With the new addition of The Columbus Dispatch and 16 regional newspapers owned by the New York Times Company, that brings the grand total of newspapers in the Yahoo consortium to 555. But is it working? Cox Newspapers says the partnership has “gone very well” to date, explaining that The Austin American-Statesman’s market share in online recruitment ads is now 40 percent, up 19 percentage points from a year ago. But no revenue numbers have been disclosed. (Via PaidContent)
I used to be a director, so I saw anchors and reporters do and say lots on camera before a show. Well, with YouTube those behind-the-scenes moments tend to make it out. This Katie Couric clip was pretty funny…
SNL hasn’t been live for two weeks now while the Writers Strike drags on, but that didn’t stop the cast from performing in a small theatre in New York to benefit the cast who are affected by the strike. The “show” starred guest host Michael Cera and musical guest Yo La Tengo and was seen by only 150 people, according to USA Today. You can bet NBC didn’t sanction the performance, but interestingly SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels did attend. “Everybody’s in a holding pattern right now,” cast member Kenan Thompson said of the SNL staff. “It’s a shame. All these creative people are just sitting around. We’ve obviously got material we’re waiting to unleash on the world.” So this leads me to ask, why didn’t they tape the skits and post them on YouTube? (I’m sure NBC would have loved that.)
The Washington City Paper got its hands on the Washington Post’s internal guide to blogging (.pdf), and it contains several good nuggets. The good: news/opinion blogs with one or two contributors, breaking news blogs with lots of contributors but a single editor, blogs with “a consistently strong (even provocative) writing tone, etc. The bad: Group blogs that lack focus, blogs that lack voice, blogs that don’t get updated and “Grab-bag blogs that are a dumping ground for notes that will not make the paper.” The second page of the document outlines a “nine point checklist” for blog launches.
Oh how the lines between network and cable continue to break down. Nickelodeon’s airing of a made-for-TV SpongeBob Square Pants movie, Atlantis SquarePantis, had a whopping 8.8 million sets of eyeballs watching Monday night, says TVDecoder. That puts it well ahead of many of the shows that aired on the networks Monday.
Gary Anthony Ramsay, an anchor at NY1, resigned for an act that he says was “smudging the journalist line.” The NY Times reports that Ramsay called into the network’s live call-in show with former police commissioner Bernard Kerik on the air. He assumed a false persona and asked Kerik a pointed question: “So which is the real Bernie Kerik? Is it the one who pleads not guilty before or is it the one who pleads guilty after he cuts a deal that he’s comfortable with?” The show’s host recognized his voice and called him after the show. Ramsay later quit, but says if he had been on a panel on the show, his question would have been the same.
Oh how the lines between network and cable continue to break down. Nickelodeon’s airing of a made-for-TV SpongeBob Square Pants movie, 
