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.”

First some background: there is no question Mediaite and its sister sites have seen meteoric growth in its first year, which in turn has lead Bercovici and other media navel-gazers to wonder how that success could have occurred so quickly. Bercovici erroneously presumes that the majority of Mediaite’s traffic is a result of syndicated video. Last month, Mediaite had 1.4 MM unique visitors to the site, and in August is on track to beat that number. None of those visits include syndicated video plays, which if added, would more than double the total number of “Mediaite users.” Since many of those Mediaite syndicated video watchers are not coming to the site itself, they are not included in Mediaite’s monthly traffic numbers.

The more important problem with Bercovici’s piece is that in reality Mediaite is in regular contact with the news networks, whose clips we utilize. And at least one of the people quoted in his article told us that his quote was taken totally out of context. While flattering, it is ironic that Bercovici singles out Mediaite for a practice that so many websites engage in, including his own parent company AOL.  His first stop in reporting this story may have been a walk upstairs to check in on the video curating practices of the company that pays his check.

Tim Armstrong‘s AOL is a corporate behemoth that regularly features video clips from television networks on a number of their sites. Maybe most relevant here is a blog called TV Replay, which basically features other networks’ video clips with little news nor analysis. More importantly, TV Replay runs video advertising that is served by the AOL advertising server in front of the third party content, something that Mediaite does not do. Running “pre-roll” in front of another network’s content runs far afoul of currently accepted practices (Mediaite serves a banner ad.) While it’s true that AOL’s video clips are often shorter than Mediaite’s curated video — although Mediaite’s are no longer than many of our competitors – the far more egregious sin appears to be the pre-roll….the dollars.

We reached out to the very copyright and intellectual property lawyer Lloyd Jassin who was quoted in Bercovici’s original piece. He told us “If [AOL] is putting a video ad in front of an aggregated video clip from a third party without a licensing fee, they are arguably diverting revenue streams from the original content.” On the other hand, when available, Mediaite embeds the networks very own player, which means their pre-roll advertisement is included in our embeded player. Through a partnership with Magnify, a leading video platform provider, we are effectively helping networks make more ad revenue. A very different scenario than that at AOL.

When told of AOL’s practice of including video pre-roll in front of third party content, Jassin said “Mediaite seems to have a better argument than AOL.”

In the byzantine world of corporate media giants, there is always the chance that certain arrangements exist, but when we reached out for comment or clarification from AOL, they were unable to provide any material response at this time. In the meantime, it appears that when it comes to video curation, perhaps AOL’s glass house is not the wisest place from which to throw stones.

From Hastings’ Daily Finance interview last month:

“Whatever ground rules were put down, we followed them,” he said. “Whenever someone said something was off the record, I followed that. There is absolutely no gray area here. How it works is the reporter goes and hangs out with a subject and writes down what the subject says and does.”

One bit of evidence that Hastings played fair: He’s already been approved by the military for another assignment. “There’s actually an embed that’s waiting for me in Afghanistan,” he said.

According to the Associated Press, however, the Pentagon has denied Hastings’ embed request:

Defense Department spokesman Col. David Lapan told reporters that freelance writer Michael Hastings was rebuffed when he asked to accompany, or “embed,” with American forces next month.

The rejection came as the Pentagon ramped up an internal investigation into the circumstances behind some of the most salacious material Hastings used in his article in Rolling Stone. The Army inspector general is interviewing current and former McChrystal aides, The Associated Press has learned.

Lapan admitted denying an embed is “fairly rare,” but also said that journalists are not guaranteed to have their request granted. “There is no right to embed,” he said. “It is a choice made between units and individual reporters, and a key element of an embed is having trust that the individuals are going to abide by the ground rules. So in that instance the command in Afghanistan decided there wasn’t the trust requisite and denied this request.”

Hastings meanwhile already has a book deal following the Rolling Stone controversy and has said he is working on freelancing other work. While the denial may be disappointing for the reporter, it is hardly surprising given the fallout of the McChrystal story.

From a terrific writeup by Daily Finance’s Jeff Bercovici:

On the feud with MSNBC (Specifically, Olbermann):

“We did not start this abuse, which we thought went way beyond … It was personal and went way beyond — not on me but on others. Finally, we had to allow people to retaliate. The moment they stop, we’ll stop. We don’t believe in it, and we don’t think it’s good business.”

On the White House:

“”As for the tensions with the White House, I think they overplayed it. It’s probably been good for us in terms of ratings … We haven’t really had any continuing problem there at all. We cover them, and they have said publicly that we are absolutely fair in our reporting of the White House. They just don’t like one or two of our commentators, which we understand.”

On  the “icing out” of FNC from interviews with “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg

“All our competitors…immediately went to the White House and complained and said, ‘This is not the way to treat anybody in the media.’”

Apart from spicing up what could be a dry bit of business procedure in more cautious hands, Murdoch’s outspokenness during earnings calls is smart media strategy: It allows him to get out of the trap of speaking to reporters who might be hostile or reporters who might be accused of being too sympathetic (odds are, many of whom are his employees) and to simply get his message out to the public.

Related:

Bercovici: Murdoch dishes on Fox News feuds with White House, MSNBC

Peter Kafka also has a great set of running notes on the earnings call over at AllThingsD.

Features editor Todd Pruzan and media columnist Jeff Bercovici were both cut loose when Portfolio folded in April. and were both snapped up by Daily Finance in short order (Portfolio.com recently relaunched under the Charlotte-based American City Business Journals Inc., another unit of Advance Publications, which owns Conde Nast). This move further indicates that AOL, which has done some aggressively smart hiring elsewhere on its blogs (most recently David Corn for “Politics Daily”), 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.

Gustin will covering tech/digital media and related subjects; a look at the masthead on the right-hand side of the homepage shows that there isn’t much on the beat that they don’t cover. Looks like Politics Daily isn’t AOL’s only trophy blog.

Related:
AOL Blossoms As Print Retreats [NYT]
NY Times Touts AOL’s Inflated Traffic; Ignores Internet Trickery Behind It [Mediaite]
At AOL, It’s Politics Daily, Not Hourly [WaPo]
Is Politics Daily AOL’s Trophy Blog? [Mediaite]

These are the words that Steve Brill uses to describe the way media outlets are passing out their wares for free on the web in an interview with The Atlantic’s Bob Cohn at the Aspen Ideas Festival. But lucky for them, all those stupidiotic giveaways will begin to give way to plausible subscription models once Journalism Online — Brill, former WSJ publisher Gordon Crovitz and media private equity man Leo Hindery, Jr.’s “engine” — 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.

Daily Finance reports that Journalism Online will be announcing its client list in the next two weeks. But, for what it’s worth, not a single potential client has outright turned them away.

Chris Anderson (earnestly?) inserted himself in the comment thread on The Atlantic’s site to remind all of us that he wrote a book recently about this sort of thing:

Additional coverage of Journalism Online: paidContent, editorsweblog.

Jeff Bercovici of Daily Finance saw it differently:

Spanfeller did not respond to messages, but his departure is thought by insiders to be a result of pressure by Elevation Partners, the private equity group that bought a large minority stake in Forbes three years ago. In May of this year, Elevation co-founder Roger McNamee resigned from the Forbes board and was replaced by Bret Pearlman, another Elevation Partners executive whose arrival was seen to herald a round of cost-cutting. Since then, rumors have circulated that Spanfeller’s days were numbered, even though he is said to be favored by president/COO Tim Forbes.

Folio’s Jason Fell was able reach the exiting CEO, who set the story straight:

I spoke with Spanfeller this afternoon and he denied reports that his leaving was pressured by Forbes investor Elevation Partners. “That’s just crappy reporting,” he said during a phone conversation. “Unless Elevation has the ability to stick thoughts and actions in my head, they had nothing to do with my decision to move on.”

Crappy reporting,” eh? Luckily for Bercovici, that alleged crappy reporting does not factor in his rankings on the Power Grid. (And yes, we know he checked.)