Mediagazer: What the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ flap says about the state of journalism (Brian McDermott/Online Journalism Review)

2:55 PM ET, August 25, 2010

Top News:

Brian McDermott / Online Journalism Review:

What the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ flap says about the state of journalism — By Brian McDermott: The Ground Zero mosque does not exist. — There is, of course, the planned Park51 Muslim community center and mosque, which local authorities approved for construction on Park Place in lower Manhattan …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared

Kelly McBride / Poynter Online:

SEO Makes It Too Late for Truth for ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ — It's not at ground zero and it's not just a mosque. — A number of news outlets have gone to great lengths recently to correct this falsehood. — PolitiFact has made several rulings on the issue.

Discussion: Ethics, MarketWatch, Romenesko and Journalism.co.uk

Journalism.org:
MOSQUE CONTROVERSY, IRAQ WAR DOMINATE THE NEWS

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, TVNewser, NPR, The Wire, CJR, PewResearch.org, On Media's Blog and Media Decoder

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon Loses E-Book Deal — A month after jolting the book industry with a deal to give Amazon.com Inc. exclusive digital access to some of the country's best-known literary works, literary agent Andrew Wylie is largely abandoning the agreement. — The Amazon deal was struck after Mr. Wylie failed …

Discussion: Publishers Weekly, DailyFinance, Future Tense and NYConvergence, more at Techmeme »

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

Random House Wins Battle for E-Book Rights — An e-book battle between Random House and the Wylie Agency appears to have ended. — After a monthlong standoff, Random House said on Tuesday that it now held the rights to publish e-book editions of 13 classic books that the literary agent Andrew Wylie …

Discussion: Poynter Online and Electronista

Media Decoder:

National Journal Hires Major Garrett From Fox News — Major Garrett, the chief White House correspondent for Fox News, is quitting his job at the cable news channel after eight years. He is joining National Journal as a Congressional correspondent. — Mr. Garrett's surprise departure comes …

Discussion: Romenesko, Mediaite, Strupp, The Huffington Post and Inside Cable News

Wall Street Journal:

Apple Close to Deal With Disney to Rent ABC Shows Via iTunes — Apple Inc. is in discussions with major TV companies to offer 99-cent rentals of television episodes, according to people familiar with the situation, as the company tries to reshape the television business around its devices …

Discussion: Reuters, Electronista and Fortune

Bloomberg:
Apple Said to Prepare 99-Cent TV Shows to Fend Off Netflix, Hulu

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

CBS Evening News Ratings Tie 20-Year Low — For any person who believes that the American people should be paying greater attention to the war in Afghanistan, the following statistic might disappoint. — On a week that included the anchor Katie Couric's trip to Afghanistan, the …

Discussion: Romenesko, TVWeek.com, TVNewser and On Media's Blog

Jim Barnett / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Googling serendipity: How does journalism fare in a world where algorithms trump messy chance? — Twelve years ago, when I was reporting on the pending Microsoft antitrust case, I learned that what was really at stake wasn't immediately apparent in the legal briefs.

Peter Lauria / The Daily Beast:

Sumner's $1 Million Payoff — The billionaire chairman of Viacom and CBS has settled with a deputy who accused him of loutish behavior. Peter Lauria on the latest of Sumner Redstone's costly antics. — CBS Corp. spared its billionaire chairman Sumner Redstone the potential embarrassment …

Discussion: New York Observer, The Wire, Gawker and Company Town

Jeff Bercovici / DailyFinance:

E5 Global Media Courting Writer Michael Wolff as Editorial Director? — Since taking over The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and Mediaweek earlier this year, former Conde Nast executive Richard Beckman has been making noise by hiring, or trying to hire, the sorts of big names you don't usually find …

Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider

Wall Street Journal:

The ABCs of E-Reading — New Devices Are Changing Habits. People Are Reading More, Even While in a Kayak — People who buy e-readers tend to spend more time than ever with their nose in a book, preliminary research shows. — A study of 1,200 e-reader owners by Marketing …

Discussion: New York Observer and Silicon Alley Insider

Marc Graser / Variety:

‘Angry Birds’ flies with Hollywood — IPhone game eyes TV shows, movies, toys — The “Angry Birds” are flocking to Hollywood. — Rovio, the Finnish creator of the hit iPhone and iPad game, which has sold more than 6.5 million downloads, wants to turn the property into a major franchise …

Discussion: The Wrap, TechCrunch, Telegraph, Gawker, /Film, Voices on All Things Digital and New York Magazine, more at Techmeme »

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

Janice Min's Hollywood Reporter: A Bitchy Switch — Who's the bitch now? Taking a page from her reign at Us Weekly, Janice Min has been making her presence felt on the Hollywood Reporter website. — Many inside the industry were shocked at a lead story on Tuesday that felt like a broadside …

Discussion: New York Observer and Hollywood Reporter

Andrew Littledale / Backstage.bbc.co.uk blog:

Pulling related web content into a live TV stream — Like everyone else, we have been wondering what set top boxes connected to the internet will look like for the user. What kind of interfaces will work best when TV and the web become bedfellows? — We decided to mock up a prototype application …

Discussion: paidContent:UK

Keach Hagey / The Politico:

New life for Washington Times — The owner of the Washington Times entered into an agreement Tuesday to sell the paper to another entity affiliated with its parent, the Unification Church, which would return funding to the cash-strapped conservative publication, POLITICO has learned.

Discussion: Associated Press, Washington Post, Gawker, City Desk, New York Observer, On Media's Blog, TPMMuckraker and Romenesko

Daniel B. Roberts / Salon:

Tao Lin: Lit “it boy” for the Internet age — Tao Lin gets arrested in a bookstore. He lets fans buy shares of his book. Meet literature's Net-savvy new star — Tao Lin is the next big thing in urban hipster lit. At least, so say the people that read his books on the subway.

Discussion: New York Observer

Sergio Acosta / retoNet:

Multimedia jobs are for robots — This post is also available in: Spanish — “The New York Times is looking for a technology-savvy journalist”, thus begins the job offer. — It is a short text, written in that style in which half of humanity is being gradually discarded.

John Cook / Yahoo! News:

What does News Corp. want in return for that $1 million? — Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. raised eyebrows last week with a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association that the New York Times described as “bold” and “one of the biggest [contributions] ever given by a media organization.”

Discussion: The Huffington Post and On Media's Blog

Joe Strupp / Strupp:

Former White House Correspondents President Chen: Fox News Seating ‘A Travesty’ — Allowing Fox News to move up to the first row in the White House briefing room was a “travesty of a decision,” according to Ed Chen, the former White House Correspondents Association president who left that post just a few months ago.