Mediagazer: The Weather Channel's Secret Plan (David Freedlander/The Daily Beast)

12:20 AM ET, March 11, 2013

Top News:

Margaret Sullivan / New York Times:

The Danger of Suppressing the Leaks — IMAGINE if American citizens never learned about the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Imagine not knowing about the brutal treatment of terror suspects at United States government “black sites.” Or about the drone program that is expanding under President Obama …

Discussion: @katehnyc and @mlcalderone

Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:

Revenge of the sources — I understand why a professional journalist like Nate Thayer would be frustrated at being asked to work for “exposure” rather than work for pay, though I think it's unprofessional to vent that frustration by publishing the e-mails and the name of the junior editor who made the request.

Discussion: Mediaite, @jayrosen_nyu, @mathewi, EJC, Gawker, Quotes and Snippets and Martin Belam

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:

Hyperlocal cooties — Another hyperlocal venture is struggling, and each time this happens, I fear hyperlocal gets more cooties. But I refuse to give up hope because there's a reason for each fall, there's much still to do, and it's still early. — The latest: Carll Tucker's Daily Voice …

Discussion: yelvington.com

Bill Mickey / Folio:

Content Subscription Site NSFW Corp. Expanding into Print — Initial print run capped at 5,000 copies. — Paul Carr, a former TechCrunch writer, is prepping a relaunch of his NSFW Corp., a subscription-based content site featuring a comedic spin on current and world events that he launched last year.

Discussion: SEO Book

David Freedlander / The Daily Beast:

The Weather Channel's Secret Plan — And that's just the start of the forecasting behemoth's plans for global domination. Say goodbye to your local weatherman. … As a late-winter snowstorm barreled down from the Midwest, threatening the mid-Atlantic, David Kenny, the Weather Channel's CEO …

Discussion: NBCNews.com

Jack Shafer / Reuters:

And now, a word against our sponsor — The Washington Post's website joined the sponsored-content stampede early this week with the introduction of its BrandConnect Web product, making it the first major U.S. newspaper to embrace sponsored content, according to Digiday.

Discussion: @rajunarisetti, @gaberivera, @rafat, @jason, @rafat and @mccarthyryanj

Rob O'Regan / eMedia Vitals:

Native advertising and the role of ‘brand editors’ — As publishers add native advertising and other content marketing services to their product portfolios, there's a growing need for business-side editorial teams to manage this content. — Sales teams have staffed editors as part of their custom publishing groups for decades.

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Elon Musk Says His Only Regret In NYT Controversy Was Not Rebutting The Rebuttal — During this afternoon's keynote interview at South by Southwest Interactive, Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk briefly addressed his recent back-and-forth with The New York Times about a negative article by writer John Broder, which Musk said was “false.”

Discussion: Poynter, Forbes, Fast Company, GigaOM, Business Insider and Beyond Search

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

How the fastest-growing media site could help Democrats win the next election — Upworthy, a viral media site, is less than a year old but already has more than 9 million monthly viewers. That outpaces the early days of other viral sites like BuzzFeed and Business Insider …

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

Netflix Series Spending Revealed … Netflix may be notoriously secretive about the economics of its original programming, but not everyone who works with the streaming service works quite the same way. — CAA TV literary agent Peter Micelli was forthcoming about how Netflix …

Discussion: The Verge and Business Insider

Danny Sullivan / Marketing Land:

For Social Media Viewing, Twitter Is Live TV; Facebook Is DVR — When you follow someone on Twitter, you see everything they post. When you follow someone on Facebook, it decides what you see. Which is right? I'd say both, and it comes down to the live TV versus DVR personalities of each service.

Discussion: GigaOM, Businessweek, eMedia Vitals and New Yorker

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

“We're going to tell people how to interview databases”: The rise of data (big and small) in journalism — Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier published their joint tome on big data this week, Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think.

Discussion: Forbes and @tcarmody

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Like Amazon, Apple wants to create a marketplace for used digital goods — Apple filed a patent application Thursday to create a marketplace for used digital goods. The description is similar to the idea behind the patent that Amazon won approval for in February.

Discussion: Consumerist and Pocket-lint

David Streitfeld / New York Times:
Imagining a Swap Meet for E-Books and Music

Discussion: TeleRead, Media Decoder and Digital Book World

Alex Seitz-Wald / Salon:

Juan Williams' plagiarism problem — EXCLUSIVE: Fox News pundit blames researcher for word-for-word similarities. “Unacceptable,” says Hill editor — Fox News pundit Juan Williams lifted — sometimes word for word — from a Center for American Progress report, without ever attributing the information …