Mediagazer: Rupert Murdoch to Staff: Don't Slack Off Just Because It's Summer (Richard Lawson/Gawker)

12:00 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.

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

n+1:

More on books, technology, Luddism — Image: Phiz. “Engraving of a rioting mob of Luddites.” 1813. From the LIFE archive at Google. — In response or in addition to the two essays this week on the future of reading and writing, we've asked the authors, as well as editor Mark Greif, to answer us two questions.

Discussion: New York Observer

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

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.

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, Media Matters for America, The Politico and The Week

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Yes, Even Big Professional Journalism Operations Make Mistakes — For the most part, the way this blog works is that we write stories based on what's being reported on elsewhere, and add some analysis or opinion or response to the story. Then, we let the discussion happen.

Andrew Porter / Telegraph:

Licence fee for ‘wasteful’ BBC will be cut — Television viewers can soon expect to pay less for their BBC licence fee as part of the austerity drive in public spending, Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, will signal on Saturday. — The broadcaster has been responsible for …

Discussion: BBC News

Kim Zetter / Threat Level:

Gawker Media Deals Its Way Out of iPhone Search Warrant — A California court has granted the request of local prosecutors to withdraw a controversial search warrant against an editor for the tech site Gizmodo over its scoop about the iPhone 4G. — Prosecutors reached an agreement with Thomas Nolan …

more at Techmeme »

Matt Zimmerman / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
San Mateo D.A. Withdraws Controversial Gizmodo iPhone Warrant

Discussion: GroundReport.com, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, TUAW, Fast Company, MacRumors, SlashGear, Poynter Online, The Loop and Silicon Alley Insider

Lauren Kirchner / CJR:

New Magazines and Books to Launch on iPad — Although I am loath to give Richard Branson any more publicity than he already gets, I was intrigued to read that Virgin is launching a new consumer magazine called Maverick, to be available exclusively for iPad and iPhone, and eventually Android.

Discussion: MediaPost, Digits and Gizmodo

The Morning News:

Paper Tigers [Roundtables] — Sports are stupid. Beautiful. Dull. Transcendent. Most of all, they're more than just games, and MATT ROBISON's assembly of sports writers, critics, freaks, and authors tell us why.

Alexandra Alter / Wall Street Journal:

Luxury Lit: A Book For $75,000 — Publishers are marketing elaborate editions with all sorts of pricey features, banking on them to grow in value like rare coins or artworks — For $75,000, you can buy a piece of Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar. — Luxury publisher Kraken Opus mixed …

Discussion: New York Observer

Zeke Turner / New York Observer:

Changes at The Paris Review's Poetry Desk, Lorin Stein at Play … “I think there's a good argument for having fun when you work,” said Paris Review editor Lorin Stein on the phone from his White Street offices yesterday. “Life is short! And none of us is making a banker's salary, right?”