How the NY Times’ Cascade Tracks News Items on Twitter. The video above shows how it all works. MASHABLE

China’s State Media Policy Shifts as Photo of Jet is Published. NYTIMES

TV Advertising Momentum Continues, Film Sales May Show A Weak Quarter. THR

AOL’s Hyperlocal News Sites Seeking 8,000 New Bloggers. FORBES

As Newspaper Sales Continue to Decline, the McClatchy Company Considers Going the Way of the Digital Subscription. NYTIMES

As Many Expected, Netflix is Going Full Steam Ahead With Original Programming THR

Using Social Media to Report News? Storify, a new site, aims to help journalists sift through information across social media, a major source of hot news. NYTIMES

A New Nielsen Report Shows Old and New Media Site Use Converging, Mobile Video is Up. Of note among the findings in Nielsen’s Latest Audience Trends Release is an overlap between visits to network/broadcast media sites and social media/blogs. NIELSENWIRE

Photo: Takoma Bibelot

Broadcasters Don’t Want to Give Up Spectrum. As the FCC puts pressure on broadcasters to free up spectrum for sale to and use by wireless broadband providers, broadcasters are pushing back. NYTIMES Meanwhile, new surveys continue to reveal that people aren’t yet ready to ‘cut their cords’, affirming that formats like Google and Apple TV have not yet made the grade with television lovers in the US.

Netflix – The Largest Entertainment Subscription Company in the US’? THR

Byliner., a New Internet Publication, Aims to Create a Home for Long-Form Journalists Online NIEMANLAB

The New York Times Adds 100 Thousand Paid Digital Subscribers CUTLINE

Canada’s New News Network is Not the ‘Fox News of  the North’ Expected by Many HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

The Nieman Lab Looks at the ‘Newsonomics’ of a Recent, Major Investigative Journalism Story on California Schools’ Safety Issues NIEMANLAB

As the All-Out War on Content Farms Continues, Demand Media Reasserts its Claims of Quality Content. In March we wrote about the common assumption by many media critics that content like that on ehow.com was somehow degrading the quality of the overall media sphere, comparing the rise of Demand Media to the fall of quality papers like the New York Times. Google has since this time ‘tweaked’ its algorithm to eliminate search results that include low-quality content, and Demand claims that the effects of this change have not had the devastating effect to its website traffic that were originally expected by critics of the company’s business practices. Most web content creators can tell you that no matter the content, to a certain extent, you have to ‘be a slave to the algorithm’ by using the right language to remain relevant to Google’s algorithm. While this remains a threat to writers’ abilities to maintain a quality writing style and honest voice, as some publications move to subscription-supported models, the idea of writing for an algorithm may become less relevant.

What Does Premium Video On Demand Mean for the Future of Television and Movies? The Hollywood Reporter is looking at Direct TV’s upcoming launch HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Study Finds That One Third of US Households May Opt-Out of Cable TV BROADCAST.COM

My presentation at CEIBS, April 2011

China already has more internet users (450 million) than America has people, even though just one-third of China is online. What will happen when the other two-thirds (890 million people more) get an internet connection?

This April, I went to Beijing to find out.

My hosts were the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), and I was a presenter and attendee at the China Media Industry Forum. I gave a talk on the American media landscape, represented IESE Business School at the forum, and uncovered some remarkable trends and facts about the future of media in China:

1. Relaxed ownership rules?
The buzz in Beijing’s investor community is that the government will relax media ownership rules. Coupled with China’s booming $40 billion advertising industry (poised to overtake Japan’s as the global #2 after the US) the relaxed rules could significantly strengthen China’s ability to reach viewers, sell ads, and drive markets.

2. Microblogging is everywhere.
The public in general and the business community in particular are using microblogs to get past the state media’s official version of events. While microblogging can be an avenue to more insight and a unique, first-hand point of view, it seems that just about everyone in China is blogging, or about to be. That means information overload and anxiety about whose info to trust. But the consensus is that media with microblogging is better than without it.

3. A Chinese alternative to Bloomberg and Reuters.
Imagine investors around the world using data terminals, just like the Bloomberg models preferred on Wall Street, but made by CCTC-2, the financial news arm of China’s state media. That’s exactly what Guo Zhenxi, head of CCTC-2, hopes will someday happen. The newly launched TV station has captured 75% of China’s business community after just months on the air, and has ambitious plans to go multiplatform. They’ve got a long way to go before they’re anything like Bloomberg or Reuters, but this new company is worth watching.

4. No success without greater transparency.
I was amazed and pleased to hear outspoken criticism of China’s controlling stance towards its media. At the forum, advocates for business ethics called for greater transparency in business information, and announced a project to compile a “social responsibility index,” which will rank Chinese companies by how ethical and sustainable their practices are. Unless the government allows business and business media to be open and honest, say advocates, China has no real chance to compete and win in a global arena.

5. How to be a journalist in China’s new media landscape.
When an audience of aspiring reporters asked how to break into and succeed in journalism, Liu Shui, Editor in Chief of Phoenix New Media, gave a reply you’d hear in any country: expect low pay and steep competition, and be prepared to muster near fanatical devotion to success. The biggest asset for any aspiring journalist, according to Shui, is a broad education and a wide reading list that includes books as well as blogs. Shui’s reply and the sheer number of people in the room made it feel just like a gathering of journalistic hopefuls in the US and Europe, and that can only be a good thing for China.

6. China’s Coming Entertainment Boom.
Opening the door even a little to private entrepreneurship in media could unleash the wealth of talent and showmanship I saw on display during my time in Beijing. The two-day Media Industry Conference was slick and captivating, and the technology in use was no different than what you might find at a media conference in the US. If the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony is any indication of how big the Chinese can think, and if their decade long dash to global #1 in manufacturing is any indication of their tenacity and follow-through, it’s wise to be on the lookout for Beijing’s answer to Hollywood. It may be coming sooner than you think.

In general, I was highly impressed by the conference, and by my hosts. CEIBS ranks near the top of Chinese business schools, and, based on my experience at the forum, it’s one of the best business schools anywhere.

ProPublica Wins Pulitzer for Web-Only Series ProPublica, the investigative journalism site, garnered its first Pulitzer. The Pulitzer press release noted that the prize was “Awarded to Sheri Fink of ProPublica, in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine, for a story that chronicles the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital’s exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.”JOURNALISM.CO.UK

The European Union is Examining Mobile Operators’ Internet Restriction Policies NYTIMES

Former Shareholders of the Tribune Company Allege Fraud, Press for Litigation Against the Company’s CEO and Chairman, Sam Zell WSJ

Wires running between decks and suites          Photo: Schlusselbein 2007

TechCrunch Interviewed FCC Chairman, Julian Genachowski, last week. He spoke on net neutrality and the spectrum crisis. TECH CRUNCH

The UK’s Financial Times Says it Has Increased Subscriptions by 8% in 2011 – The online newspaper model may finally be showing an upside PAID CONTENT

Gannett’s Profits Drop 23% in the First Quarter BUSINESSWEEK

Huffington Post to Become a TV Aggregator? AD AGE

What is the Future of Over-the-Air TV? While the FCC says that the re-allotment of parts of the spectrum to wireless providers will benefit all parties, broadcasters say such re-allotment is unnecessary VARIETY

Youtube’s Approach to Online Copyright Infringement? Have Users Go to Copyright School. Youtube has put together a video matched by an online quiz which must be taken by users found to be breaking copyright rules on the site. MEDIA BISTROPOLITICO

98% of the Population is Still Watching TV. A Review of the Recent Arbitron/Edison Research Media Usage Study HUFFINGTON POST

Over the years many sites have been shut down for pirating over-the-air signals – Now, Bamboom, a New Start-Up Aims to Bring Local TV Signals to Your Computer LATIMES

David Westin, Former ABC News President, Heads to the Associated Press HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

YouTube is Continuing its Effort to Fund Independent Digital Video Production, Now in the UK PAIDCONTENT

Are Cellphone Studies Getting Us Answers About the Potential Harms Caused by Our New Gadgets? NYTIMES