Mediagazer: Grantland and Dr. V: What happens when niche journalism meets the network effect (Mathew Ingram/Gigaom)

9:30 PM ET, January 20, 2014

Top News:

Bill Simmons / Grantland:

Grantland editor apologizes for publishing “Dr. V's Magical Putter” — The Dr. V Story: A Letter From the Editor — How “Dr. V's Magical Putter” came to be published — “How could you guys run that?” — We started hearing that question on Friday afternoon, West Coast time …

Christina Kahrl / Grantland:

What Grantland Got Wrong — Understanding the serious errors in “Dr. V's Magical Putter” — When you're a writer, you want something you create to have a long life, to be something that readers will remember and revisit for years to come. If such was Caleb Hannan's wish, it's been granted …

Discussion: @zackbeauchamp, @craigcalcaterra, The Big Lead, BuzzFeed, @jay_jaffe, @barroldbonds, @edgeofsports, @samitsarkar, @allisonkilkenny, @melissagira, @markharrisnyc, @jposnanski and ThinkProgress

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Grantland and Dr. V: What happens when niche journalism meets the network effect — Like any niche pursuit, sports journalism can be a strange beast: magazines like Sports Illustrated often spend enormous amounts of time on stories that few outside the bubble of the sports world have even heard of, let alone care about.

Discussion: Feministing, Guardian, Boing Boing, BuzzFeed and Nieman Storyboard

Ryan Graff / Knight Lab:

How an intern created the NYT's dialect quiz, the site's most-visited content in 2013 — Behind the dialect map interactive: How an intern created The New York Times' most popular piece of content in 2013 — " generates a personalized dialect map based upon user responses compared …

Discussion: @jackseale

Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:

Matt Cutts: “Stick A Fork In It, Guest Blogging Is Done” — Google — and Matt Cutts, in particular — has made a number of statements about guest blogging over the past year as the tactic has grown as a link building tactic. — None of those statements are as clear as the one Cutts wrote today on his personal blog.

Discussion: Matt Cutts, @dannysullivan and WebProNews

Todd Spangler / Variety:

As Netflix Rises, More People Are Canceling HBO and Showtime — U.S. households subscribing to premium cable channels dropped 6 percentage points over 18-month period, while Netflix and other SVOD services grew 4 points — Netflix may be putting a dent in premium cable subscriptions …

Discussion: Betabeat, Gigaom, The Verge, Electronista and WebProNews

Amy Wallace / New York Times:

Life as a Female Journalist: Hot or Not? — LOS ANGELES — IN 2009, I wrote a cover story for Wired magazine about the anti-vaccine movement and profiled Paul Offit, a leading proponent of vaccines for children. Dr. Offit is a man. I am a woman. That was sufficient grounds for things to get ugly.

Discussion: @marypilon, @pcronald, @semayer, @ccriadoperez, @gqmagazine, @meta_porter, @dr_krystal, @rachelsklar, @theopedproject, @trenni, @laneflorsheim and @frankbruni

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Sun-Times disbands Grid staff — The Chicago Sun-Times has disbanded the staff of its business publication Grid, with publisher Brandon Copple leaving last week, reports Lynn Marek of Crain's Chicago. — Marek writes, “The Grid brand, which devolved from a print publication to an online product …

Discussion: Chicago Business

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

Smartwatches and the digital future of news — From the Pebble and Samsung's Galaxy Gear to the oncoming influx of Android-based smartwatches, will the new devices change how news is produced and consumed? — Credit: By Janitors on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Discussion: The Gadgeteer

Johana Bhuiyan / Capital New York:

PolicyMic testing shift in strategy with new entrepreneurship vertical — PolicyMic launches new vertical for entrepreneurs — PolicyMic is launching a new vertical aimed at entrepreneurs, on the heels of a new round of funding. — The site, which touts itself as the home for …

Liz Shannon Miller / Gigaom:

Do YouTubers like Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart hold the future of independent film? — When producer Michael Goldfine set out to make the feature film Camp Takota, which will be available for download on February 14th, the first thing he knew that the traditional independent film model wouldn't be the right approach.

Henry Taylor / TheMediaBriefing.com:

UsVsTh3m at nine months and Ampp3d at six weeks: What has Trinity Mirror learned? — For any established media company, coming up with new ideas and finding out fast if they've got a future is a big challenge. — So for Trinity Mirror to place an (admittedly small) bet on UsVsTh3m last last May was a pretty ballsy move.

Discussion: @iainpope73 and @joannauk