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    Categories: MagazineShift

4 Minute Roundup: Media Company Layoffs; Omidyar Startup

Here’s the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week’s edition, I look at the deep layoffs that are planned at AOL, the AP and BusinessWeek. In the case of AOL, the company plans to shed one-third of its workforce, or 2,500 staffers. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar announced plans to launch a news startup in Hawaii that will combine citizen journalism with professional reporting to cover local civic issues. I asked Just One Question to Bayosphere founder Dan Gillmor about Omidyar’s venture.

Check it out:

Background music is “What the World Needs” by the The Ukelele Hipster Kings via PodSafe Music Network.

Here are some links to related sites and stories mentioned in the podcast:

Google Makes AOL’s Turnaround Task Even Harder at AllThingsD

AOL Slashing A Third Of Staff; Armstrong Will Forego ’09 Bonus at PaidContent

AOL shows worst not over for media job cuts at Reuters

Layoffs begin at BusinessWeek at Talking Biz News

With Latest Layoffs, AP Hits Goal Of Reducing Payroll By 10 Percent at PaidContent

Aloha at Peer News blog

Omidyar to the Rescue of Professional News? at BusinessWeek

eBay Founder Starting Online News Site at InformationWeek

Ebay Founder Omidyar Shuttering His Twitter Project Ginx, To Launch Online News Site at ReadWriteWeb

Why it Matters that Pierre Omidyar is Launching a News Startup at MediaShift Idea Lab

Here’s the whole interview with Dan Gillmor:

Here’s a graphical view of last week’s MediaShift survey results. The question was: “What if Rupert Murdoch takes all News Corp. content out of Google?”

Also, be sure to vote in our poll about what will happen due to all the media company layoffs.

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.

Mark Glaser :Mark Glaser is founder and executive director of MediaShift. He contributes regularly to Digital Content Next’s InContext site and newsletter. Glaser is a longtime freelance journalist whose career includes columns on hip-hop, reviews of videogames, travel stories, and humor columns that poked fun at the titans of technology. From 2001 to 2005, he wrote a weekly column for USC Annenberg School of Communication's Online Journalism Review. Glaser has written essays for Harvard's Nieman Reports and the website for the Yale Center for Globalization. Glaser has written columns on the Internet and technology for the Los Angeles Times, CNET and HotWired, and has written features for the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Entertainment Weekly, the San Jose Mercury News, and many other publications. He was the lead writer for the Industry Standard's award-winning "Media Grok" daily email newsletter during the dot-com heyday, and was named a finalist for a 2004 Online Journalism Award in the Online Commentary category for his OJR column. Glaser won the Innovation Journalism Award in 2010 from the Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication. Glaser received a Bachelor of Journalism and Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Missouri at Columbia, and currently lives in San Francisco with his wife Renee and his two sons, Julian and Everett. Glaser has been a guest on PBS' "Newshour," NPR's "Talk of the Nation," KALW's "Media Roundtable" and TechTV's "Silicon Spin." He has given keynote speeches at Independent Television Service's (ITVS) Diversity Retreat and the College Media Assocation's national convention. He has been part of the lecture/concert series at Yale Law School and Arkansas State University, and has moderated many industry panels. He spoke in May 2013 to the Maui Business Brainstormers about the "Digital Media Revolution." To inquire about speaking opportunities, please use the site's Contact Form.

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