Mediagazer: Ex-Washington Post blogger David Weigel joins Slate (Michael Calderone/Yahoo! News)

10:10 PM ET, July 27, 2010

Top News:

John Cook / Yahoo! News:

Leaked files indicate U.S. pays Afghan media to run friendly stories — Buried among the 92,000 classified documents released Sunday by WikiLeaks is some intriguing evidence that the U.S. military in Afghanistan has adopted a PR strategy that got it into trouble in Iraq: paying local media outlets to run friendly stories.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Journalism and the World, Slate, Romenesko and Mother Jones

C.W. Anderson / Nieman Journalism Lab:
When do 92,000 documents trump an off-the-record dinner?

Discussion: Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic Online, Mother Jones, ProPublica, NPR, Open Culture, Politics Daily, CJR, Hot Air and Editors Weblog

Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
WikiLeaks Rolled Dice to Raise Its Profile

Discussion: Digits, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Daily Kos, techPresident, Computerworld, Reuters, New York Times, CNET News, The Nation, J-Source, Christian Science Monitor, The Politico, The Huffington Post, The Caucus and Beet.TV

Joel Meares / CJR:
WaPo, Time, and Others Play Catch-up on WikiLeaks

Discussion: On Media's Blog, New York Observer, Strupp, Time, Los Angeles Times, Swampland, THE WEEK and Hot Air

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Ex-Washington Post blogger David Weigel joins Slate — Journalist David Weigel, who resigned from the Washington Post last month after a leaked-email controversy, is joining Slate as a political reporter. — “I'm thrilled to be joining Slate, thrilled to be working with writers I've read …

Discussion: Mediaite, Runnin' Scared, New York Observer, National Review, Gawker, On Media's Blog, FishbowlDC and Politics Daily

Jennifer Van Grove / Mashable!:

MTV Releasing Facebook Game and iPhone App to Promote “Jersey Shore” — The second season of MTV's reality hit, Jersey Shore, will debut this coming Thursday. To build anticipation around the first episode fist-pump style, MTV is releasing a Facebook game and iPhone app that will feature …

Discussion: BRANDING UNBOUND

Emma Rosenblum / New York Magazine:

What the Times' Mean Snooki Profile Says About Celebrity Journalism — Cathy Horyn's “Sunday Styles” profile of Jersey Shore mascot Snooki has been getting attention as an unnecessarily nasty takedown of a somewhat oblivious target. Jezebel's Hortense Smith calls it “the cruelest profile I've seen …

Discussion: All Facebook, Runnin' Scared, FT Alphaville, PopWatch, tag me with a spoon and Salon

Brian Stelter / New York Times: Reality Show Payrolls Rise With Stardom

Justin Osofsky / Facebook Developers:

Working with Media Organizations to Build Social News — Small blogs to major media organizations focus on producing great content and surfacing it to the right people. Facebook Platform offers the ability to supplement this content by making the experience more social …

Discussion: The Next Web, Online Journalism Blog, Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard, Romenesko, All Facebook, Mashable!, Fast Company, The Wire, Editors Weblog and The Wrap

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Facebook launches a “Facebook + Media” page — Last night, Facebook unveiled a project that it's had in the works for a while: a media page devoted to journalists, developers, and other “media partners.” Facebook + Media is dedicated, it says, to “helping news, TV, video, sports …

Discussion: Hacks and Hackers …

Daniel Frankel / The Wrap:

The Twitter Effect Isn't What Hollywood Thought — The Twitter Effect. — The term entered the lexicon last summer after Universal's Sacha Baron Cohen comedy “Bruno” tumbled more than 36 percent in its first 24 hours in theaters. — One year later, the social media trend …

Discussion: The Big Picture and MediaPost

Dominic Ponsford / Editor's Blog:

The paywall debate: At the Financial Times there is no debate, it works — Wherever you stand on the great paywall debate, you can't argue with the fact that one UK national newspaper publisher has proved that a paywall can work. — Figures released by the Financial Times yesterday revealed …

Discussion: Press Gazette

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:
'FT's paywall helps us understand users'

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Redstone gifted rocker with his own stock — THR EXCLUSIVE: Mogul gave shares to Barbarellas singer — NEW YORK — Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone gave the lead singer of a girls' band some of his own company stock as a personal gift, according to a copy of the regulatory filing obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

Discussion: Company Town and MediaPost

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction:

Longlist announced for Man Booker Prize 2010 — Man Booker Dozen announced — The judges for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction today, Tuesday 27 July, announce the longlist for the prize, the leading literary award in the English speaking world. — A total of 138 books …

Discussion: GalleyCat, Jacket Copy, New York Magazine, New York Observer and The Second Pass

Patricia Sellers / Fortune:

Steve Jobs' mark on ABC's Lost — How the Apple CEO may have changed the course of the hit ABC show with one comment back in 2005. — by Patricia Sellers, editor-at-large — from left to right Carlton Cuse, Barry Jossen, Damon Lindelof, and Anne Sweeney

Dawn C. Chmielewski / Los Angeles Times:

Hulu's sharp decline in viewership underscores inconsistency in measuring size of online audience — Contradictory data from competing measurement firms make it hard for advertisers to determine which websites should get their business. — Keith Richman, chief executive of Break.com …

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Discovery Promotes Digital Media Head Campbell — Discovery Communications (NSDQ: DISCA) is giving corporate development exec Bruce Campbell some additional responsibilities as chief development officer and general counsel. At the same time, Campbell will be handing over his duties …

Discussion: Variety, Discovery Communications …, Guardian and MediaPost

Mark Fitzgerald / EditorandPublisher.com:

New ABC Publisher's Statement Will Count ‘Branded Editions’ and Nonpaid ‘Verified’ Circulations — CHICAGO — The Audit Bureau of Circulations' board approved sweeping changes in the way newspapers report circulation. — Among the changes: Newspapers that publish so-called “branded editions” …

Discussion: Romenesko, Newsonomics, paidContent and ReadWriteWeb

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Study: Most Brands Still Irrelevant on Twitter — Marketers Are Certainly Tweeting, but Users Are Barely Listening — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Attention brands: Twitter users aren't talking to you or about you. In fact, they barely know you exist. — That's one of the conclusions …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb

Richard / Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Recording Industry Giant Tries to Undermine ‘Safe Harbor’ Rules for Online Video Sites — San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of nonprofit groups have asked a federal appeals court to protect the “safe harbor” rules for online video service providers …

Discussion: NewTeeVee

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Newspapers Hit New Low as an Information Source — The number of Americans who say that newspapers are an important source of information continues to decline, according to a survey by the The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

Discussion: Bits, ReadWriteWeb, State of the Fourth Estate and News for Digital Journalists, more at Techmeme »

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

Boston Screamer: News nabs Convey to pummel Post — Kevin Convey's office at the Boston Herald isn't far from downtown Boston, but its windows look southeast, across a freeway, toward Southie, the longstanding Irish and white ethnic Boston enclave that, in the past two decades, has rapidly gentrified.

Discussion: FishbowlNY and Media Nation

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:

Value-added journalism — I asked Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, whether his paper should have started Wikileaks. I wondered whether the Guardian was looking at WIkileaks the way it looked at HuffPo when it started (that is, ‘darn, we should have thought of that, so we will’ ... and it started CommentIsFree).

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

Piers Morgan on Jay Leno Tonight, Will He Talk Larry King? — Tonight “America's Got Talent” judge Piers Morgan will be a guest on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” While Morgan is presumably there to discuss the semi-finals of the NBC talent show, Leno has promised to ask about that other show Morgan …

Discussion: On Media's Blog

Amy Wicks / WWD Media Headlines:

Deborah Needleman New Editor in Chief of WSJ Magazine — Deborah Needleman has been named editor in chief of WSJ. and editor of a new weekly Saturday lifestyle section in development, slated for fall. During the past few months, Needleman has served as a consultant for the new weekend section.

Discussion: New York Observer, FishbowlNY, The Huffington Post, The Wrap, Romenesko, industry.bnet.com, MinOnline, The Wire, BusinessJournalism.org … and Media Decoder

Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:

Just-launched iNeedaGreatStory.com claims it ‘makes life easier for editors everywhere’ — iNeedaGreatStory.com makes editors' lives easier — CHICAGO Introducing iNeedaGreatStory.com, a new resource for anyone in need of well-reported, well-told, well-illustrated content for websites and publications at an affordable price.