Mediagazer: Valentine's Day Bloodbath: WaPo Lays Off Workers in Hush-Hush Manner (Betsy Rothstein/FishbowlDC)

5:35 PM ET, February 15, 2013

Top News:

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, Capital New York, NetNewsCheck Latest, mediabistro.com, Digital Media Wire, The Huffington Post, Poynter, City Desk and @escarry

John M. Broder / New York Times:

That Tesla Data: What It Says and What It Doesn't — The Model S at the Tesla Supercharger in the Interstate 95 service plaza in Milford, Conn. — Elon Musk , the chief executive of Tesla Motors, has now responded in detail to the account of my test drive of his Model S electric car …

David Edwards / The Raw Story:

CNN shoots down ‘New York Times’ by taking Tesla road trip: 'It wasn't that hard' — CNN took on The New York Times' scathing review of Tesla's Model S by driving the same route with no problems and determining that the trip “wasn't that hard.” — Electric car manufacturer Tesla …

Discussion: CNNMoney.com, NPR, VentureBeat, Forbes, @barterpaul, @hunterwalk, @elonmusk, @hblodget, Examiner, @toddbarnard, Guardian, @bobbyllew, @elonmusk and @katiefehren

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:
Conflicting Assertions Over an Electric Car Test Drive

Discussion: paidContent, Mashable!, Erik Wemple, Prof Chris Daly's Blog, The Daily Beast, Joho the Blog, Media News, AdAge, Engadget, Linkedin, SlashGear and The Verge

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

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Judge allows case over HuffPo ownership to go forward, adds fraud claim — In a major development in the bitter court fight over the founding of the Huffington Post, a New York judge has for the second time refused the request of media moguls Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer to dismiss the case.

Discussion: Poynter, The Wrap, Beet.TV, FishbowlNY and NetNewsCheck Latest

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Did Time Warner Really Try to Buy China's Help Fighting Piracy With Free Movies? — Rampant copyright piracy in Asia, especially in China, is a massive and intractable problem for the software, entertainment and luxury industries. Western countries simply don't have enough leverage to compel …

Discussion: Businessweek and Beet.TV

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

You Are Watching More Web Video Ads Than Ever — The fate of the TV ad may or may not be in jeopardy. But in Web videoland, ads are thriving: Distributors keep adding more of them, and they are bumping up their length, too. And the people who watch Web videos seem okay with that.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Marina Hyde / Guardian:

Reeva Steenkamp's corpse was in the morgue, her body was on the Sun's front page — The Oscar Pistorius case has been called a tragedy for South Africa, for sport, for disability rights ... but what about the victim and her family? To parts of the media, she is just hot

Discussion: @rupertmurdoch, The Week UK, Guardian, Deadspin, @baddiel, Digital Spy, Jezebel, The Huffington Post, @trixipie, @davidfolkenflik, Channel24.co.za, politics.co.uk, @dt_ni and The Drum

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Can The Guardian Become a Big U.S. Force? — The Guardian waited 190 years before taking its left-leaning brand of journalism to the U.S. And it decided to make its splash in a very modern way: through an online-only operation. — The Guardian is presenting its premium content in a crowded marketplace.

Ben Dowell / Guardian:

BBC to advertise TV and radio top jobs — New director general seeks to complete team, with Roger Mosey, Danny Cohen and Peter Salmon among those in the running — The BBC will formally advertise for directors of TV and news next weekend, as incoming director general Lord Hall continues to assemble his senior executive team.

Andrew Pugh / PressGazette:

Trinity's ‘Newsroom 3.0’ plan rolls out nationwide — Journalists working across all Trinity Mirror's regional papers are bracing themselves for the introduction of a new working model called “Newsroom 3.0”. — The new model was originally trialled in the publisher's North Wales newsroom …

Ethan Smith / Wall Street Journal:

More Cash for Covers — Deal Gives Universal Music a Cut From Ads Alongside Videos — Those cover videos on YouTube could start generating some more revenue for the music industry. — VivendiSA's Universal Music Publishing Group has struck deals with Maker Studios Inc. and Fullscreen Inc. …

Discussion: Music Week, New Media Blog, Tubefilter, Billboard and Fortune

Jim Romenesko:

[UPDATED] Jayson Blair got $3,000 to speak at an ethics forum in 2009 — In the fall of 2009, Edward Wasserman invited disgraced journalist Jayson Blair to speak at Washington and Lee University's Journalism Ethics Institute. The title of his talk was “Lessons Learned.” — Did people protest it?

Discussion: @jeffjohnroberts