Mediagazer: Confessions of a Slideshow Writer (Michael Estrin/Digiday)

1:00 PM ET, July 25, 2013

Top News:

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Nick Denton Makes Peace With the Banner Ad — Excerpts: — What's your take on native ads: good, bad, or don't care? — Native ads are like any other ad: good when they're good, bad when they're bad, and usually indifferent. — Are social ads or native ads the future?

Discussion: Capital New York, @johnjcook, @jeffjohnroberts, @rbfishman and eMedia Vitals

Associated Press:

German publisher Axel Springer sells regional papers, magazines in $1.2 billion deal — BERLIN — Axel Springer AG, one of Germany's most prominent publishers, is selling two regional newspapers as well as its television and women's magazines in a 920 million-euro ($1.2 billion) deal that will allow it to focus on its main titles.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and Reuters

Michael Estrin / Digiday:

Confessions of a Slideshow Writer — Michael Estrin is the author of “Murder and Other Distractions,” a novel set in a content farm where clicks matter way too much. — You've probably clicked on my work. I'm a journalist and a writer. I cover consumer finance, digital marketing …

San Francisco Chronicle:

KTVU producers fired over Asiana pilots' fake names — KTVU-TV has dismissed at least three veteran producers over the on-air gaffe involving the fake names of those Asiana airline pilots that became an instant YouTube hit - and a major embarrassment to the station.

Discussion: richliebermanreport …, Mediaite, Poynter, Daily Mail, The Huffington Post, WAVE-TV, NY Daily News, The Desk, TVSpy, New York Magazine and LA Observed

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

Was Newspaper Decline Inevitable? Veterans Conclude That Yes, It Was — Counter to conventional wisdom, they say advertising went away and there's nothing newspapers could have done about it — A broad study by a group of respected journalists into the disruption that the digital age …

Discussion: Poynter, GigaOM, JIMROMENESKO.COM, Fortune and Fortune

Jim Romenesko:

Advance Publications memo: ‘Our new companies are performing well’ — Randy Siegel, Advance Publications' president of local digital strategy, tells colleagues that “although we have reduced the frequency of home delivery [in New Orleans and other Advance newspaper markets] …

Laura Hazard Owen / GigaOM:

Amazon launches interview series on Kindle Singles; first up: President of Israel — Amazon on Thursday launched “The Kindle Singles Interview,” a series of “major long-form interviews with iconic figures and world leaders.” — First up is an interview with Israeli president Shimon Peres …

Discussion: PublishersWeekly.com, GalleyCat, CNET, Engadget and Amazon.com

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Closing Arguments Due in Manning Leaks Case — FORT MEADE, Md. — The court-martial trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, whose leaks of vast archives of secret government documents to WikiLeaks lifted a veil on American military and diplomatic activities, will begin to draw to a close on Thursday …

Discussion: Associated Press, Boing Boing, RT, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Huffington Post, Reuters, Washington Post, BBC, GlobalPost, Courthouse News Service and Al Jazeera English

Ted Johnson / Variety:

Time Warner Cable, DirecTV Ask FCC to Restrict Gannett's Deal for Belo — The American Cable Assn., Time Warner Cable and DirecTV are objecting to a part of Gannett's proposed $2.2 billion acquisition of Belo Corp.'s broadcast stations, saying that the deal threatens to drive up retransmission fees …

Discussion: Free Press, Poynter, Free Press, Los Angeles Times, Broadcasting & Cable, @eggerton and Deadline.com

Jay Caspian Kang / New York Times:

Should Reddit Be Blamed for the Spreading of a Smear? — On an overcast day in early May, I traveled to suburban Philadelphia to visit the family of Sunil Tripathi, the deceased 22-year-old Brown University student who, for about four hours on the morning of April 19, was mistakenly identified …

Discussion: Politico and The Atlantic Wire

James Surowiecki / New Yorker:

It's not over for Barnes & Noble. — When Barnes & Noble announced, a couple of weeks ago, that its Nook division lost almost five hundred million dollars last year and that its C.E.O. was resigning, there was one obvious conclusion: the company was doomed. After all, the Nook was how B.

Discussion: Businessweek and bookforum.com

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Mail Online ad surge helps offset publisher's print slide — Daily Mail & General Trust says growth in digital revenues is close to outstripping rate of decline in newspaper advertising — The Daily Mail's publisher's digital newspaper revenues, from sites including Mail Online …

Discussion: Reuters, Telegraph, Bloomberg, Reuters and The Media Briefing

Deadline:

CBS, Time Warner Cable Extend Deadline In Distribution Dispute — The parties have set a new deadline of Monday at 5 PM Eastern to settle their dispute. CBS its stations would have go dark at 9 AM ET Thursday on Time Warner Cable systems in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas.