Mediagazer: IGN Layoffs and Saying Goodbye to 1UP and GameSpy (Casey Lynch/IGN)

1:30 AM ET, February 22, 2013

Top News:

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Soledad O'Brien to Take on New Role at CNN — Soledad O'Brien will leave CNN's morning show in the spring, but she won't be leaving the cable news channel altogether. — Ms. O'Brien, who is well-known for CNN documentaries like “Black in America,” said Thursday that she will form …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Politico, AdAge, The Huffington Post, TVNewser, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, New York Post and The Atlantic Wire

Lisa de Moraes / Washington Post:

Soledad O'Brien to leave CNN morning show to produce specials for the network — CNN is sweeping aside its morning-show host, Soledad O'Brien, to make way for new network chief Jeff Zucker's better idea: a morning show anchored by Chris Cuomo and Erin Burnett.

Discussion: Adweek, AL.com and Sturgis, MI

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of The Boston Globe's sale — Make more room for the great metro sell-off of 2013. — With the unsurprising news that The New York Times Company is trying, once again, to part with The Boston Globe, we see the start of a wave of likely change in metro newspaper ownership across the United States.

Discussion: Smartertimes.com, bizjournals, Gannett Blog, @underoak, Columbia Journalism Review, Media Nation, AdPulp, The Public Editor's Journal, Bloomberg and BostInno

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Who will buy The Boston Globe?

Discussion: The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Slate and Media Nation

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Steven Brill Calls New Republic Owner Chris Hughes A ‘Liar’ After Falling Out Over Cover Story — NEW YORK — On Thursday, Time magazine published Steven Brill's deeply reported, 24,000-word cover story on America's health care system, the longest article by one writer the magazine has ever published.

Discussion: Daily Download, The New York Observer and New York Magazine

Elizabeth Jensen / Media Decoder:

CNBC Buys ‘Nightly Business Report’ From Atalaya — “Nightly Business Report,” the pioneer public television series that has struggled in recent years, is getting a new, deep-pocketed commercial owner, the 24-hour business cable channel CNBC, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and The Tell

Andrew Sullivan / The Dish:

Guess Which Buzzfeed Piece Is An Ad — Since I'm going to be discussing forms of new media revenue with Friend of the Dish, Ben Smith, later today, I though it might be worth noting some aspects of Buzzfeed's innovative model, i.e. “sponsored content” or “native advertizing”.

Discussion: @buzzfeedben, @dkthomp, @joshpetri, @dkthomp, @antderosa, @mathewi and @mathewi

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Nielsen Adjusts Its Ratings to Add Web-Linked TVs — Updated — For media executives, there may be nothing worse than a viewer or listener who is not counted. — On Thursday, in a move that might help ease those concerns, Nielsen said that it would start considering Americans who have spurned cable …

Discussion: GeekWire, Los Angeles Times, AdAge, paidContent, Engadget, Deadline.com, ReadWrite, multichannel.com/rss, Radio & Television … and www.wnyc.org

Mat Honan / Wired:

Zendesk Security Breach Affects Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest — Customer service software provider Zendesk announced a security breach that allowed attackers into its system, where they could access data from three customers this week. Wired learned those three clients were Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Discussion: Zendesk.com, TechCrunch, AllThingsD, The Verge, CNET, Electronista and The Next Web

Staci D. Kramer / Trust But Verify:

Media Companies Abruptly Shut Down quadrantOne — And another grand plan by major publishers bites the dust. Tribune, Gannett, the New York Times Co. and Hearst have shut down quadrantOne effective immediately. The agency was an attempt to scale local for national display advertising …

Discussion: AdExchanger

Erik Wemple:

Poynter.org big shot Julie Moos to McClatchy — Julie Moos, the director of Poynter Online, is bolting for a position with McClatchy's Washington bureau, where her title will be senior digital editor, according to a Facebook posting: … Poynter.org is a fast-churning journalism-trade site …

Discussion: @fromcarl, @mallarytenore and @abeaujon

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Fox Asks Judge to Stop Dish's New Ad-Skipper (Exclusive) — Six weeks after Dish adds place-shifting to its Hopper service, now called “Dish Anywhere,” Fox files new court papers in another attempt at an injunction. — Fox Television is again making an attempt to shut down Dish Network's advertising-skipping DVR services.

Discussion: Bloomberg

Casey Lynch / IGN:

IGN Layoffs and Saying Goodbye to 1UP and GameSpy — Good times, bad times. — Alas, today we had to say goodbye to friends and co-workers, as well as begin the process of bidding a fond farewell to both 1UP and GameSpy. Why? Given the state of the market and the economy …

Discussion: GameSpy, Kotaku, Polygon, Kotaku Australia … and VG247

Ken Layne / The Awl:

Life After Patch.com: A Newspaper Editor Returns To Newsprint — Patch.com was launched in 2007 when Tim Armstrong, the man who turned Google into an advertising company, noticed his very wealthy Connecticut bedroom community lacked a local paper with an events calendar.

Discussion: @yesevamoore, @mathewi and Business Insider

Ian Burrell / The Independent:

BBC Trust chairman says executives misled him over Jimmy Savile scandal — Long-awaited report into handling of Newsnight debacle to be released on Friday — Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, has voiced his sense of betrayal at the BBC executives who led him to put his faith …

Discussion: Deadline.com and Hollywood Reporter