Mediagazer: FCC asks: Do media ownership limits make sense? (Joelle Tessler/Associated Press)

8:50 PM ET, June 20, 2010

Top News:

Steven Johnson / New York Times:

Yes, People Still Read, but Now It's Social — “THE point of books is to combat loneliness,” David Foster Wallace observes near the beginning of “Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself,” David Lipsky's recently published, book-length interview with him.

Discussion: stevenberlinjohnson.com and Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Nicholas Carr / San Francisco Chronicle:

As technology advances, deep reading suffers — Look closely at what you're reading right now. See those little spaces between the words? They may look unimportant, but the invention of word spaces, back in the Middle Ages, changed the course of culture.

thepomoblog.com:

The Evolving User Paradigm — In 1961, a high school track coach moved into the house next to mine and introduced my younger brother and me to track and field events like the high jump and pole vaulting. We had a big open field behind our house, which served as a buffer for the C&O railroad tracks that ran through the neighborhood.

Discussion: TeleRead and smays.com

Adriano Farano:

Newspass, Is Google Murdoch's best friend? — Find the original French version of this article on OWNI, digital journalism magazine. — Murdoch dreamed of it? Google has just made it. In its June 17 edition, the website of the respected Italian newspaper La Repubblica said the giant …

Discussion: MediaPost

Evelyn Rusli / TechCrunch:

Scribd's Decision To Dump Flash Pays Off, User Engagement Triples — You could call it the perfect storm. — Over the last few months, user engagement on Scribd has surged, according to CEO Trip Adler, thanks to its transition to HTML5, the introduction of the iPad, and Scribd's Facebook integration.

Discussion: GigaOM

Joelle Tessler / Associated Press:

FCC asks: Do media ownership limits make sense? — WASHINGTON - Even the news industry's free fall probably will not be enough to wipe out complicated federal rules designed to restrain the power of media companies. — For decades, the Federal Communications Commission …

Variety:

Digital gets high priority — Technology News: NBC.com hires writers to pen webisodes — While NBC continues its battle for viewers, the net is making a heavy online push as well.

Chris Morran / The Consumerist:

NY Times Threatens Suit Over Logo For Dead Newspaper — The New York Herald Tribune hasn't been published since the late '60s and it would likely not be remembered by most were it not for the now-iconic image of original manic pixie dream girl Jean Seberg attempting to sell copies of the paper …

Discussion: The Hood

JD Lasica / MediaShift:

6 Takeaways from ‘TechDirt Saves Journalism’ Event at Google — What will the journalism landscape look like five to 10 years from now? The megatrend of unbundled, specialty-focused niche sources of online information likely spells doom for many of today's lumbering media giants.

NPR's On the Media:

Information Wants to Be Expensive (On The Media: Friday, 18 June 2010) — Information Wants to Be Expensive — The idea that “information wants to be free,” says Michael Hirschorn in the current issue of the Atlantic, has been the most powerful meme of the past 25 years.

Discussion: Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog and The Atlantic Online

Conor Friedersdorf / The Atlantic Online:

Why Newspapers Aren't Investigating Honor Killings in America — Honor killings are horrific. — As I noted in my initial post on the matter, I admire and share Mark Steyn's staunch opposition to them, and I am glad that he is drawing more attention to the subject, even if he does hate my work.

Discussion: The Daily Dish

Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Knight News Challenge: Is a wiki site coming to your city? Local Wiki will build software to make it simple — Residents of Davis, Calif., have pulled off a feat that new media enthusiasts would love to replicate across the country. Since 2004, a local site has emerged as the go-to place …

Discussion: The Windy Citizen Full Feed