey, who was relaxing at the Time magazine Person of the Year luncheon yesterday, is expected to step down as editor-in-chief of the Time Inc. empire by the end of the year, Media Ink has learned.

Discussion: Capital New York

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

Why did Pete Wells review Guy Fieri's restaurant as a series of questions? — After he visited Guy Fieri's American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square, Pete Wells wanted to know why the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders were so far from awesome, and why the bourbon butter crunch chips were missing from his Almond Joy cocktail.

Discussion: The Wrap, The Awl and New York Times

Steven Rosenbaum / Forbes:

The Cost of Cutting Cable — It is all my wife's fault. More than a year ago, after I'd written a number of blog posts about the importance of choice in video, and the fact that cable was dragging their feet in the a la carte world, she called my bluff. “Ok, if you're so sure there's better stuff …

Daniel Miller / Hollywood Reporter:

Nate Silver on His Hollywood Future and 'Moneyball'-ing Box Office — The FiveThirtyEight blogger tells THR he's been approached by agents and producers, already has done work for a studio and isn't sure he wants to write a book about the election: “I prefer to go broader.”

Discussion: Los Angeles Times