Mediagazer: Getting It Wrong: The FTC and Policies for the Future of Journalism (Robert G. Picard/The Media Business)

Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! — I vowed I would never become a Twit. Now I have Tweeted nearly 10,000 Tweets. I said Twitter represented the end of civilization. It now represents a part of the civilization I live in. I said it was impossible to think of great writing in terms of 140 characters.

Robert G. Picard / The Media Business:

Getting It Wrong: The FTC and Policies for the Future of Journalism — Following hearings on the state of newspapers this past year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission staff has now prepared a discussion paper of potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …

Nick Bilton / Bits:

The Defense of Computers, the Internet and Our Brains — If you're reading this blog post on a computer, mobile phone or e-reader please stop what you're doing immediately. You could be making yourself stupid. And whatever you do, don't click on the links in this article.

Discussion: GigaOM, Rough Type, Fast Company, Boing Boing, The Huffington Post and Gizmodo

Takashi Kitazume / search.japantimes.co.jp:

Shift to charging for online news inevitable, Dow Jones chief says — Newspapers around the world will soon have no choice but to start charging for Web content, according to Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton, who called it “madness” to give away “expensive and valuable journalism for nothing.”

Bloomberg:

Cablevision Systems Agrees to Buy Bresnan for $1.36 Billion — Cablevision Systems Corp., the fifth-largest U.S. cable operator, agreed to buy Bresnan Communications Co. for $1.36 billion, people close to the negotiations said. — Cablevision competed against bids from TPG Capital …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and DealBook

Clark Hoyt / New York Times:

A Final Report From Internal Affairs — THIS is my last column as public editor of The Times. — For the past three years, my assignment has been to try to help this newspaper live up to its own high journalistic standards as it covered a historic presidential election, two wars …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared

J. David Goodman / New York Times:

Now in Blogs, Product Placement — Welcome to quid pro post. — When a marketer representing Absolut Vodka first offered to sponsor her annual blog festival, Louise Crawford guessed how the other bloggers might react. — “Some of them are going to call me a sellout,” Ms. Crawford remembered thinking.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared and City Room

Felix Salmon / MediaFile:

Zach Kouwe fired again — In February, a NYT blogger, Zachery Kouwe, was fired for plagiarism. The proximate cause of the firing was a complaint from the WSJ, but he'd had run-ins with other publications in the past, including nicking a memo from Dealbreaker without attribution.

Adam Tinworth / One Man & His Blog:

What Does Facebook Like Do For Blog Traffic? — The Typepad team have just published a graph of referrals from Facebook since they made Facebook Like available as an option for their users: — Now, admittedly, this is only from a few thousand blogs, and the figures are relative rather than absolute …

Discussion: Mashable! and Everything TypePad

David Cohen / WebNewser:

The Beautiful Game: Social Media Suits Up for 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa — With 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa set to kick off about one hour after this post, Twitter and Facebook — which meant nothing to the average soccer fan during 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany — are donning their jerseys and painting their faces.

Discussion: SportsGrid, rbr.com, Mediaite, Gawker, The Daily Beast, Speakeasy, Variety, The Atlantic Online, Digits and MediaMemo

Discussion: B&C, rbr.com, Speakeasy and Guardian

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
On Twitter, Even a New iPhone Can't Keep Up With the World Cup

Discussion: The Twitter Engineering Blog, WWD Media Headlines, NewTeeVee, The Book Bench, AdFreak, Beet.TV and Media Matters for America

Antonina Jedrzejczak / The Wire:

National Geographic Admits Photo Fraud (Plus: 10 Major Photoshopping Scandals) — Recently, National Geographic ran a photo by William Lascelles that had won the magazine's February 2010 Your Shot competition. — That would be the picture on the right, the authenticy of which some seem readers called …

Andrew Alexander / Washington Post:

For The Post, anonymous sources remain a problem — Last month, a story about conflicts between parents and childless adults began with an anecdote about an unleashed puppy pestering a toddler in a District park. After the child's father complained, the dog's owner told The Post that parents …

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

On the Media: Overdosing on social networking media — (Chris Jackson /, Chris Jackson / / February 2, 2008) — It's hard not to get irritated with a company that urges you to share all sorts of things but makes it hard for you to say who's part of the party.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …