Media Events

Mediabistro caught up with Notional CEO Ricky Van Veen at the launch party for the company last night at the IAC building. Van Veen -- co-founder and former editor-in-chief of CollegeHumor.com -- told us Notional "is a television and web production company with the DNA of an Internet company." The company's initial block of programming includes content from the Food Network and HGTV.

Notional has a focus on "scalable" content, including game shows. Said Van Veen, "We want to do scripted, we want to do comedy, but the potential for that, in terms of scalability, is a lot less."

As of now, Notional is focusing on the Web and TV, but Van Veen hinted that the company will look to do more in mobile and other platforms. "We know how to get the web excited, to make it go to the top of Digg," he said. Notional is also collaborating with former co-chairman of NBC Entertainment Ben Silverman, who will also soon be launching the programming lineup for his own IAC funded production company. "We've got some good stuff in the works," Van Veen said of the collaboration.

Related: More On Ben Silverman's New Project

The American Society of Magazine Editors is gearing up for submissions to its 2010 National Magazine Awards. For the first time ever, the awards will include a separate ceremony for digital media, which last year included four categories. This year, they have been expanded into 12 different awards, including blogging and podcasting.

This afternoon at The Princeton Club, members of ASME gathered to hear Will Dana of Rolling Stone, Peggy Northrop of Reader's Digest, and John Rasmus of National Geographic Adventure give their opinions to moderator Cindi Leive of Glamour on what it takes to win both the digital and traditional awards, arguably the most prestigious in the industry. All three of the panelists have both judged and won previous magazine awards.

continued...

Last night at the Thomson Reuters building in Times Square, Jack Shafer of Slate.com moderated a panel for millennium journalism entitled "Audience and the Media: A Shaky Marriage."

The speakers at the event each came from a mainstream news outlet, with differing ideas on how to keep credibility and objectivity in their field while maintaining their audiences' interests.

Michael Oreskes, editor of The Associated Press, came out swinging. "We're in an era of mistrust...[the mainstream media] have done a truly lousy job [explaining] why we mattered," he said. "We got away with it for a long time until the Internet. Suddenly why we failed to explain who we were really mattered."

Lisa Shepard, ombudsman of National Public Radio, shared a similar sentiment, "The public does depend on the media, and loves to kick us," she said, explaining that news organizations have been "horrible at marketing themselves" as credible resources, even as they have become more transparent and willing to admit their mistakes.

"Lets be realistic," Shepard told the crowd. "When you are putting out a 24-hour news product, you are going to have mistakes every day."

But does admitting those mistakes and issuing corrections make a publication seem more credible, or less? Read on for more from last night's panel.

continued...

Video: Chef, restaurateur and iVillage Food contributor Donatella Arpaia prepares her quick Sunday ragu at the launch party for iVillage.com/food

Last night at the Culinary Loft in SoHo, iVillage celebrated the launch of its newly revamped food destination, iVillage.com/food, with basil-limoncello cocktails, Web site demos, and a veritable Italian feast prepared by New York restaurant fixture and iVillage contributor Donatella Arpaia.

On the heels of September's entertainment site relaunch, which Lauren Zalaznick, president of NBC Universal's Women and Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, says spurred a spike in page views, membership, and message board activity, iVillage hopes to recreate that success with its latest makeover in the Food category.

"Almost three-fourths of all women who are on the Web rely on the Internet for meal planning and healthy eating," said Zalaznick. "If we fill that gap... that's how iVillage is going to win."

Christina Bender, director of product development for iVillage, acknowledged, "We know competition's stiff," citing FoodNetwork.com, Delish.com, and MarthaStewartLiving.com as rivals. Bender said the new site's secret weapon will be to "uncover what women are already saying" in the vibrant iVillage community of 20 million unique monthly visitors, bolstered by their unique access to NBC Universal's "premier content," which includes Bravo's explosively popular "Top Chef" brand.

"This is a community-centric site, not a user-generated site," Zalaznick said. It's "a big, rollicking portal that behaves like a series of niches."

"You have to be able to adapt and keep up with the way women use media," said chief content officer Angela Matusik, who says the revamp is meant to "modernize the message board" with new tools and ways to contribute to the conversation. Next up to go under the knife? The Astrology channel, followed by Health, Beauty and Family. And stay tuned, Matusik added, for a new iVillage social media community platform set to launch sometime in 2010.

Read on for a breakdown of the site's features and fabulous food photos:

continued...

When Chase Carey speaks, the media world listens. And rightfully so. As Rupert Murdoch's number two, News Corp.'s COO's opinions do have a certain amount of clout.

This morning, at the Media and Money Conference, hosted by Nielsen and Dow Jones, Carey spoke about a number of topics -- from Comcast seeking majority ownership of NBC Universal to the future of network television to pay walls for online journalism.

Carey said he thought the NBCU deal "makes sense for Comcast," adding that it is a "pretty smartly structured deal" for the company. He also seemed pretty excited about the fact that the deal would test the regulatory waters under the new administration, perhaps setting the stage for or heading off other deals in the future. "These are uncharted waters with major issues with two big companies," he said.

Carey seemed positive that the major players involved would be left with "regulatory baggage" after the deal was completed, although he doubted any assets would have to be sold.

As for pay walls, which News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal has excelled at and Murdoch has pushed to extend across all his brands, Carey emphasized consistency. He said he was interested in "creating a great experience around content itself," adding that people will pay for value and a good experience. "Quality journalism has value," he said.

Later, when a reporter quizzed him about Murdoch's plans to take his sites off Google and the Journal's leaky wall, Carey said he wanted the pay wall to remain consistent -- if only subscribers can access certain content on WSJ.com, then others shouldn't get it for free. But, there is some content you can get for free on the site, Carey pointed out. He didn't outline any plans for creating the consistency he championed.

More from the Media and Money Conference, after the jump

continued...

In honor of Veteran's Day, Cosmopolitan magazine and Maybelline New York teamed up to create a new Guinness Book world record: most kisses collected in a day. For seven hours, the Cosmo van drove around to various parts of Manhattan and encouraged onlookers to come inside and write a message on a postcard to American troops overseas, then try on one of 42 shades of lipstick and kiss the card. The cards will be sent by the USO to the soldiers, who are expected to receive them on January 1 -- a New Year's kiss without any worries of swine flu.

An employee from Guinness was on hand to tally the number of total kisses during the 12 hour span (from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.), and though the spokespeople couldn't give us an estimate of how many they had already received by 4:30, there was a steady line around the van to participate for the duration of our visit.

And, as if a kiss wasn't encouragement enough, Cosmo and Maybelline donated $1 to the USO for every smooch collected.

More pictures after the jump.

continued...

On Friday, we stopped by City Winery to check out TEDxEast, the first independently organized TED event in New York.

The focus of the afternoon event was "Developing World Ideas," and it featured presentations by a number of speakers including Suzy Welch, Dr. Naif Al Mutawa, John Wood and GroundReport.com's Rachel Sterne, as well as TED Conference videos like Emmanuel Jal's moving story of a child soldier from the TED Global 2009 conference earlier this year and performances of song and dance. In between we sipped wine and mingled with the 250 attendees.

The event sold out, and with hundreds of applicants eager for a ticket, some were turned away, co-organizer Julianne Wurm told FishbowlNY. Overall, the event was a success, with 3,500 unique viewers clicking in to its livestream. "The feedback from participants has been very positive and since it is all about their experience it would seem to have been successful," Wurm said.

But if you missed it, never fear. Wurm, a writer and professor at Columbia University's Teachers College, said she and co-organizer Edward Rashba are hoping to do another TEDxEast event in the future, if their schedules allow.

"We are hoping to do future events but this is a lot of work in addition to our regular lives," she said. "We are going to savor the completion of this and are considering something in April but that is still to be determined."

John Wood

More pictures after the jump

continued...

Veteran and motivational speaker J.R. Martinez honored at last night's Heroes Gala Photo: Brad Barket/PictureGroup

You've seen the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) commercials: They're the ones on TV and on Hulu where a young man returns home from war and is greeted with empty streets reminiscent of a post-apocalyptic Roland Emmerich movie. Suddenly, another man in camo comes out to a street corner and shakes the man's hand. IAVA's slogan for 2009? "We've Got Your Back."

And got your back they do: In 2008, Paul Rieckhoff, Iraq veteran and founder of IAVA, lobbied Congress to pass the G.I Bill which ensures affordable college education to all veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. This year, the IAVA is also working to increase health care coverage of veterans by $4.5 billion.

The stars were out last night at New York's Gotham Hall for the third annual Heroes Gala of the D.C. grassroots lobby group, but nobody was looking at the celebrities. Instead, the real stars of the evening were the servicemen and women themselves, who populated the non-profit, non-partisan event hosted by Brian Williams, as well as Rieckhoff, MTV's Van Toffler and veteran-cum-actor-cum-motivational spokesman J.R. Martinez, who delivered the night's most moving speech after being awarded for his courageous service for veterans.

More photos from the night after the jump

continued...

Last week's tragedy at Fort Hood, so close to Veteran's Day, left the public scared and confused -- not only because of the senseless nature of the crime which left 13 dead, but because some of the information that leaked out about the event from the ground turned out to be false.

After US Airways Flight 1549 fell into the Hudson River last year -- and the first photo of the event landed on Twitter -- people have looked to Twitter to provide first-hand accounts and early information about breaking news. But what if the information from these citizen journalists (if that's what they are), isn't accurate?

Yesterday, WNYC's Brian Lehrer hosted Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine and Paul Carr of TechCrunch in a debate about the relative merits of citizen journalism and technology.

After the jump, how the debate unfolded

continued...

New York Times' Mark Bittman Makes Dinner for Mother Jones Magazine Photo credit: Sarah Kehoe
Last night Mother Jones, the political magazine founded in the 70's with a focus on investigative journalism, hosted a fundraiser at the Institute for Culinary Education. The New York Times' food writer Mark Bittman, who just completed the New York City Marathon two days earlier, hosted dozens of donors in the Institute's kitchen, where they cooked up a "minimalist" meal.

Bittman, who contacted the magazine after their issue last year on food security, spent the night mingling with admirers and Jones staffers while teaching them how to roll their own pasta and make their own casseroles with more greens than meat.

Meanwhile, Mother Jones' had a couple announcements of its own.

continued...