Mediagazer: Progressive journos hang with Obama: Anything wrong with that? (Erik Wemple)

11:05 PM ET, December 8, 2012

Top News:

Progressive journos hang with Obama: Anything wrong with that? — The Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington is generally forthcoming about her enterprise and its journalism. — Except, that is, when she's invited to an off-the-record meeting in the White House with President Obama.

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu and @nickbaumann

Lacey Rose / Hollywood Reporter:

NBCUniversal, Hearst Corp. Close Deal to Rebrand G4 as Esquire Channel — The move, which will look to court metrosexual viewers that History and Spike ignore, will include programming focused on gaming and lifestyle. — In its bid for the largely untapped metrosexual viewership …

Discussion: Joystiq, The Verge and Polygon

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Press fear Obama private swearing in — The White House Correspondents Association is strongly urging the Obama administration to allow press access to the president's official swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20, following indications from inauguration committee officials that the event could potentially be closed to the press.

Discussion: Mediaite and Saint Petersblog

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

29th Street Publishing wants to make selling magazines for iPads as easy as blogging — There was a time when blogging wasn't easy. Before the days of Tumblr, WordPress, and Blogger, you likely needed to be a coder if you wanted to write online. As Ryan Singer recently put it at Signal vs. Noise …

Discussion: NYConvergence.com

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

NYT DC bureau chief: ‘The Web has created a more responsible press, with higher standards’ — David Leonhardt explains in a Reddit AMA response why the Web has been good for journalism: … The New York Times D.C. bureau chief became the latest journalist to participate in a Reddit AMA …

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Pay Wall Push: Why Newspapers Are Hopping Over the Picket Fence — When The Wall Street Journal broke the news that The Washington Post was likely to start charging for online content sometime next year, it should not have come as a surprise, but it did. — The shock had something …

Discussion: CJR, The Atlantic Wire, Daily Download and DCist

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

Online Paywalls and the Future of Media: A Few Hard Truths — Yesterday, both The Daily Beast (or, more accurately, whatever Tina Brown can toss together after they've absorbed the corpse of Newsweek and laid a bunch of people off) and the Washington Post announced that they may be instituting …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Deadline.com, JIMROMENESKO.COM, The Wrap, The Daily Beast, Media Decoder, The Verge and Forbes

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

NYT launches Compendium, a Pinterest-like tool for the paper's content — Many newspapers and magazines have already created accounts on Pinterest, and it's not surprising they're thinking about other ways to get readers to share their content. This week the New York Times Research …

Amy Rosewater / American Journalism Review:

When History Is Rewritten — Bonnie Ford, a senior writer for ESPN.com, remembers looking at the U.S. Figure Skating record book and seeing a name she found strange as the winner of the women's national championship title in 1994. Rather than seeing names such as Michelle Kwan or Nancy Kerrigan, one word was listed instead: Vacant.

Angela Watercutter / Wired:

Google Grants $1.2M to Help Analyze Female Roles in TV, Film — Much like Madonna teamed up with Geena Davis in A League of Their Own, Google is joining forces with the movie star — and her nonprofit organization devoted to improving the images of women that young people see in films and TV shows.

Discussion: Co.Exist

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Trends Publishers Will Pass Up In 2013 — 'Tis the season for prognostications across the digital landscape. Digiday is continuing its series of anti-prediction by asking publishers what hot trend they plan on passing up in 2013. — Publishers are bearish on some trends for the new year …

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Incoming Tribune CEO Peter Liguori plans WGN facelift — Tribune Co. CEO-in-waiting Peter Liguori will focus on a makeover of the company's WGN America cable station as soon as the media giant emerges from reorganization, The Post has learned. — The national cable network …

Discussion: TVWeek.com

Guardian:

2Day FM: Australia's shock-jock station with history of backfiring stunts — One DJ previously reprimanded for making teen girl admit she was raped, and calling a female journalist a ‘fat slag’ — The Sydney radio station that made a hoax call to the hospital treating the Duchess of Cambridge …