Couric leaving news anchor post

In this July 16, 2006 file photo, Katie Couric, CBS News anchor and correspondent,
answers questions about her upcoming season anchoring 'CBS Evening News with
Katie Couric' during a news conference in Pasadena, Calif.

NEW YORK — Katie Couric is leaving her anchor post at "CBS Evening News" less than five years after becoming the first woman to solely helm a network TV evening newscast.

A network executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Couric has not officially announced her plans, reported the move to The Associated Press on Sunday night. The 54-year-old anchor is expected to launch a syndicated talk show in 2012 and several companies are vying for her services.

Couric's move from NBC's "Today" show was big news in 2006, and she began in the anchor chair with a flourish that September. She tried to incorporate her strengths as an interviewer into a standard evening news format and millions of people who normally didn't watch the news at night checked it out. But they drifted away and the evening newscast reverted to a more traditional broadcast.

After those first few weeks, the "CBS Evening News" settled into third place in the ratings and is well behind leader Brian Williams at NBC's "Nightly News" and second-place Diane Sawyer at ABC's "World News."

No departure date has been set for Couric. Her CBS News contract expires on June 4.

"We're having ongoing discussions with Katie Couric," said CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair on Sunday. "We have no announcements to make at this time. Until we do, we will continue to decline comment on rumor or speculation."

Said Matthew Hiltzik, Couric's spokesman: "Ditto."

Amazon: Kindle subscribers can read NYTimes.com for free

The New York Times has raised a pay wall yesterday. From now on, you must choose between three subscription models ($15/$25/$35 every four weeks) to access online articles at NYTimes.com. As you know, everyone can read up to twenty articles each month for free and home delivery subscribers get to enjoy unlimited access to online articles on NYTimes.com and via smartphone and tablet apps.

In addition to those deals, Amazon partnered with the paper and announced yesterday that subscribers to the Kindle version of The New York Times will get free and unrestricted access to all online articles at the NYTimes.com site. Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s VP of Kindle content:

Given The Times’ transition to a digital subscription model, we’re excited to be able to offer Kindle subscribers online access to all the digital content available at NYTimes.com at no additional cost.

You’ll receive an email notice when the offer goes live. The New York Times is the bestselling newspaper in the Kindle Store, Amazon tells us. This interesting proposition was obviously conceived as another reason to buy the Kindle hardware. If last couple of week are an indication, Amazon sure knows how to keep themselves in the news.

Chris Brown 'disappointed' in his behavior

Chris Brown has apologized for his destructive tantrum at "Good Morning America" earlier this week. The 21-year-old singer says he needed to let out his anger after being asked about his attack on Rihanna.

ABC News said Brown smashed a window in his dressing room after his interview with "GMA" co-host Robin Roberts on Tuesday. Roberts had asked Brown about the beating two years ago of his then-girlfriend. He's still on probation for that attack.

During an appearance Wednesday on BET's "106 & Park," Brown said he was under the impression that the interview would only focus on his new album, "F.A.M.E."

Brown apologized, saying he was disappointed by his actions, but said he needed to let off steam. He also noted that he didn't physically harm anyone.

Say hello to Google's online magazine

Google has quietly launched its own full-length online magazine, a quarterly publication whose aim is to create a "breathing space in a busy world."

The first edition of Think Quarterly, based out of the UK, is a 68-page dive into the world of data and its impact on business.

The first thing most people will notice is that it's a visually stunning piece of work. It's a rich Flash app with Google's quirky sensibilities and the in-depth writing you might find in BusinessWeek or Salon.

Google's quarterly magazine is edited and designed by creative agency The Church of London.

The articles themselves are thought pieces about major business and technology topics from a variety of freelancers and contributors. Google was able to snag Simon Rogers (editor of The Guardian's Datablog), Ulrike Reinhard (editor of WE Magazine), and other journalists for the project.

Many of Think Quarterly's articles feature interviews with Google executives and technology leaders. Some of the people featured include Vodafone UK CEO Guy Laurence, Google Chief Economist Hal Varian and famed psychologist Peter Kruse.

"At Google, we often think that speed is the forgotten 'killer application' -- the ingredient that can differentiate winners from the rest," Matt Brittin, Google's managing director of UK & Ireland operations, said in Think Quarterly's introduction. "We know that the faster we deliver results, the more useful people find our service."

"But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect. Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It's a place to take time out and consider what's happening and why it matters."

German news group runs photos of Afghan killings

Graphic photos showing U.S. troops and dead Afghans that the Army was keeping under wraps for a war crimes probe were carried by a German news organization Monday, with one showing a soldier smiling as he posed with a bloodied and partially clothed corpse.

The photos published by Der Spiegel were among several seized by Army investigators looking into the deaths of three unarmed Afghans last year. Five soldiers based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle, have been charged with murder and conspiracy in the case.

Der Spiegel did not return calls seeking comment Monday, and it wasn't known how the organization obtained copies.

Editions with the photos were on newsstands Monday, a day after Der Spiegel published them digitally.

Officials involved in the courts-martial had issued a strict protective order, seeking to severely limit access to the photographs due to their sensitive nature. Some defense teams had been granted copies but were not allowed to disseminate them.

"Today Der Spiegel published photographs depicting actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States Army," the Army said in a statement released by Col. Thomas Collins. "We apologize for the distress these photos cause."

One of the published photographs shows a key figure in the investigation, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock of Wasilla, Alaska, grinning as he lifts the head of a corpse by the hair. Der Spiegel identified the body as that of Gul Mudin, whom Morlock was charged with killing on Jan. 15, 2010, in Kandahar Province.

Another photo shows Pvt. 1st Class Andrew Holmes, of Boise, Idaho, holding the head of the same corpse. His lawyer, Daniel Conway, said Sunday that Holmes was ordered "to be in the photo, so he got in the photo. That doesn't make him a murderer."

The photo was taken while the platoon leader, Lt. Roman Ligsay, was present, Conway said. Ligsay has asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to testify in the legal proceedings against his troops.

Bloggers say they'll have role in new Tunisia

At the height of the Tunisian uprising, dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali tried hard to silence the young bloggers who were driving the protests against him. His security agents arrested, even tortured, some of them and repeatedly shut down their sites.

But two months after Ben Ali's fall, the caretaker government that is to lead Tunisia to summer elections has embraced the very tools its predecessor tried to destroy. It has lifted web censorship. Key ministries - including the Interior Ministry once in charge of the feared political police - now communicate with citizens through Facebook.

Some of the bloggers, once under threat from Ben Ali's secret agents, are courted as heroes. One serves in the interim government, others have been awarded an online media freedom prize and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to meet with Internet activists during her first post-revolt visit to Tunisia on Thursday.

The bloggers, many of them university graduates in their 20s, believe they have an important role to play in the new Tunisia, as government watchdogs or political activists. "We're not stopping our fight, and we are the first line of defense of freedom," said blogger Wissem Zghaier, 29, who was beaten and tortured during the uprising.

Social media were key to the Tunisian revolt and the anti-government protests it inspired across the Arab world.

Facebook NOT shutting down March 15

There's a silly rumor exploding on the Internet this weekend, alleging that Facebook is shutting down on March 15 because CEO Mark Zuckerberg "wants his old life back," and desires to "put an end to all the madness."

We have official confirmation from Facebook Director of Corporate Communications Larry Yu that the rumor is false.

We asked him via e-mail if Facebook was shutting down on March 15, to which he responded, "The answer is no, so please help us put an end to this silliness."

He added, "We didn't get the memo about shutting down and there's lots to do, so we'll just keep cranking away like always."

Let's think about this for a minute. Would Facebook decide to shut down the company just a few days after announcing a round of funding, consisting of $450 million from Goldman Sachs and $50 million from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, on a valuation of $50 billion?

The spurious report was started by a site to which we refuse to link, known for its reports of impending attacks of alien spaceships and false reports of a Michelle Obama pregnancy.

Obama: Bullying should not be inevitable, accepted

Speaking as both a parent and the president, Barack Obama told young people that they shouldn't have to accept bullying as an inevitable part of growing up.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama convened a conference on preventing bullying Thursday, seeking to shine a spotlight on an issue that affects millions of young people each year. More than 150 students, parents and educators gathered at the White House to discuss with the Obamas and administration advisers ways they can work together to make schools and communities safer.

"If there's one goal, it's to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage," Obama said.

Obama urged the parents and teachers in the conference to create a support system for their children and students.

"As adults, we can lose sight of how hard it can be sometimes to be a kid," Obama said. "It's easy for us to forget what it's like to be teased or bullied, but it's also easy to forget the natural compassion and the sense of decency that our children display each and every day when they're given a chance."

China blogger angered over losing Facebook account

Chinese blogger and activist Michael Anti wants to know why he is less worthy of a Facebook account than company founder Mark Zuckerberg's dog.

Anti, a popular online commentator whose legal name is Zhao Jing, said in an interview Tuesday that his Facebook account was suddenly canceled in January. Company officials told him by e-mail that Facebook has a strict policy against pseudonyms and that he must use the name issued on his government ID.

Anti argues that his professional identity as Michael Anti has been established for more than a decade, with published articles and essays.

Anti, a former journalist who has won fellowships at both Cambridge University and Harvard University, said he set up his Facebook account in 2007. By locking him out of his account, Facebook has cut him off from a network of more than 1,000 academic and professional contacts who know him as Anti, he said.

Castro passes 100,000 Twitter followers

Cuba's Maximum Leader is also on top in cyberspace.

A Twitter account that tweets excerpts from former President Fidel Castro's frequent musings on world affairs has passed 100,000 followers - which the government says makes it the first official Cuban-themed Twitter account to break that threshold.

The account, set up about a year ago, has sent more than 1,750 tweets with Castro's thoughts, including his fears that the world is headed for nuclear Armageddon, and his warnings that NATO is planning to invade Libya.

AOL completes purchase of Huffington Post

AOL has completed its $315 million purchase of online news hub The Huffington Post. The acquisition is the latest move by CEO Tim Armstrong to reinvent the Internet icon as a go-to source for online news and other content.

This is the largest purchase AOL Inc. has made under Armstrong, a former Google advertising executive hired by AOL to engineer a turnaround.

Huffington Post is one of the top 10 current events and global news sites, with over 27 million U.S. visitors each month. The website covers a host of topics from politics to style to food, combining original work by Huffington Post's staff with links to articles and video from other news outlets.

The site has also become well-known for blog posts from celebrity contributors who work for free in return for a platform to express their opinions. Bill Gates and Robert Redford have written for Huffington Post as have several university presidents.

All told, AOL says the combined site will attract about 117 million U.S. visitors each month and 253 million worldwide.

The deal also adds Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington to AOL managerial roster. She will run AOL's expanding stable of websites, which include popular technology blogs Engadget and TechCrunch, Patch.com's network of suburban news sites and online mapping service MapQuest.

Huffington, a media star in her own right, became a prominent public figure as the wife of a multimillionaire running for the U.S. Senate in 1994. At the time, she disavowed any interest in becoming a political candidate herself, but made an aborted run for California governor in 2003.

Armstrong has been trying to build AOL's online news business since he was hired to reshape the company in April 2009. The makeover is designed to attract more visitors to AOL's websites to help boost ad sales. AOL had just a 5.3 percent share of the U.S. display advertising revenue in 2010, down from 6.8 percent in 2009, according to eMarketer. Facebook, meanwhile, accounted for 13.6 percent of display revenue last year, up from 7.3 percent in 2009.

Armstrong has also slashed thousands of jobs in an effort to stem costs. Several unconfirmed reports have suggested that that the company will lay off more workers now that the Huffington Post purchase has closed.

Founded in 2005, Huffington Post was owned by Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and other investors. They will get $300 million of the purchase price in cash. The remaining $15 million will be paid in AOL stock.

On a conference call with analysts last month, AOL Chief Financial Officer Arthur Minson said the company expects Huffington Post will generate $50 million in revenue this year, with a profit margin of 30 percent. By comparison, AOL drew $2.42 billion in revenue last year. About 53 percent came from ads, and most of the rest from its shrinking base of dial-up Internet subscribers.

Minson said the deal will save AOL $20 million a year by allowing it to eliminate operations that overlap with Huffington Post.

Foreign radio pulled off air in Ivory Coast

Two major foreign radio stations stopped broadcasting Wednesday in Ivory Coast in what appeared to be a renewed clampdown on foreign media amid an increasingly violent political crisis.

The country's regulatory agency for television and radio, which cut off all foreign television and radio broadcasters for more than a month last year, said Wednesday it had not cut off Radio France International and the BBC.

"We aren't aware of any measure against these stations," said Felix Nanihio, the agency's secretary general.

Over the weekend, partisans of the internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara, attacked the state television antenna, and successfully prevented it from broadcasting for more than a day.

State television is controlled by incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to cede power after a presidential election in November that the U.N. says he lost.

Thailand: Reuters journalist's death not solved

Thailand's Department of Special Investigation said Monday that a Reuters cameraman killed during political protests in Bangkok last year does not appear to have been shot by security forces, a reversal from preliminary findings that raised immediate questions about the inquiry.

In its long-delayed report into the April 10 death of Japanese journalist Hiro Muramoto, the DSI said the bullet that killed him was fired from an AK-47 rifle, which is a different weapon than those used by soldiers.

"Our investigation clearly shows that the military did not use AK-47s in their operations," DSI director-general Tharit Pengdith told a news conference. The agency is roughly the equivalent of the FBI in the United States.

Tharit, however, declined to say whether the report absolved soldiers of Muramoto's death, saying only that the finding was one piece of evidence in an ongoing investigation. The DSI report will be forwarded to the Metropolitan Police Bureau, "which might have additional evidence that could make the case clearer," he said.

A preliminary DSI finding leaked to Reuters late last year said the bullet that hit Muramoto came from an M16 rifle fired from the direction of soldiers during a chaotic clash with the so-called Red Shirt anti-government protesters, a group formally known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, or UDD.

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Philly exhibit looks at Chagall's life in Paris

A new exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is taking a fresh look at the influence that Paris had on Marc Chagall and his fellow modernists from 1910 to 1920.

The show, "Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle," opens Tuesday. It is being presented in conjunction with an international arts festival in Philadelphia that opens in April.

The exhibition "represents the Museum's contribution to this festival and will focus on the powerful influence that Paris had on Chagall and his contemporaries," museum director Timothy Rub said.

The show, located in the museum's Perelman annex, includes roughly 40 paintings and sculptures culled mainly from the museum's own collection but reconfigured in a new way. Other featured artists include Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani and Jacques Lipschitz.

Curator Michael Taylor said the show will provide visitors with "a unique opportunity to reconsider the cross-fertilization that took place" when Chagall and his contemporaries lived and worked in Paris.

Among the show's highlights is Chagall's painting "Paris Through the Window" from 1913, on loan from the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The work is a dreamlike and colorful interpretation of Chagall's world outside his studio window in the La Ruche building near Montparnasse, a thriving artistic community and home to Chagall and fellow Eastern European artists who fled the repression and persecution of their homelands.

"This is indisputably Chagall's early masterpiece," said curator Michael Taylor. Chagall's inspiration from Cubism and his enthusiasm for Paris, where he arrived after finishing art school in Russia, are clear in this and another massive work on display, "Half Past Three (The Poet)" of 1911.

Facebook, Google size up Twitter takeover

Google Inc . and Facebook Inc., plus others, have held low level takeover talks with Twitter that give the Internet sensation a value as high as $10-billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In December, Twitter raised $200-million in financing in a deal that valued it at $3.7-billion. The company, which allows users to broadcast 140-character messages to groups of followers, had 175 million users as of September.

• LinkedIn IPO could open floodgates for tech companies
• Google hands reins back to co-founder
• Facebook Deals pokes into Groupon’s territory
• Google to hire more than 6,200 workers this year

The Wall Street Journal reported on its website that executives at Twitter have held “low level” talks with executives at Facebook and Google in recent months about a possible takeover of Twitter.

Confirmed: Union-Bashing Right-Wing Media Stars Hannity, Limbaugh and O'Reilly Are AFL-CIO Union-Affiliated Members

In spite of their criticism of unions in Wisconsin, AlterNet has confirmed that leading right-wing pundits are American Federation Television and Radio Artists union members.

February 26, 2011 |  When it comes to the Wisconsin union fights, right-wing pundits Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have a couple of things in common. For starters, have all voiced their opposition to the plight of public employee unions in the state.

On Feb. 18, Limbaugh said on his radio program, "We are either on the side of the Wisconsin protesters or we are on the side of our country." Hannity has featured several guests critical of the union and its supporters, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, on his Fox News television and radio shows.

On the Feb. 18 edition of "The O'Reilly Factor," O'Reilly stated, "Governments can't afford to operate" because of "union wages and benefits." But it turns out that opposing workers' rights isn't the only thing these blowhards have in common.

As it turns out, all three of them belong to the American Federation Television and Radio Artists union (AFTRA), which is the AFL-CIO affiliate for television and broadcast workers.

Yes, you read that right. While Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh have been railing against union workers in Wisconsin, all three of them belong to an AFL-CIO affiliate union.

Not Just Slacktivism: Youth Become More Engaged Offline, Too

As Facebook and Twitter have come to play a larger role in getting the word out about issues such as unrest in Egypt, much of what is done using these social tools — particularly by younger users — has been criticized as “slacktivism.” In other words, it is seen as just empty gestures such as changing an avatar or posting a status update, rather than real activism around social issues. But a new study from the University of California has found that younger Internet users become more socially engaged in the real world, not just online. And the study also indicates that being online exposes younger users to more diverse viewpoints, in contrast to the view of the web as a political or social “echo chamber.”

The study, which was done by the university’s Humanities Research Institute, involved more than 2,500 high-school students, of which 400 were followed for a period of up to 3.5 years — making it one of the longest surveys of its kind. Supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the research looked at three types of behavior: politically-driven online participation, online exposure to diverse perspectives, and interest-driven online participation. It followed how often the students used blogs or social networks to share or discuss various social and political issues, how often they searched for information about such issues and how much they communicated with others.

Why I'm not married (and it's not because I'm an angry slut)

Tracy McMillan has gotten under my single-status skin.

I'm not sure how it took nearly a week for her Huffington Post column, "Why You're Not Married," to land in front of me, but it finally did. And now I'm fired up -- not in an angry way but in the sort of way that made me skip to my desk, excited to type.

To hear it from the thrice-divorced McMillan, I'm 41 and not married because of one (or more?) of six reasons: I'm a bitch, a slut, a liar, shallow, selfish or not good enough.

Wow. Is that all? Maybe I smell, too.

I'll be the first to admit I've got issues (c'mon, who doesn't?), but I'm not owning these. Perhaps she was talking about why her own marriages failed or was simply setting out to get a rise, which she did brilliantly. And while I've been guilty of occasional transgressions that might fit in some of those unflattering boxes, McMillan doesn't touch why I'm not married.

Based on the buzz surrounding her conversation-starting piece, I'm laying down and lining up behind reason number seven: Life happens.

Before reading on, know that I am not and refuse to be woe-is-me. Like Jennifer Aniston, minus the killer body and bank account, I'm happy. Really, I am. I skipped to my desk, dammit.

Of course I'd love to meet and marry that one and only, but in the meantime I'm living my life, and I'm taking everything that's been given me on the journey.

Maybe, like me, that's where you are, too.

Maybe you spent your adolescence clashing with a stepfather who didn't get you emotionally. And maybe the father who did get you had been relegated by the courts, when you were 2 and your parents divorced, to every-other-weekend access. Maybe your first love cheated on you, just around the time a second divorce rolled through your family. So maybe your faith in men and marriage was a little shaken before you teased your hair for the prom.

But that's nothing some therapy and better hair sense can't fix, right?

Maybe you're a searcher with a healthy dose of wanderlust, someone who needed time to commit to furniture, let alone a man, because there was so much you needed to see, do and become.

Maybe you were and still are a hopeful (I refuse to say hopeless) romantic who for years held a candle for the one you thought was The One. He'd changed your life, after all, when he lured you to Israel (though it could have been Thailand, for all you cared) -- allowing you to claim that Jewish side of yourself you'd never embraced before.

And maybe he slipped and called you his soul mate at one point, a statement you caught and remembered. So even after you read the diary he'd left out, oops, learned about the Brazilian woman with amazing eyes, broke up and dated others, you still held out hope for him. You stupidly took the crumbs he tossed you from time to time and thought they had meaning. Finally, you got through your thick noggin that the guy just wasn't that into you. Hell, he wasn't even all that nice to you. You learned he wasn't the one who got away. He was the one who got in the way.