These are some of the things that have caught my attention lately. It’s a more eclectic mix than just the news business, but then so’s life:

• Discovery rejects net broadcasting | FT.com – “We have opted not to put a lot of our content on to the web,” said David Zaslav, president and chief executive of the US-based Discovery . “There is not a very strong economic model, number one, and, number two, from a viewership perspective, despite how aggressively others have gone on to the web, the take-up rate is not that strong.”
• Embarrassing people into voting | John Robinson – “If you have to shame people into voting, I’m not sure I want them to vote.”
• ‘Nick Denton Is An Anti-Semite With A Nazi Mind’ – Economics guru Nouriel Roubini (if it is he) uses Facebook to self-immolate his reputation in a feud with Nick Denton …
• ‘News-advertisement lines getting blurred in Indian media’ | news.smashits.com – “With 66,000 publications in a score of languages, the Indian press had recorded an 11.2 percent growth in 2007, which was the second highest in the world after China. But the circulation was 177 copies per 1,000 compared to Japan’s 660.”
• Main 90% say newspapers still important sources of info | Yomiuri Shimbun – “Ninety percent of people believe newspapers will continue to be valuable sources of information and knowledge in the future, according to a recent Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

  Meanwhile, 85 percent said they trust newspaper reports, indicating that the vast majority of those polled hold the medium in high esteem.

  The poll was conducted ahead of Newspaper Week, which this year runs from Wednesday to Tuesday.”

• New Ways of Financing Journalism Will be Found, Georgia Journalists Say at NPC Forum | BroadcastNewsroom – “The future of journalism may be in niche products supported less by advertising and more by corporate sponsorships, by interest groups and by public broadcasting-style memberships…”