Mediagazer: Hulu Names Warner Bros. TV's Craig Erwich Head of Content (Todd Spangler/Variety)

1:25 AM ET, April 1, 2014

Top News:

Mark Sweeney / Guardian:

News Corp boss brands Washington Post journalists ‘high priests’ — Chief executive Robert Thompson says paper's journalists have failed to embrace transition to digital — Robert Thomson: believes new Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos will be a shot in arm for paper's commercial …

Discussion: @davidfolkenflik and @dangillmor

Ed Sussman / PandoDaily:

The New Rules of Social Journalism: A Proposal — My timing was not ideal. — Last Thursday, Fortune reported that a number of guest contributors on Forbes.com, Seeking Alpha, Wall Street Cheat Sheet and other sites were allegedly paid by an investor relations firm to write columns as part of pump and dump stock schemes.

Mathew Ingram / Gigaom:

Like newspapers, Facebook determines who gets included editorially and who needs to buy ads — This is what happens when Facebook controls the signal, and it defines you as noise — A food-delivery startup called Eat24 touched off a minor frenzy of anti-Facebook sentiment recently …

Discussion: Bacon Sriracha Unicorn Diaries, Re/code, metamedia, @mathewi, AllFacebook, What's Next Blog, Business Insider and Mashable

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

Yahoo in early talks to acquire online video service News Distribution Network for $300M — Yahoo in Talks to Buy Online-Video Service NDN — Sources — Deal Would Help Yahoo Compete With Google's YouTube — Yahoo Inc. is in preliminary talks to acquire online-video service News …

Discussion: @jasonabbruzzese, @xpangler, Reuters, @karaswisher, @pkafka, Business Insider, Deadline.com and Beet.TV

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Yahoo Mulling Plans to Ax Its Shine Women's Site, Opting for More Online Lifestyle “Magazines” — Yahoo's Marissa Mayer is poised to take an ax to its longtime and massive women-focused content site Shine, closing it down by the second quarter, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

Discussion: @joepompeo

Alex Kantrowitz / AdAge:

Media Ratings Council defines viewability metric: 50% of pixels viewable for at least 1 second — MRC Tells Ad Industry It's Okay To Use Viewable Impressions — Advisory Against Viewability Is A Thing Of The Past — How Advertising Performs in a Social Media World

Discussion: PR Newswire, IABlog, Forbes and MarketingVox News & Trends

Sydney Ember / New York Times:

Former MSNBC anchor Carlos Watson's media startup Ozy receives investment from Axel Springer — Start-Up Ozy Media Adds Axel Springer as a Backer — Like many news start-ups, Ozy Media is trying to be heard. And investors, at least, are listening. — Though it has yet to attract …

Discussion: @peterlattman, @lsemediapolicy, @nicktheandersen and @carr2n

Ted Johnson / Variety:

FCC Votes to Bar Stations from Jointly Selling Ad Time — The FCC on Monday prohibited so-called “sidecar” deals among stations in the same market, a move that Chairman Tom Wheeler said will close a loophole that has allowed major media groups from skirting media ownership rules.

Discussion: Poynter, TheHill, Broadcasting & Cable, FCC.gov, Reuters, TVSpy, Bloomberg, Broadcasting & Cable and Adweek

Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Journalism Lab:

A club that will have me as a member: Voice of San Diego and MinnPost are building out their membership models — About 300 people filled an event space in San Diego a couple weeks ago to take part in a discussion sponsored by Voice of San Diego on innovations with origins in the area.

Discussion: @vosdscott, @niemanlab, @dangillmor, MinnPost and Voice of San Diego

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Why a Loss for Aereo Wouldn't Threaten Cloud Services — Aereo, which will fight for its life before the Supreme Court next month, has issued dire warnings that if its TV-streaming service is ruled illegal, it would spell the doom of “cloud-based” services like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Twitter Buys France's Mesagraph And UK's SecondSync To Ramp Up Social TV Efforts In Europe — Twitter is adding more global firepower to its ambitions to cosy up to broadcasters and TV advertisers: it is buying France's Mesagraph, and it is also acquiring the UK's SecondSync (a key partner of Facebook's).

Discussion: Mesagraph, The Next Web, The Twitter Blog, Adweek, VatorNews, PandoDaily, Wall Street Journal, Mashable, @maymann, VentureBeat, Business 2 Community, Forbes and @donal_cahalane

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

Rusbridger on how no journalist's sources are now safe, joining IPSO and why he would have kept the News of the World open — Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger warned today that is almost impossible for journalists to maintain the confidentiality of their sources because of threat of surveillance.

Dan Gillmor / Slate:

Pew's media report failed to count advocacy journalists at places like Human Rights Watch — In Praise of the Almost-Journalists — The overlooked advocate writers who are making a difference in online media. — Hope is the latest trend in journalism.

Discussion: Gigaom, @andreasharsono and @jayrosen_nyu

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:

Music Startup Spawnsong Wants To Be Kickstarter For Single Tracks — Holy incremental music startup, Batman! Spawnsong is a (very) new music platform startup with a strategy to elbow into the crowded digital music space by focusing on a very thin wedge: individual songs.

Discussion: hypebot

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

Can Mashable pull a BuzzFeed? — Mashable is growing up. — Started as a social media blog by a 19-year-old Scot, the news site is now flush with $14 million in venture capital that it's using to bankroll an ambitious plan to become the CNN for the mobile- and social-addicted generation.

Discussion: @maymann, @10000words, @jonathanellis and The New York Observer

Ishbel Macleod / The Drum:

IPC Media in consultation to close Nuts — Nuts, the men's weekly magazine and website, could be set to close as IPC Media has announced that it has entered into a 30-day consultation with staff. — IPC Inspire managing director Paul Williams said: “After 10 years at the top of its market …

Discussion: IPC Media and Guardian

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Jawbone Snaps Up Playground.fm — Looks like instead of being acquired, wrist and speaker hardware company Jawbone is doing some acquiring, scooping up social and personalized music playlist app Playground.fm, according to a well-placed source. — Last time we heard something about Jawbone …

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Hulu Names Warner Bros. TV's Craig Erwich Head of Content — Hulu announced that it has hired Craig Erwich, previously with Warner Horizon Television, as senior VP and head of content. — Erwich will officially start at the Internet TV joint venture next Monday, April 7, reporting to Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins.

Discussion: Hulu Blog, Home Media Magazine and The Wrap

Ben Dooley / Mother Jones:

IBT Media, Newsweek's new owner, has strong ties to Christian college Olivet University and evangelical sect led by Korean pastor David Jang — Who's Behind Newsweek? — TWO DAYS AFTER BARACK OBAMA won reelection, I met a young Chinese woman, whom I will call Anne, in the basement café at the San Francisco Public Library.

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Pandora competitor Raditaz reemerges as CÜR Media, raises $9.6 million — Remember Raditaz, the personalized radio service that tried to compete with Pandora by building stations for each and every neighborhood of your city? The service abruptly went offline in November …

Discussion: @daualset and hypebot

Brent Lang / The Wrap:

Paula Froelich Named Editor of Yahoo Travel, Joining New Entertainment Chief Josh Wolk — Former “Page Six” editor Paula Froelich will oversee Yahoo's travel section, the internet platform said Monday, joining Josh Wolk, who was officially named executive editor of Yahoo Entertainment.

Discussion: @joepompeo, @andywangnyla and FishbowlNY

Michael Depp / NetNewsCheck Latest:

The Future's Newspaper Rack Is Here — Next week, about a dozen retailers in South Bend, Ind., will see the traditional, single-copy sales racks for The South Bend Tribune replaced by a kiosk that's endlessly updating in real time, promoting content elements from inside the paper along …

Discussion: Poynter and The Newspaper Guild