Mediagazer: The Attention Deficit: Plenty of Content, Yet an Absence of Interest (Ethan Zuckerman/Nieman Reports)

11:50 AM ET, September 10, 2010

Top News:

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Coverage of Koran Case Stirs Questions on Media Role — A renegade pastor and his tiny flock set fire to a Koran on a street corner, and made sure to capture it on film. And they were ignored. — That stunt took place in 2008, involving members of the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka …

Discussion: Romenesko, Guardian, Free Press, PostPartisan, Telegraph, Most Recent Home Page Posts …, Chickaboomer, Orlando Sentinel, Editors Weblog, David Higgerson, The Daily Dish, Gothamist and CNN

Sarah Lacy / TechCrunch:

Don't Blame Media, Blame the Media-Audience Infinite Loop — I've spent two days listening to and reading near-constant coverage of the wacko who's planning to burn Korans in Gainsville, Florida, and increasingly the stories have been about whether or not all the press attention has been irresponsible.

Discussion: Mediaite, Romenesko, New York Times, Lost Remote, International Media, Strupp and Z on TV

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:
Plan to burn Qurans ignites media frenzy

Discussion: Everyday Ethics, Salon, Howard Kurtz, Talking Points Memo, Romenesko, George's Bottom Line, The Huffington Post, Silicon Alley Insider, Threat Level, The Register, The Daily Caller, CrunchGear and USA Today

Jenna Wortham / Bits:

Betaworks and The Times Plan a Social News Service — Something is stirring deep within the technology incubator Betaworks: A personalized news service called News.me that is being developed in collaboration with The New York Times. — On Thursday, a cryptic placeholder for the service went live.

Discussion: Mashable!, paidContent, Romenesko, The Next Web, Fast Company, Trends in the Living Networks, New York Magazine and Lost Remote, more at Techmeme »

Newsweek:

Exclusive: WikiLeaks Collaborating With Media Outlets on Release of Iraq Documents — A London-based journalism nonprofit is working with the WikiLeaks Web site and TV and print media in several countries on programs and stories based on what is described as massive cache …

Discussion: The First Post, media 360, New York Magazine and Boing Boing

Kim Zetter / Threat Level: Massive Cache of Iraq War Docs to Be Published by WikiLeaks

Jack Shafer / Slate:

The Fallen Status of Books — Hard times for hardcovers. — No greater pride befalls a scholar, a thinker, a journalist, a business executive, or other writer than to have a party thrown in honor of the publication of his book. A book party is like a wedding, a birthday party, a baptism …

Discussion: Change of Subject

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

In Adding Book Section, the Journal Bucks Trend — In the last few years, newspapers including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe have ended their freestanding book review sections. — Now The Wall Street Journal is bucking the trend and starting one of its own.

John Koblin / New York Observer:
Wall Street Journal To Launch A Book Review Section

Discussion: Media Buyer Planner, GalleyCat, Romenesko, New York Magazine, Crain's New York Business, The Wire, Shaping the Future …, Gawker and On Media's Blog

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter Online:

Public Media API Could Be ‘Engine of Innovation’ for Journalism — Journalists from American Public Media, Public Radio Exchange, Public Radio International, PBS and NPR have spent months scoping out how they would create an online pipeline to share and distribute public media content on any platform.

Discussion: GigaOM, Public Radio Exchange, NPR, paidContent and Nieman Journalism Lab, more at Techmeme »

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:

Tracking Songs All Over — Billboard Introduces Service to Help Aspiring Artists Monitor Their Exposure — For decades, appearing in the pages of Billboard magazine was a powerful symbol of achievement for musical artists. Now the publication famous for its music-sales charts is grappling …

Discussion: hypebot

Laura Miller / Salon:

The trouble with Google Books — How rampant errors threaten the scholarly mission of the vast digital library — Depending on who you ask, Google Books — the pioneering tech company's ambitious plan to “digitally scan every book in the world” and make them searchable over the Web and in libraries …

Discussion: The Book Bench

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

Can anything save ABC News from extinction? — Commentary: The division has sorely lacked a cable presence — NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Forget, for a moment, that ABC News is in disarray. — Forget, too, that the network news business is regarded as a dinosaur.

Peter Lauria / The Daily Beast:

Michael Eisner on Media's Future — With rumors circulating about a likely move to run the Tribune Company, the formidable mogul talks with Peter Lauria about his new book on the greatest business partnerships—but artfully dodges any guesses on his future.

Discussion: Romenesko

Emily Bell:

Newsrooms need more metrics, not fewer. — A slow Labor Day news day maybe I thought when I noticed that the NYT was carrying a piece on Monday entitled : ‘Some Newspapers, Tracking Readers Online, Shift Coverage’. As old news goes this is positively antediluvian isn't it?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries / Digits:

Online Measurement Creates a Muddle for Web Journalists — When it comes to data about readers, maybe online news organizations have too much of what should be a good thing. — Web editors have a plethora of options when it comes to seeing what visitors are doing online.

Philip Stone / FollowTheMedia:

What's More Important: The Money A Paywall Web Site Brings In Or The Influence - Branding - Earned From Letting Everyone In Free? — Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, says the Murdoch paywall at the Times and Sunday Times in the UK is a “foolish experiment” mainly because their readership online …

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:
Newspaper Paywalls: Full Speed Ahead

Discussion: New York Times, MediaPost and CJR

Ethan Zuckerman / Nieman Reports:

The Attention Deficit: Plenty of Content, Yet an Absence of Interest — As news organizations wrestle with the challenge of discovering profitable reporting models for a digital age, at least three types of public service journalism are endangered species—investigative reporting …

Discussion: Editors Weblog and Nieman Journalism Lab

Ethan / ...My heart's in Accra:

Media tracking and the quantified self — Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly have been documenting an emerging phenomenon they call “the quantified self”. The term refers to a set experiments that people are conducting - primarily on themselves - to understand their own bodies and behavior.

Jon Sawyer / Nieman Reports:

The Sometimes Bumpy Nonprofit Ride Into Digital Foreign Correspondence — ‘We began with the naïve assumption that if we covered the costs of getting journalists to the field they would be able to earn a decent income through placement of the resulting stories. We were wrong!’

Jarvis Coffin / Burst Media Company Blog:

NYU Professor Jay Rosen Offers Advice to an Incoming Class of Journalism Students. He Should Offer the Same Advice to Advertising Students. — MediaBistro's Morning News Feed points to the remarks NYU journalism professor, Jay Rosen, made to the incoming class of students …

Discussion: Multimedia Musings