Mediagazer: Why did Pete Wells review Guy Fieri's restaurant as a series of questions? (Mallary Jean Tenore/Poynter)

7:20 PM ET, November 14, 2012

Top News:

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Is it time for the New York Times to embrace sponsored stories? — As news publishers confront a troubled online ad market, many of them are turning to “native advertising” which lets marketers create content that resembles a website's natural content. The New York Times is resisting …

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

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

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

Discussion: eMedia Vitals and Nxtblog

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes: Ads That Get More Love Than the Stories Around Them? Pulse Has Them

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Spotify Closes $3 Billion Funding Round — Spotify has closed its latest funding round, which values the company at around $3 billion, according to a person familiar with the transaction. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that Goldman Sachs would lead a group …

Discussion: Betabeat, TechCrunch, The Next Web and SocialTimes

Media Decoder:

Spotify Attracts Investments From Coca-Cola and Fidelity — Coca-Cola is becoming a minority investor in Spotify, as part of a new round of financing that will bring in $100 million and value the streaming music service at about $3 billion. — Spotify has completed the financing round …

Discussion: Digital Media Wire, The Next Web, GigaOM and WebProNews

Matt Buchanan / BuzzFeed:

How To Wage War On The Internet — The Israel Defense Forces just launched a bloody assault on the Palestinian militant group Hamas. And it launched the assault on Twitter. The advent of CNN and its live coverage of first Persian Gulf War may have been the first real taste …

Discussion: AllThingsD, GigaOM and Guardian

Jon Mitchell / ReadWrite:

Heads Up: The IDF Is Live-Blogging Its Attack On Hamas [Video] — We've never seen anything quite like this. The verified social media accounts of the Israeli Defense Forces are providing live updates on a concerted military effort against Hamas. Using the hashtag #PillarOfDefense …

Discussion: IDF Blog, Forbes, The Verge, NYT Bits, Business Insider and Fast Company, Thanks:@rwjon

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Warren Buffett closes former Media General paper in Virginia — The Manassas (Va.) News & Messenger will stop printing at the end of 2012, Steve Jordan reports. Berkshire Hathaway bought the paper from Media General when it purchased most of the chain's other newspapers in May.

Discussion: Reuters

Steve Jordon / Omaha World-Herald:
Buffett company to close Va. newspaper, cut 105 jobs

Discussion: Prince William County VA and JIMROMENESKO.COM

David Simon:

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.

Discussion: Poynter, The Huffington Post and Tampa Bay Times

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:
The Quandary for Biographers: Get Up Close, but How Personal?

Discussion: ACLU, Guardian, Grantland, Business Insider and The Daily Beast

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 and kottke.org

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter: New longform science journalism site ‘Matter’ launches today

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: The Corsair and Los Angeles Times

Rebecca Greenfield / The Atlantic Wire:
Nate Silver Thinks Voting Is for Pundits

Discussion: Betabeat and Deadspin

Turi Munthe / Demotix:

Demotix acquired by Corbis — Dear All, Some big news... Corbis, after investing in us in 2011, is acquiring the whole company to better integrate us into their global news operation. You can read the press release here. The acquisition represents an enormous step towards our goal …

Discussion: bjp-online.com and Journalism.co.uk

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
Corbis Acquires Crowd-Sourced Photo Agency Demotix, After Its Move Into Apps

Discussion: GeekWire and PetaPixel

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 …

Discussion: FishbowlDC

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,” …

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
Don Nash Becomes Executive Producer Of ‘Today’

Discussion: Reuters and TVNewser

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

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

Discussion: Business Wire and Media Week

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: Erik Wemple and Washington Post

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

Discussion: CJR, Media Decoder, Washington Post, Jack Shafer, Media Decoder, Washington Post and Forbes

Bloomberg:

Pearson CFO Freestone Doesn't Rule Out Sale of Financial Times — Pearson Plc (PSON) said today it wouldn't rule out a sale of the Financial Times as Chief Financial Officer Robin Freestone told investors that the company may eventually re-examine its ownership of the newspaper.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

NBCUniversal:

The NBCUniversal News Group Adds iVillage To Its Portfolio — iVillage Joins NBC News Digital, Creating New Opportunities For Both Consumers And Advertisers In the Women's Marketplace — NBCUniversal News Group announced today that iVillage, one of the largest online communities for women …

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: FishbowlNY and Capital New York

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

Apples and oranges on Google and publishers — Print performance is bad enough without putting a thumb on the scale — Slate tells us that “Google ad revenue tops entire US print media industry” in the first six months of the year, based off this chart from a German outfit called Statista:

Discussion: Statista, Marketing Pilgrim and The Wall Blog