Mediagazer: Simon & Schuster launches ebook lending pilot with New York City public libraries (Laura Hazard Owen/paidContent)

5:45 PM ET, April 15, 2013

Top News:

2013 Winners and Finalists — Winners Letters, Drama, and Music Fiction The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (Random House) Drama Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar History Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall (Random House) …

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, GalleyCat, NewspaperAlum, Poynter, Poynter, New York Times, Poynter, InsideClimate News, @deanstarkman, Jim Romenesko and @froomkin

Wall Street Journal:

Dish Launches $25.5 Billion Bid for Sprint — Satellite-TV provider Dish Network Corp. is making a $25.5 billion bid for Sprint Nextel Corp., an effort to derail the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier's acquisition by Softbank Corp. of Japan. — Dish said Monday it is offering to pay $4.76 in cash …

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:
This Man Wants To Kill Your Cable And Wireless Companies

Discussion: Business Insider

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Boston explosions: Twitter acts as journalism's ombudsman — When tragedy strikes America, Twitter remembers bad reporting. — Within hours of the massacre in Connecticut that claimed the lives of 20 elementary school children and six adults, the news media had passed along a full story's worth of erroneous information.

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Texas Tribune Scores $1.5 Million Knight Foundation Grant — There's not a lot of good news about the the economics of serious public-interest journalism these days, so pay attention, because this is pretty good. — The Knight Foundation is giving a $1.5 million grant to the Texas Tribune …

Discussion: Columbia Journalism Review, Knight Foundation and eMedia Vitals

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Simon & Schuster launches ebook lending pilot with New York City public libraries — Simon & Schuster will finally make its ebooks available to libraries, through a one-year trial with New York City's public libraries. The publisher is making all of its titles available in the trial …

Discussion: Forbes, PublishersWeekly.com, Mashable, GalleyCat and FishbowlNY

David Folkenflik / NPR:

Great Long-Form Journalism, Just Clicks Away … In the age of hundreds of cable channels, millions of 140-character bulletins and an untold number of cat videos, a fear has been growing among journalists and readers that long-form storytelling may be getting lost.

Discussion: The Blotter and The Huffington Post

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Kobo launches $169 ‘Porsche of e-readers’ for power users — Kobo is launching a higher-end e-reader, the $169 Aura HD, aimed at users who read several ebooks a week. While the Aura is more expensive than the competition, Kobo says its market research supports customers' desire for such a device.

Discussion: TechCrunch, CNET, BBC, Wired, International Business Times, Crave, Engadget, Pocket-lint and Bookseller news

BBC:

Harding to be named BBC News chief — The ex-editor of the Times, James Harding, will be named as the BBC's director of news on Tuesday, BBC media correspondent Torin Douglas understands. — Mr Harding resigned in December, saying it had been made clear that publishers News International wanted a new editor.

Discussion: Guardian and @mediaguardian

Sara Morrison / Columbia Journalism Review:

New from NYT R&D: Quips — Now you can highlight and mark up an online New York Times article just like you would a book — Those who have walked through the New York Times lobby have no doubt seen Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin's data-art installation “Moveable Type,” a series of small screens …

Lorelei Marfil / WWD:

Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design Opens in London — STYLE SCHOOL: The first students to study at the Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design will sit down at their desks today. For 10 weeks, the inaugural intake of 45 students from 23 countries will take part …

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

16-Year-Old Media Mogul Tavi Gevinson Is Expanding Her Empire — Tavi Gevinson has been called everything from the future of fashion to the future of journalism (by Lady Gaga, no less). Pretty heady titles for anybody, especially a blogger who has yet to finish her junior year of high school.

Discussion: Capital New York