Mediagazer: Newsrooms need more metrics, not fewer. (Emily Bell)

9:10 AM ET, September 10, 2010

Top News:

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, Fast Company, The Next Web, Trends in the Living Networks, New York Magazine and Lost Remote, more at Techmeme »

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, PostPartisan, Telegraph, Guardian, Orlando Sentinel, Gothamist, Editors Weblog, The Daily Dish, David Higgerson and CNN

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

Peter Lauria / The Daily Beast: Michael Eisner on Media's Future

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

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

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

Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:

Plan to burn Qurans ignites media frenzy — Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., got a bit of local press last Sept. 11 when members of his small congregation stood on the side of the road wearing “Islam is of the devil” T-shirts. This year, he has upped the ante with an anti-Islam stunt …

Discussion: Salon, Everyday Ethics, Romenesko, Howard Kurtz, George's Bottom Line, The Huffington Post, Silicon Alley Insider, Threat Level, The Register, The Daily Caller, CrunchGear, Washington Wire and USA Today, more at Techmeme »

Kim Zetter / Threat Level:

Massive Cache of Iraq War Docs to Be Published by WikiLeaks — A massive cache of previously unpublished classified U.S. military documents from the Iraq War is being readied for publication by WikiLeaks, a new report has confirmed. — The documents constitute the “biggest leak of military intelligence” …

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: media 360, Boing Boing and New York Magazine

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, CJR and MediaPost

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.

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Reuters Taps Slate's James Ledbetter As Website Editor — Two months after the Slate Group folded its business news site The Big Money, its former editor-in-chief James Ledbetter is heading to Reuters (NYSE: TRI) to run the company's website, paidContent has learned. Both Reuters and Ledbetter confirmed the hiring.

Discussion: Talking Biz News, Romenesko and DailyFinance

Joel Johnson / Gizmodo:

Forget Apple TV. AirPlay Is Apple's Sneak Attack On Television — It was almost a footnote. AirPlay, the audio streaming protocol once known as AirTunes, got just one minute of keynote time last week. But it might end up as the backbone of Apple's assault on the living room. More »

more at Techmeme »

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.

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 …

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: Public Radio Exchange, NPR and Nieman Journalism Lab

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