Mediagazer: Can We Talk? — On July 7, CNN fired its senior editor … (Thomas L. Friedman/New York Times)

11:35 PM ET, July 18, 2010

Top News:

Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:

Can We Talk? — On July 7, CNN fired its senior editor of Middle East affairs, Octavia Nasr, after she published a Twitter message saying, “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah,” one of the most prominent Lebanese Shiite spiritual leaders who was involved in the founding of the Hezbollah militia.

Discussion: Globe and Mail, Ph.D. Octopus, Journalism and the World and Mediaite

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger — ARLINGTON, Va. — In most newsrooms, the joke would have been obvious. — It was April Fools' Day last year, and Politico's top two editors sent an e-mail message to their staff advising of a new 5 a.m. start time for all reporters.

Adrian Chen / Gawker:

The Art of Trolling: Inside a 4chan Smear Campaign — Last night, the users of 4Chan.org's notorious /b/ message board decided declared war on the lead singer of an obscure electro-pop band. More than 12 hours later, they're still waging it. This is how the Internet's worst trolls works.

Discussion: dygiscape and Runnin' Scared

Peter Preston / Guardian:

The Mail's online miracle: or how to get paid without a paywall — The debate is always black and white: put up a paywall or lose money. But the Daily Mail's website is getting so big it needn't do either — Inside Mail HQ at Northcliffe House in London, print and online editions are run separately.

Discussion: FleetStreetBlues

Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:

Conan O'Brien's Love/Hate Relationship with the Internet — Back in January Conan O'Brien was supposed to come to San Francisco for a SF Sketchfest Tribute and Q&A about his career. And then, he lost his dream job as he said, “s**t really hit the fan” and he had to cancel.

Discussion: Talk Show News, more at Techmeme »

Dan Sabbagh / Beehive City:

Times paywall: the numbers are out (should we charge for this?) — How's The Times/Sunday Times paywall thing doing? — Well, Beehive City said we didn't believe that the endless graphs about the levels of web traffic to The Times homepage told you anything.

Discussion: paidContent:UK, Guardian, Jon Slattery and Financial Times

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Online, a Journalist Adds a Business Role — Kelly Wallace's move from television to the Internet embodies the lingering differences between the forms. — Ms. Wallace spent a decade in front of the camera as a reporter and anchor at CBS and CNN. Then she got the online itch …

Ben Brantley / New York Times:

Among Celebrities, Mystery's Not Fashionable — WHERE have all the sphinxes gone? There's not a person on this planet today who could make my heart stop as it did when I saw Greta Garbo on Madison Avenue. It was the last day of 1985, on an afternoon steeped in that merciless brightness …

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

Why Web host shut down 73,000 blogs a mystery — Blogetery.com, a little-known WordPress platform used by more than 70,000 blogs, was shut down by its Web hosting company mroe than a week ago and nobody seems willing to say why or who is responsible. — BurstNet, the Web-hosting company …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, PlagiarismToday, TorrentFreak and Techdirt, more at Techmeme »

Andrew Alexander / Washington Post:

Why the silence from The Post on Black Panther Party story? — Thursday's Post reported about a growing controversy over the Justice Department's decision to scale down a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party. The story succinctly summarized the issues …

Discussion: Mediaite, Chickaboomer, Media Matters for America, The Politico and The Week

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Zero tolerance for latency — The big battle of the coming years will be a battle for time. For media related software or for web design, the fight will be for customers' or readers' attention, the challenge will be to prevent them from fleeing elsewhere and to give them more in less time.

Richard Lawson / Gawker:

Rupert Murdoch to Staff: Don't Slack Off Just Because It's Summer — Crikey! Ragin' media bandicoot Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp., would like his slaves/employees to know that, despite it being languid, lazy summer, he doesn't want anyone taking a relaxed attitude toward work.

Discussion: Runnin' Scared