Today Aol Daily Finance reporter Jeff Bercovici attacked Mediaite for the way we aggregate, curate and publish video clips from various television networks. But it seems that Aol engages in a far more egregious practice: running their own video advertisements in front of third-party video content; a big no-no in the world of Internet video aggregation. A high level source at one cable news network, whose videos Aol regularly uses, tells us that there is “no licensing agreement in place.”

In a recent interview, Michael Hastings, author of the Rolling Stone article that led to the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, denied claims he broke any pre-arranged ground rules for his story, and added that he had another military embed in Afghanistan. The Pentagon, however, is denying him an embed assignment, citing trust problems.

Who says corporate Q1 2009 earnings calls can’t make for a riveting show? In an earnings call regarding News Corporation’s performance this past quarter, Rupert Murdoch went beyond the balance sheet, opening up to shareholders and reporters about the broken truce with MSNBC and the battle with the White House:

AOL’s Daily Finance blog has signed a third ex-Portfolio staffer to join its Daily Finance team, further indicating that the Web 1.0 online giant is serious about expanding — and spending the money to do so.

Where other sites are being forced to cut back and do more with less, AOL seems to be merrily picking up name-brand talent in what is becoming a regular habit.

Stupid. The definition of stupidity. Idiotic. Beyond belief. A Disaster. That’s what Steve Brill thinks of media outlets who pass out their wares for free on the web. But lucky for them, all those stupidiotic giveaways will begin to give way to plausible subscription models once Journalism Online is up and running this fall. The engine will provide “one simple way to be a content consumer,” and help newspapers and magazines, you know, make money again.

Yesterday we reported news that Jim Spanfeller was stepping down as the CEO of Forbes.com. Many saw it as yet another by-product of a declining ad market which has hit the business journals particularly hard.

Jeff Bercovici of Daily Finance saw it differently: