Mediagazer: Paywalls Don't Bump Ad Prices (Josh Sternberg/Digiday)

10:35 AM ET, December 20, 2012

Top News:

‘Daily News’ cuts a big chunk of photographers from its roster — The Daily News is disbanding its pool of photo permalancers, employees who work full-time hours for the tabloid on set day-rates but are not salaried employees with benefits, Capital has learned.

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Paywalls Don't Bump Ad Prices — The bet on paywalls, meters and other methods of charging for access to digital content is that the revenue generated directly from consumers will outpace an expected decrease in ad revenue. — The other assumption is that a publisher's paying audience …

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Atlantic Media Revamps Site, Changes Logo — Out with the old, in with the new. Atlantic Media has revamped its website and updated its clunky old logo (pictured, right), in an effort to show that the company is “digital first.” The company behind The Atlantic, The Atlantic Wire …

Discussion: Folio, SocialTimes and TVSpy

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Pollard report: BBC News deputy Stephen Mitchell retires without payout — Mitchell was only executive to part company with corporation in wake of criticism of his role in Jimmy Savile debacle — Stephen Mitchell, the deputy director of BBC News, is the only executive to part company …

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Pollard report uncovers culture of distrust at BBC

Discussion: Guardian, bbc.co.uk and Guardian

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

David Cameron considers royal charter on press backed by legislation — Government proposes regulator under charter but says it will need two laws to make it work, ministers confirm to Hacked Off — David Cameron is considering two pieces of legislation and a royal charter to set up a new press watchdog …

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Amazon Studios taps the Onion, Daily Show writers, others for comedy pilots — Amazon Studios, Amazon's film production division, will produce pilots for six original comedy series, the company announced Thursday — including shows from the Onion, “Doonesbury” writer Garry Trudeau and Daily Show writer David Javerbaum.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Amazon.com and The Next Web

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:

At News Conference, Reporters Skip Past Gun Control and Face Instant Criticism — The harshest judges of those in news media are often others in the news media, and, with the benefit of Twitter, that intrajournalistic watchdog role can be performed simultaneously with the journalism being criticized.

Discussion: Erik Wemple, New York Times, Daily Download, Chickaboomer, Lynn Sweet, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, CNN, Mediaite, Politico, Globe and Mail, The Daily Beast and The Caucus

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Pocket Sees 240M Saves In 2012 From 7.4M Users, Obama And Gangnam Style Most-Saved Items — Save-for-later service Pocket reported today that it has seen 240 million total items saved to its platform during 2012, from 7.4 million followers. That represents growth of around 85 percent for the year …

Discussion: Pocket Blog and App Advice

Bloomberg:

Watching Searches by Content Fleet Seen Saving Newspapers — Sixteen hours before Whitney Houston was pronounced dead on Feb. 11, a startup in Hamburg noticed a surge in Web traffic about the American singer after she had been seen drunk and arguing in a Hollywood club.

Thanks:@steverubel

Joel Sappell / Los Angeles Magazine:

The Tip of the Spear — “Hot, blinding klieg lights were aimed at our faces, as were an array of video cameras, in violation of our negotiated agreement that allowed for only one. Our hearts racing, we walked out.” — In the mid-1980s, journalist Joel Sappell and a colleague began …

New York Times:

Newtown Massacre Changes Plans at Movie and TV Studios — LOS ANGELES — When news broke about the massacre in Newtown, Conn., on Friday, the USA cable channel jumped into action. Using key words like “shooting,” “school” and “children,” executives reviewed scripts and identified problematic episodes …

Discussion: Media Decoder

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Reuters Creates Integrated Business Unit — Reuters is forming a new business unit which is essentially a combining of existing editorial and news-centric sales and marketing operations. — As part of the shift, Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief of Reuters, will run the business unit and add “president” to his role.

Discussion: @mathewi

Christopher Zara / International Business Times:

Is Time Magazine's Person Of The Year Still Relevant? — When Time magazine named Charles Lindbergh its first Man of the Year in 1927, superlative journalism was still a fresh concept. The Oscars weren't born yet. And the notion of “Best Of” still promised to serve an untapped niche.

Discussion: Daily Download, App Advice, Adweek and Poynter