Top News:
David Carr / New York Times:
Print focus at OC Register fails to stem bleeding as publisher Aaron Kushner tries to scale — Publisher Stumbles in Wild Chase for Growth — Timing matters when it comes to news. I had been reading about Aaron Kushner's audacious strategy to invest in journalism ever since he bought …
Discussion:
Street Fight, @peterlattman and @mattdpearce
Josh Levin / Slate:
Digging Too Deep — Every journalist has worked on a story that started out being about one thing and ended up as something else entirely. That's what happened to Caleb Hannan, who got curious about a weird-looking golf club he found on YouTube and started quizzing the inventor about her far-out scientific theories.
Discussion:
The New Republic, Nieman Storyboard, ThinkProgress and The Huffington Post
RELATED:
Hazel Cills / Gawker:
Twitter Explodes After Trans Subject of Golf Article Kills Herself — On Friday, journalist Caleb Hannan tweeted a link to a recent Grantland story he did, writing, “Not sure what to say other than this is the strangest story I've ever worked on.” — The piece, entitled “Dr. V's Magical Putter …
Discussion:
Grantland, Beautiful, Terrible …, GLITTERING SCRIVENER, BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed, Guardian, VICE, Jezebel, Shakesville, @stevesilberman, @billwasik, @jfagone, @jayrosen_nyu, @mysecondempire, @king_kaufman, @edgeofsports, @edgeofsports, @edgeofsports, @mysecondempire, @truelgbtfacts, @johnjcook, @johnjcook, @adrianchen, @jayrosen_nyu, Aoifeschatology, @calebhannan, @pangmeli and Autostraddle
Kara Swisher / Re/code:
After Mulling Sale, Business Insider Raising a New Round of Funding — Business Insider — which rejected an informal acquisition offer of around $100 million floated by AOL last year and has discussed other sale efforts — is likely to be raising a new round from its existing investors, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Discussion:
@pkafka, @carney, @zseward, @peterlauria3, VatorNews and Mediawire Daily
Fergus Pitt / Tow Center for Digital Journalism:
Which News Organizations Influence Wikipedia? — The New York Times leads the Wikipedia record of 2013's biggest news stories, according to a very simple (and perhaps simplistic) analysis of the online encyclopedia's citations. The analysis and process are quite basic …
Discussion:
@raju, @fergle and @towcenter
Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:
In France, value of legacy media companies plummets — Those media assets that are worth nothing — The valuation gap between high tech and media companies has never been wider. The erosion of their revenue model might be the main culprit, but management teams, unions and boards …
Discussion:
@blathnaidhealy, @s_m_i and @frasermatthew
Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:
Michael Kinsley to Join Vanity Fair and Write a Monthly Column — Mr. Kinsley will write a monthly column for Vanity Fair, which is likely to cover “what I've written about most of the time: politics, in one form or another,” he said.
Discussion:
@jayrosen_nyu, @romenesko, @raju, @dkthomp and Mediawire Daily
Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
News International security chief said he ‘burned stuff’, colleague tells court — Mark Hanna made comment to security guard after they discussed News of the World closure, phone-hacking trial hears — The News International director of security told one of his team he had dug a hole in his garden to …
Ben Woods / The Next Web:
BBC launches new iWonder brand for digital content, starting with interactive World War One guides — The BBC has launched a new brand called iWonder which it hopes will unlock the learning potential from its wide-ranging content. — Starting today, and designed to coincide with the BBC's World War …
Discussion:
BBC, T3, Digital Spy, thedrum.com and Pocket-lint
Ben Fritz / Wall Street Journal:
For Movie Producers, a Golden Age Fades — As Hollywood slashes spending, nobody has felt the brunt as much as movie producers … LOS ANGELES—They still sit on the northern edge of the Universal Pictures lot—symbols of an era when producers were the kings of Hollywood.
Discussion:
@benfritz
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Spotify Adds Commission-Free Merchandise Feature As Artist Sweetener — Spotify has added the ability for artists distributing music via its platform to offer merchandise to fans without taking any commission on sales of t-shirts et al. It was previously running a pilot of the feature …
Discussion:
Music Ally, Telegraph, TechRadar.com, NME, Digital Spy, Geeky Gadgets, Wired.co.uk, Digits, The Next Web and Softpedia News
Rick Edmonds / Poynter:
Magazine industry ad decline slowing, but 4th quarter not good — The final tally came in this week for print magazine advertising in 2013. It is the typical good news/bad news scenario. — Ad pages — the industry's traditional measure — were down 4.1 percent for the year.
Discussion:
@poynter and @rickedmonds