Mediagazer: Wired.com Q&A: New MIT Media Lab Director Joichi Ito on ‘Context and Connection’ (Sam Gustin/Epicenter)

11:55 AM ET, April 27, 2011

Top News:

Obama Scolds Media For Focusing On Birthers — At his press conference on Wednesday, President Obama scolded the media for focusing on his birth certificate instead of more important issues. — He started the conference by calling out NBC's Chuck Todd directly.

Discussion: Journalism.org, Poynter, Yahoo! News, FrumForum and The Wire

Associated Press:
Obama releases birth form, decries ‘silliness’

Discussion: New York Times, Mediaite, Guardian, White House.gov Blog, Mediaite, The Politico, MediaMemo, Hit & Run, New York Magazine, The Politico, Pajamas Media, The Wire, Runnin' Scared, The Maddow Blog, The Raw Story, The Wire and New York Observer

Meg Pickard / Guardian:

Guardian Local - an update on the experiment — The Guardian Local pilot has taught us a lot about new models of journalism but we will soon be winding it down — We believe that journalism plays a vital role in communities, so two years ago we created the Local project.

Discussion: paidContent, Jon Slattery and Journalism.co.uk

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

AP Interactive visualizes a future of stories that reach beyond text — Over the past two years, the Associated Press has nearly doubled the number of interactive graphics it produces each month, jumping from 40 in 2009 to over 70 so far in 2011. On the surface, that increase is logical almost …

Elliot Jay Stocks:

Adobe's Digital Publishing mistake — It's Easter Monday (a public holiday here in the UK) and I'm sitting outside in the garden, enjoying some much-needed downtime. I've spent he last half hour or so casually flicking through the latest issue of MacUser magazine, which has a large feature …

Discussion: Boing Boing

Gabriel Snyder / The Atlantic Wire:

Malcolm Gladwell: What I Read — How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all? Do they have some secret? Perhaps. We are asking various people who seem well-informed to describe their media diets. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point …

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, Thanks:deliacabe

Kat Stoeffel / New York Observer:

Village Voice Media Getting Down and Dirty with Escort Ads — Last week, deputies in Polk County, Fla., arrested 60 people—including a Disney employee, a man with breast implants, a 15-year-old runaway with a 2-year-old infant, and her pimp—in an online prostitution bust dubbed Operation Curtain Call.

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Fox News Pushes Mike Huckabee on 2012 Decision — THE DAILY BEAST ON: — The network wants a yes or no on whether the governor-turned-TV host is running for the White House. But Huckabee tells Howard Kurtz he feels no pressure at all. — Mike Huckabee may be running out of time to make a decision on running for president.

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Poynter, FrumForum and On Media's Blog

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

Media companies haven't exploited opportunities created by iPad and mobile technology — I helped launch the Mobile Media blog in January 2010, days before Apple unveiled the iPad. Now, 15 months and 20 million iPads later, this is my last week as a daily contributor to Poynter.org.

Amanda Ernst / mediabistro.com:

So What Do You Do, Deborah Needleman, Editor-in-Chief of WSJ.? — This mag maven talks diving back into the print pool after helming a shuttered title — Lucking into a position as a magazine editor through friends and connections seems like a classic old media story.

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL's Patch Adding 8,000 Bloggers in ‘Full-On Course Correction’ — Ah, memories. Image via Wikipedia — Arianna Huffington must not be taking that class action lawsuit against her too seriously. Not only is AOL's new content chief not cutting down on the use of unpaid bloggers, she's doubling down — literally.

Discussion: paidContent, SAI, Marketing Pilgrim, FishbowlLA, Street Fight, The Atlantic Wire, FishbowlNY, LA Observed and Poynter

Mike Melanson / ReadWriteWeb:

Instapaper Founder: Apps Don't Need To Be Free — Have you noticed that the free version of Instapaper, the app that captures online articles and stores them for offline reading on your mobile device, disappeared from the app store about a month ago? Neither had we, but today …

New York Times:

In WikiLeaks' Growth, Some Control Is Lost — WikiLeaks, the Web site responsible for publicizing millions of state secrets in the last year, has tried to pick its media partners carefully. But the site has become such a large player in journalism that some of its secrets are no longer its own to control.

Discussion: http://www.Stinkyjournalism … and The Nation

Greg Avery / bizjournals:

Arianna Huffington sets direction for MapQuest — MapQuest's move to new headquarters in Denver was timed to celebrate the online mapping company's 15th anniversary. But the relocation from 17th Street to the trendier SugarCube building in Lower Downtown is more about the rebirth …

Discussion: FishbowlLA

Sam Gustin / Epicenter:

Wired.com Q&A: New MIT Media Lab Director Joichi Ito on ‘Context and Connection’ — Joichi Ito, tapped as only the fourth director of the MIT Media Lab, says having a bio that seems “scatterbrained” will make the 25-year-old institution — already famous for its unorthodox research approach — seem just like home.

Discussion: GigaOM