Mediagazer: YouTube Phenoms Raise Record Cash (Charlie Warzel/Adweek)

3:05 AM ET, February 17, 2013

Top News:

Douglas Quenqua / New York Times:

The Boy Wonder of Buzzfeed — “BenSmithing is now an official term!” shouted Michael Hastings, a Buzzfeed reporter and author, at his book release party in Chelsea on a subfreezing night in January. The roomful of young reporters, ad salesmen and b-list political gadflies (Meghan McCain turned heads all night) hooted in approval.

Discussion: Daily Download, @max_read, @buzzfeedandrew and @justinnxt

Ben Jacobs / Daily Download:

What The New York Times Utterly Misses About BuzzFeed — The New York Times' profile of Ben Smith, the Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed, depicts him as a brand new phenomenon in journalism. — It's not the article's only error— the author, Douglas Quenqua, labors on the misapprehensions …

Patrick B. Pexton / Washington Post:

The Post's last ombudsman? — It is possible that I'll be The Washington Post's last independent ombudsman and that this chair will empty at the conclusion of my two-year term Feb. 28. If so, that will end nearly 43 years of this publication having enough courage and confidence to employ a full-time reader representative and critic.

Discussion: @jeffjarvis, @wapoombudsman and @jcstearns

Felix Salmon:

Maria Popova's blogonomics, part 2 — By a curious coincidence, Maria Popova was scheduled to give a speech about blog business models the day after Tom Bleymaier and I wrote about hers. I went along to hear what she had to say, and caught up with her afterwards. — Popova is making changes to her site.

Discussion: @xeni, @moorehn, @jayrosen_nyu and @felixsalmon

Dorsey Shaw / BuzzFeed:

CNN's 24 Hours Of Poop Ship — Relive the first major “breaking news” event to be covered by Jeff Zucker's dynamic new CNN with its amazing chyrons. Feb. 14, 2013, will go down in history as the first day Jeff Zucker's dynamic new CNN really covered a breaking news story, like a sewage-soaked Carnival cruise blanket.

Discussion: TVNewser, Media Decoder, @jayrosen_nyu, The Huffington Post, Politico, Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine, Deadline.com and @jeffsonderman

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

New report says video ads are soaring — but only 5% are on mobile — New ad industry figures claim the number of online video ads shown in the last quarter of 2012 grew an eye-popping 52 percent compared to the previous three months. This stat shows that TV dollars may be shifting to the web in force …

Discussion: Beet.TV and eMedia Vitals

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD: You Are Watching More Web Video Ads Than Ever

Cory Bergman / Poynter:

5 reasons mobile will disrupt journalism like the Internet did a decade ago — Imagine being able to rewind to the 1990s and help your news organization make key decisions — and create new habits — to help prevent a landslide of layoffs and enable the business to thrive on the Internet.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Maureen Orth / Vanity Fair:

The BBC Blame Game — Tracing the Jimmy Savile pedophilia scandal in its entirety—including ongoing inquiries, in which executives have avoided taking responsibility and few have been axed—V.F. special correspondent Maureen Orth investigates why an exposé on Savile's misdeeds mysteriously never aired.

Betsy Rothstein / FishbowlDC:

Valentine's Day Bloodbath: WaPo Lays Off Workers in Hush-Hush Manner — On Thursday, Valentine's Day, WaPo officially discussed the circumstances surrounding the layoffs of employees, FishbowlDC sources have learned. Internal sources appropriately place the number at 54, though a publicist hasn't confirmed the exact number.

Discussion: Politico, mediabistro.com, Capital New York, The Huffington Post, City Desk, Digital Media Wire, Poynter and @escarry

Charlie Warzel / Adweek:

YouTube Phenoms Raise Record Cash — If you're a casual browser of the Web, or just a TV-first person, you might not be paying close attention to the torrent of original video content floating around YouTube. For brands, however, the throngs of madly devoted YouTube subscribers are becoming harder to ignore.

Reuters:

Exclusive: News Corp, popular tech blog contemplate split - sources — (Reuters) - AllThingsD, the widely read technology blog run by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, has begun discussions with owner News Corp about extending or ending their partnership, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Discussion: The Wrap, paidContent, @lucas_shaw, @rafat, @edmundlee, The Next Web, @sdkstl, @rafat, @pkafka, Deadline.com, @johnpaczkowski, @mathewi, @sbermo, @megan, @bobbymacreports and Business Insider

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Posterous shuttering for good on April 30th to focus on Twitter, offering Spaces downloads until then — Blogging platform Posterous has announced via its company blog that it will be shutting down as of April 30th. The company was acquired by Twitter just under a year ago.