Mediagazer: BBC Publishes Contract of New Director General to Improve Transparency (Georg Szalai/Hollywood Reporter)

6:25 AM ET, April 11, 2013

Top News:

Josh Catone / Mashable:

Orphaned Tumblr Storyboard Posts Find New Home on Mashable … In early 2012, Tumblr hired an editorial team to cover the “ideas, themes and people” of the vast blogging community. That team launched Storyboard, which produced hundreds of fascinating stories on everything from Hurricane Sandy relief to One Direction fandom.

Discussion: Betabeat, THE BAD DEAL, Tumblr Editorial and Tumblr Staff Blog

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

The trouble with Tumblr's journalism experiment — To understand why Tumblr suddenly brought an end to its original-journalism project, Storyboard, after just a year, it helps to consider what outgoing Facebook managing editor Dan Fletcher told an audience at Washington State University last month.

Discussion: Mashable, Poynter, New York Times, paidContent and The Huffington Post

Adam Weinstein / Gawker:
If Tumblr 'Couldn't Be Happier' With its Journalists, Why'd it Just Fire Them All?

Discussion: Daily Dot, Digiday, Businessweek and @nicknotned

Jackie Spinner / American Journalism Review:

Launching a Startup in Iraq — An American journalist's Web site is a go-to destination for news about the Iraqi oil industry. — Jackie Spinner (jackiespinner@mac.com) has reported on the Middle East since 2004. She was a staff writer for the Washington Post for 14 years and covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the paper.

Caroline Winter / Businessweek:

Would You Tweet This Article if It Earned You Points? — Is it possible to coerce virality? Won Hee Chang, a young Korean tech entrepreneur, is looking to find out by reviving her grandfather's magazine with a new model for monetizing online journalism: Readers who share content via social media …

Loes Witschge / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Getting personal: A Dutch online news platform wants you to subscribe to individual journalists — “It's my own little shop, that's what I like about it. You decide what goes in — like having your own newspaper.” — Arnold Karskens has his own channel on Dutch news startup De Nieuwe Pers (The New Press).

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Exclusive: Microsoft's next Xbox will take over your TV, interact with your cable box — The fight for the living room continues — Microsoft is investing in TV in a big way with its next Xbox console as part of a fight for the living room. Multiple sources familiar with the company's Xbox plans …

Discussion: Pocket-lint, GigaOM, AppleInsider, Forbes, VentureBeat, BGR, Engadget, ParisLemon, Business Insider, Softpedia News and CNET

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

BBC Publishes Contract of New Director General to Improve Transparency — In a first, the U.K. public broadcaster details Tony Hall's employment deal, which includes a shorter notice period. — The BBC Trust on Wednesday published the full employment contract of Tony Hall …

Discussion: Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Times, The Drum, Guardian and BBC Trust

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:

Mark Rock to quit Audioboo — Founder to step down as president of audio-sharing service on 1 May after internal tensions at the company — Audioboo founder Mark Rock is to leave the company on the 1 May, the Guardian has learned, after being increasingly sidelined as investors …

Discussion: Documentally.com and The Next Web

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Blackstrap will turn your Pocket or Instapaper articles into a $15 print book — A new site called Blackstrap will let you turn the articles you've saved on Instapaper, Pocket or Twitter into a $15 printed book. But does anybody actually need this service?

Steve Kolowich / Wired Campus:

Coursera Takes a Nuanced View of MOOC Dropout Rates — Philadelphia — Massive open online courses have gained renown among academics for their impressive enrollment figures and, conversely, their unimpressive completion rates. — What accounts for the high attrition in MOOCs, and what does it mean?

Miriam Elder / Guardian:

Swear words ban leaves Russian media in a muddle — Confusion over new law that leaves media facing hefty fines if they break ban despite no list of prohibitive words being issued — Russian media outlets that print swear words face heavy fines under rules signed into law on Monday by the president.

Discussion: The Week

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Bloomberg View Expands With Jon Landman Hire And More Jeffrey Goldberg — NEW YORK — Bloomberg View, the news organization's nearly 2-year-old opinion section, has hired veteran journalist Jonathan Landman to the newly created position of editor-at-large as it expands writer Jeffrey Goldberg's role on the site.

Discussion: New York Magazine, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Politico, Press Room and FishbowlNY

John Harris / Guardian:

Tim Waterstone: ‘If reading is going be all digital in 50 years, so be it’ — Thirty years ago, Tim Waterstone founded one of the UK's best-known booksellers, and is still in love with the idea of bookshops. So what is he doing starting a new ebooks venture?

Discussion: paidContent and The Bookseller