Mediagazer: The Washington Post Is Building a Paywall (With a Huge Hole) (Jeff Bercovici/Forbes)

5:15 PM ET, March 18, 2013

Top News:

The Washington Post to charge frequent users of its Web site — This summer, The Washington Post will start charging frequent users of its Web site, asking those who look at more than 20 articles or multimedia features a month to pay a fee, although the company has not yet decided how much it will charge.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Politico, FishbowlNY, VentureBeat, Guardian, TechCrunch, paidContent, The Atlantic Online, Poynter, CNET, WebProNews, The Verge, @karynelevy, @goldfarb, @hblodget, @bostonabrams, AppNewser and The Huffington Post

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

The Washington Post Is Building a Paywall (With a Huge Hole) — For the Washington Post and digital subscriptions, it's better late than never. — Two years after its great northern rival, The New York Times, ushered in an era of paywall experimentation in the newspaper industry …

Discussion: Media Decoder

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

WaPo will, finally, charge online — Anti-paywall forces routed in the US; attention shifts to Kings Cross — The Washington Post is making it official: It will put up a metered paywall sometime this summer, the paper reports. — But the Post is hardly diving in.

BBC:

Press regulation deal struck by parties — David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband claim victory in Leveson deal — A deal has been struck between the three main political parties on measures to regulate the press, Labour has said. — Leader Ed Miliband said the deal would protect …

Discussion: New York Times, Index on Censorship, Guardian, Digital Spy, Sky News, Telegraph, Associated Press, Quartz, The Independent, Guardian, Guardian, Big News Network.com, Kirk LaPointe's … and Big News Network.com

Patrick Wintour / Guardian:

Press regulation deal: the key points — The main sticking points in the post-Leveson discussions that were ironed out during late-night discussions — • The royal charter — The royal charter will be entrenched through statute so that it cannot be changed by ministers …

Discussion: Jon Slattery, The Sun and Big News Network.com

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian: Press regulation at risk as newspaper groups refuse to endorse deal

Josh Halliday / Guardian:
Phone-hacking victims give press regulation deal cautious welcome

Discussion: Guido Fawkes

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Nearly one-third of U.S. adults have abandoned a news outlet due to dissatisfaction — Readers, viewers and listeners may not have followed the contraction of the news business closely, but they're beginning to notice the effects of five dismal years for many publishers.

Discussion: Pew, New York Times, Poynter, Forbes, Mediaite, Adweek, paidContent, @alansmurray, @alansmurray, @alansmurray, Tampabay.com, FishbowlNY, @jeffjarvis, Digital TV Europe, Broadcasting & Cable, Deadline.com and Poynter's News University

Erik Wemple:
On cable TV, talk is cheap — and profitable

Discussion: The Huffington Post, TVNewser and Mediaite

The Huffington Post: Pew State Of The Media Study: Journalism Cutbacks Are Driving Consumers Away

Christine Haughney / New York Times:

Time's Health Care Opus Is a Hit — Publishing a 36-page cover article called “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us” certainly didn't seem like a shameless attempt to bolster newsstand sales for Time magazine. — But the 25,000-word article that Steven Brill wrote …

Discussion: Maza's Bazaar, Poynter and The Dish

Joe Coscarelli / New York Magazine: Steve Brill Gets the Last Laugh Over Epic Health-Care Story

Dylan Byers / Politico: The rewards of risk-taking — The New York Times reports …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Steve Coll named dean of Columbia Journalism School — Steve Coll, the decorated Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker staff writer, has been named dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. — He replaces Nick Lemann, a fellow New Yorker writer who announced last October he would be stepping …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Many j-schools 'still haven't mastered the Web,' Knight says

Discussion: Athens Daily News and Knight Foundation

Patrick Wensink / Salon:

My Amazon bestseller made me nothing — My novel shot to the top of the site's bestseller list last summer. You won't believe how little I got paid — In one more week I was going to be a millionaire. — At least, that was the rumor circulating around my wife's family.

Discussion: @pkafka, @bclayne, @jasonboyett, @edyong209, Business Insider and @frannydink

Keach Hagey / Digits:

NBCNews.com Snags Yahoo News Editor-in-Chief Amid First Wave of Hires — NBCNews.com will not be another web portal. — That's the message in the first batch of hires that the new site announced Monday, nine months after it was created following the end of the 16-year joint venture between between NBC and Microsoft.

Discussion: Politico, Talking Points Memo, nbcuniversal.presscentre.com, @vivianschiller and Beet.TV

Lewis DVorkin / Forbes:

Inside Forbes: Amid the Finger Pointing, Journalists Need to Explore New Payment Models — I spent eight years at AOL and I'll say this: I saw none of the great, all of the bad and some of the good. Throughout, the media took dead aim at our strategic zig-zags and revolving-door CEOs.

Discussion: Poynter, @jayrosen_nyu and @felixsalmon

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Publisher Jesse Angelo is restructuring the money-losing New York Post's revenue operation — For years, Jesse Angelo had been a rising star in the editing ranks of Rupert Murdoch's Australian, British and U.S. tabloids. — Now, fresh off his doomed voyage as editor of News Corp's tablet title …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and NetNewsCheck Latest

Katherine Fung / The Huffington Post:

CNN, Fox News, MSNBC Air Name Of Steubenville Rape Victim — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC recently aired the name of the underage victim in the Steubenville rape trial during reports about the case. — Two high school football players were found guilty of raping a 16-year old girl in a controversial case in Steubenville, Ohio.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Raw Story, Jezebel, BAGnewsNotes and New York Magazine

Kia Makarechi / The Huffington Post:
CNN Under Fire For Coverage Of Rape Trial

Discussion: Poynter, Guardian, Gawker, Mediaite, TVNewser, The Raw Story, Erik Wemple, Jezebel, CNN, HyperVocal, CNN and @olivia_collette

Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:

Verizon Sends Signal on TV Fees — FiOS Operator Presses Smaller Media Firms for Deals Based on Audience Size — Verizon Communications Inc. is proposing to shake up the pay-television business based on a simple premise: it wants to tie the fees it pays to carry TV channels to how many people actually watch them.

Discussion: CNET, Wired, Deadline.com, VentureBeat, FierceCable, Engadget, Los Angeles Times, 24/7 Wall St., Gizmodo, Electronista and The Verge

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

MSNBC Preparing New Web Launch — Richard Wolffe, vice president and executive editor of MSNBC.com, updated staff on the upcoming launch of the cable network's website and about new key hires, including ProPublica's Dafna Linzer, according to a memo obtained by The Huffington Post.

Erik Hayden / Hollywood Reporter:

Reddit Debuts Original Web Mini-Series (Exclusive) — The site is debuting three episodes of a series based on the subreddit “Explain Like I'm Five.” — Online community Reddit is experimenting with original web programming and is debuting three episodes of a new web series on Monday.

Discussion: VentureBeat, AllThingsD, The Verge, PopWatch and What's Trending