Mediagazer: The Verge and The Huffington Post attempt the impossible: making comments smarter (Hamish McKenzie/PandoDaily)

4:10 AM ET, February 5, 2013

Top News:

Doree Shafrir / BuzzFeed:

What's The Real Story Behind The New York Times Buyouts? — No one outside the building really knows — but maybe because no one really cares anymore. — Late Friday afternoon, inside The New York Times building at 40th Street and 8th Avenue, around 100 staffers gathered on the second floor …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Melville House Books, @mathewi, @learmonth, @megan, @pkafka, @mlcalderone, @edmundlee, @joshsternberg, @hamiltonnolan, @alexckaufman, @poniewozik, @moorehn and @brianstelter

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

A goodbye to teary newsroom scenes? Why Friday's wake at the ‘Times’ was undercovered — The New York Times building. wallyg via flickr — My former colleague Doree Shafrir has a smart post on BuzzFeed about The Way The New York Times is Covered Now. — Case in point …

Discussion: @poniewozik

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Media reporters are missing the story of NYT buyouts, BuzzFeed editor argues — “There's been no real glimpse inside the newsroom, no sense of what the rank and file are feeling, no temperature-taking,” Doree Shafrir writes in a critique of coverage of the New York Times buyouts.

Discussion: New York Times

Dylan Byers / Politico: Boring old media

Rebecca Greenfield / The Atlantic Wire:

The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million New Show — With Netflix's foray into original, high quality programming today, the streaming TV network wants to turn into the HBO of Internet TV, but can the network afford it? Putting together a big production with famous actors like House …

Discussion: /Film, A VC and BetaNews

Tim Wu / New Yorker: “House of Cards” and the Decline of Cable

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

Twitter Makes Big Acquisition, Buys Social TV Analytics Company Bluefin Labs — Twitter has acquired Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company that was founded in 2008, sources say. — Although we don't know the exact acquisition price, we were told this is Twitter's biggest acquisition to date.

Discussion: Bluefin Labs, The Verge, ReadWrite, Betabeat, VentureBeat, GigaOM, CNET, the Econsultancy blog, Lost Remote, Marketing Land, AdAge, Marketing Pilgrim and Daring Fireball

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Why Twitter Is Buying Bluefin — And Why Bluefin Is Selling

Discussion: Business Insider

Mathew Ingram / paidContent:

Digital First Media is working on paywalls, even though it really doesn't want to — Plenty of newspapers have been jumping headlong into the paywall business recently, and many of them claim that the introduction of subscription plans has been the best thing that ever happened to them.

John Paxton / Digital First:
The Subscription Project - Or A Paywall By Any Other Name

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

The Super Bowl Gave the Web the Night Off — Yes, you could stream the Super Bowl on the Web yesterday. But most of you didn't. And while a lot of you were tweeting or Facebooking during the game, a lot of you stayed away from the Web during the game, period.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, 901am, The Next Web and Home Media Magazine

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:
Super Bowl Gets Highest-Ever Ratings, Plus 24 Million Tweets

Will Leitch / SportsonEarth:
Power Failure

Discussion: NY Daily News, TVNewser, Deadspin, CBS News, Adweek and WNYC

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman:

Why Aaron died — Last week, I awoke to find Aaron with me. He was sitting next to my bed, grinning his cheeekist grin, holding my hand. — For a few minutes, I savored a sweet uncertainty: Were the last few weeks all a nightmare, and Aaron was still with me?

Discussion: @nickbilton, @stevenlevy, The Atlantic Wire, TechCrunch, @dangillmor and @jayrosen_nyu

Colleen Taylor / TechCrunch:

AOL In Talks To Buy Gdgt, The Consumer Electronics Review Site Started By Former Engadget Founders — I'm hearing that gdgt (pronounced 'gadget'), the consumer electronics review site founded by Engadget co-founder Peter Rojas and former Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block, is in late-stage acquisition talks with AOL.

Erik Maza / WWD:

Evan Hansen Exits Wired — HANSEN EXITS WIRED: A little over a month into his tenure as editor in chief, Scott Dadich's Wired is already very different than his predecessor Chris Anderson's as he has been overseeing an overhaul of the magazine's masthead that has resulted in new titles …

Discussion: VentureBeat, @evanatwired, @sandonet and @rsingel

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Fox News Monitors Geraldo as He Mulls Political Office — Geraldo Rivera's stated interest in running for a Senate seat in New Jersey has been derided as a joke and a publicity stunt. But his employers are taking it seriously. — He'd have to leave his weekend Fox News Channel show …

Discussion: Forbes, The Huffington Post and CNN

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

The Verge and The Huffington Post attempt the impossible: making comments smarter — At the start of December, a reader of The Verge from Stamford, Connecticut, did something kind of dorky but also kind of awesome. Inspired by Nilay Patel's video interview with Senator Al Franken, the reader …

Michael Wolff / Guardian:

Can Jeff Zucker turn CNN's saccharine output into the sweet smell of success? — CNN's new president is shaking up the network, but to win the ratings he needs, he'll have to find a cable news sensibility — The obvious problem with CNN, depressing its ratings for the better part of a decade …

Adrianne Jeffries / The Verge:

Digg's traffic rebounds after relaunch, but users remain on the sidelines — A look at the aggregator six months after its rebirth — Once a popular website begins to decline, it can be very difficult to revive — just look at Myspace. But over the summer, a group of New Yorkers …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Circulation revenue up at Gannett, which credits paywalls — Gannett's fourth quarter earning report contains a sentence that will thrill paywall apostles: … That's attributed to CEO Gracia Martore, who also notes circulation revenue increased for the third quarter in a row.

Discussion: Thomson IR, Wall Street Journal, Radio & Television …, Reuters, NetNewsCheck Latest, USA Today, Gannett Blog and Broadcasting & Cable

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:
Gannett Profit Tops Analysts' Estimates on Election Advertising

Discussion: Gannett Blog

Alexander C. Kaufman / The Wrap:

Washington Post Names Kevin Merida Managing Editor (Updated) — The Washington Post has named Kevin Merida its managing editor in charge of news and features, effective immediately. — He joins managing editor John Temple, who oversees digital and newsroom operations.

Discussion: Poynter, Washington Post, NetNewsCheck Latest, @davidfolkenflik, Politico and The Huffington Post

Darryl Fears / @bydarrylfears: Kevin Merida is now the Washington Post's managing editor, breaking a barrier as the first African American to hold the job. @meridak

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why Google's settlement with French publishers is bad for the web — After much diplomatic maneuvering and a series of face-saving gestures on both sides, Google finally signed an agreement with French newspaper publishers late Friday that puts to rest a long-standing legal battle …

Discussion: Top Digital Journal News

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:
The Google Fund for the French Press

Discussion: The Wrap and Guardian

Ian Burrell / The Independent:

London gets first dedicated digital terrestrial TV channel as ESTV launches London Live — London is to have its first dedicated digital terrestrial television channel, offering a service to 4 million homes, the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom announced today. — The new London Live channel …