Mediagazer: Binding the press: A rotten deal (Economist)

4:35 PM ET, March 22, 2013

Top News:

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

‘Let Me Tweet That For You’ site raises concerns for journalists — This tweet looks pretty real, doesn't it? — It's not, though. I faked that tweet using a Web service named “Let Me Tweet That For You.” It's pretty simple — you type in a Twitter username and a message …

Discussion: AllThingsD, The Verge and NetNewsCheck Latest

Phillip Smith / MediaShift Idea Lab:

Ranking the Slowest-Loading News Sites and How They Can Speed Up — I present your winner (or loser?) for slowest loading feature article, the Chicago Tribune, at 16.68 seconds, almost 6 megabytes of data, and with more than 300 requests for resources to display the page in question.

Discussion: Poynter and eMedia Vitals

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Changing trains: The Local East Village, NYU's hyperlocal blog, moves from The New York Times to New York magazine — NEW YORK — New York University's hyperlocal East Village blog has found a new home and a new name. After a two-and-a-half-year partnership with The New York Times …

Discussion: FishbowlNY and New York Times

Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic Online:

American News Consumers Have Gained the World but Lost Their Backyards — The Internet affords cheap, easy access to priceless information. But local news coverage is a casualty of its rise. — Is the American news media in better shape than ever before?

Discussion: Street Fight

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Filing Says Glenn Beck's Network TheBlaze Is Raising $40M — TheBlaze, a set of online ventures run by conservative pundit Glenn Beck, is raising $40 million in new funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. — The filing states that the company has raised $1.5 million so far.

Economist:

Binding the press: A rotten deal — THE regulation of the British press is an area where this newspaper usually treads lightly. It is not just that The Economist has an interest in opposing irksome rules—albeit a less obvious one than the tabloids, many though not all of them owned by Rupert Murdoch …

Discussion: Guardian, Daily Download, lustigletter.blogspot.co.uk, New Statesman, Kirk LaPointe's …, Spectator and HoldTheFrontPage

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski steps down — Julius Genachowski, who has served as FCC Chairman since 2009, is stepping down. The FCC has announced on its website that Genachowski will be leaving his position “in the coming weeks;” an official meeting will be held later this morning.

Discussion: Variety, TechCrunch, Fast Company, New York Times, The Raw Story, Politico, Engadget, Los Angeles Times and Electronista

Janko Roettgers / paidContent:

D.me: Is this the new Delicious? — Looks like the folks over at Delicious may have a case of Digg envy: I stumbled across a seemingly new site called D.me today that serves up a continuous stream of stories in a design that looks a lot like the recently-relaunched Digg.com, with a bit of Pinterest mixed in for good measure.

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

New Republic Fires Top Columnist — On Thursday, New Republic columnist Timothy Noah received an email from editor Frank Foer asking him to meet at 2:30 pm on Friday. That's when Foer told Noah that he was out of a job. — When Noah got to the New Republic's lobby, on the way out the door …

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:

Vevo boss says intelligent, data-centric services could revive music industry — International senior vice-president Nic Jones says music service users want opportunity to be curated by more than algorithms — Intelligent, data-centric services could herald the rebirth of the music industry …

Drew Olanoff / TechCrunch:

Posthaven Launches In Public Beta, Has Saved 850K Posts Since Posterous Announced Its Shutdown Date Of April 30th — Once Twitter acquired Posterous, we knew that it was going to shut down at some point, as there was no way that the micro-blogging service would support a fully featured alternative platform.

Wall Street Journal:

Web Fan Base Tips Scale To Fallon — Jimmy Fallon's recent two-minute skit “Evolution of Mom Dancing,” featuring the late-night TV comic and Michelle Obama performing a series of funny dance moves, racked up more than 15 million views on YouTube. That is about five times the average nightly audience …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, @dfsaavedra, Corporate Intelligence and Bloomberg