Mediagazer: British Publisher Buys Mental Floss (Russell Adams/Wall Street Journal)

9:20 AM ET, March 14, 2011

Top News:

Confessions of a Recovering Op-Ed Columnist — THE first political columnist I ever encountered, after a fashion, was Walter Lippmann. It happened on a snowy afternoon when I was a kid of 11 or 12 growing up in Washington during the J.F.K. years. My wallet had somehow slipped out of my pocket …

Discussion: The Wire

TechCrunch:

John Montorio Joins HuffPo: Journalism vs Churnalism Battle Rages On — TechCrunch has learned that John Montorio has been named Culture and Entertainment Editor for Aol's Huffington Post Media Group content division. — Montorio is a 30-year veteran of two of the country's biggest newspapers …

Discussion: LA Observed and Guardian

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Going Rogue on Ailes Could Leave Palin on Thin Ice — Before Sarah Palin posted her infamous “Blood Libel” video on Facebook on January 12, she placed a call to Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. In the wake of the Tucson massacre, Palin was fuming that the media was blaming her heated rhetoric …

Discussion: The Huffington Post and Gawker

Russell Adams / Wall Street Journal:

British Publisher Buys Mental Floss — A decade after he flouted publishing's grim economic realities and launched a weekly news magazine in the U.S., British-born magazine publisher Felix Dennis is betting on another long-shot. — The 63-year-old Mr. Dennis has agreed to buy Mental Floss …

Discussion: New York Times

Bill Keller / The 6th Floor:

Postscript: Aggregation Aggro — Nothing sucks the joy out of a column like explaining it. And judging from the reaction to my little poke at the self-obsession of the media tribe, most readers needed no explanation. They got it. But for those who may have been misled by some of the more clueless commentary:

Discussion: FishbowlDC, @innovations, The Daily Dish, @lavrusik, @mathewi and @digiphile

Jennifer Preston / New York Times:

When Unrest Stirs, Bloggers Are Already in Place — As the protests spread across Tunisia for weeks, many international news organizations scrambled to cover the unrest just before President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled on Jan. 14, ending 23 years of authoritarian rule. But Amira al-Hussaini was all over the story.

Discussion: Media Decoder

Deborah Potter / NewsLab:

Local TV news bounces back — After two grim years, the state of local television news is much improved, thank you. That's the bottom line of the chapter I wrote for this year's State of the News Media report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, released today.

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:

Flipboard: game-changer or just a fad? — The founder of the social magazine application, Mike McCue, on its relationship with publishers, its funding, and his love of Apple — A great interviewer makes so much difference to a panel, as proven by Kara Swisher of AllThingsD interviewing Flipboard founder Mike McCue.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Aljazeera:

Al Jazeera staffer killed in Libya — Cameraman Ali Hassan Al Jaber was returning to eastern city of Benghazi from filing report when he was shot and killed. — An Al Jazeera cameraman has been killed in what appears to have been an ambush near the rebel-held city of Benghazi in eastern Libya.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, Guardian, Global Voices in English, Boing Boing and Mediaite

Liz Shannon Miller / GigaOM:

Will Girl Walks Into a Bar Lead Indie Films to the Web? — The idea that Girl Walks Into a Bar, an independent feature with a Hollywood-friendly cast and a $1 million dollar budget, is “The First Major Motion Picture Made For The Internet,” could be up for debate.

Discussion: ArtsBeat

Arthur S. Brisbane / New York Times:

A Cocktail Party With Readers — EARLY adopters at The Times boldly went there four years ago. I made the move only in the last few weeks — to Twitter, that is, that curiously named domain where Middle Eastern revolutions erupt and Charlie Sheen, too. — I haven't been tweeting long enough to judge its merits.

Discussion: @palafo

Peter Preston / Guardian:

Does the i have it for quality journalism? — Small, cheap and modest, the mini-Independent may be proving a good idea — One figure stands out from a generally grisly set of national newspaper circulation statistics in February. It's not unexpected: Indy people have been bragging …

Steve Myers / Poynter:

What James O'Keefe knows about media (and you should too) — It's a credit to James O'Keefe that amid the diverse vocabulary in the English language, so many terms inadequately describe him and what he does. — Is he a provocateur, a prankster, an activist, a muckraker, a citizen journalist, an investigative journalist?

Discussion: Guardian, NPR, Outside the Beltway, The Wire, The Daily Dish and Tuned In

Martin Moore / MediaShift Idea Lab:

Churnalism.com Reveals Press Release Copy in News Stories — Editors' Note: Martin Moore is the director of the Media Standards Trust, which recently launched Churnalism.com — a website that helps the public distinguish journalism from “churnalism,” a news article that is published as journalism …

Discussion: MediaVidea