Mediagazer: What news organizations owe the fixers they rely on, leave behind in foreign countries (Steve Myers/Poynter)

4:25 AM ET, May 19, 2011

Top News:

The Twitter Trap — Last week my wife and I told our 13-year-old daughter she could join Facebook. Within a few hours she had accumulated 171 friends, and I felt a little as if I had passed my child a pipe of crystal meth. — I don't mean to be a spoilsport, and I don't think I'm a Luddite.

Discussion: Mixed Media, Forbes.com, Techdirt, Future of Journalism, @mikeorren, Adweek, The New Republic, SAI, FishbowlNY, @sg, @tcarmody, @kevinmarks, The Wrap, @antderosa, Boing Boing, AllTwitter, Betabeat, @mathewi, @karlbode, Mediaite, CrunchGear, The Atlantic Wire, Poynter and Felix, more at Techmeme »

Nick Bilton / Bits:

This Is Your Brain on Twitter — Updated Adding response from Bill Keller at the end. — In his latest column for The New York Times Magazine, Bill Keller, The Times's executive editor, likens clearing the way for his 13-year-old daughter to join Facebook to handing her “a pipe of crystal meth.”

blog.gizmodo.com:

New York Times Editor Is A Horrible Troll Who Doesn't Understand The Modern World — Mat Honan — Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, thinks modern communication technologies make you stupid, destroy your relationships and even your soul. He is wrong.

Discussion: GigaOM and Future of Journalism

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

TwitterAllowsYouTo. discuss. … For someone so disdainful of the Internet, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller sure fits the textbook definition of a troll. His anti-aggregation screed “All the Aggregation That's Fit to Aggregate” and today's Twitter-bait “The Twitter Trap” …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Gingrich Spox Unloads On Political, Media Elite — NEW YORK — When Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) sits down on âMeet the Pressâ this Sunday, he can expect to be asked about former House Speaker Newt Gingrich comparing his Medicare voucher plan to âright-wing social engineering.â

Rem Rieder / American Journalism Review:
The Media Did It — Newt Gingrich's lame attempt to blame …

Discussion: CNN and The Huffington Post

Kevin / Strange Attractor:

Linking and journalism: The Workflow issue — There was an interesting discussion about linking and journalism amongst a number of journalists in North America. Mathew Ingram of GigaOm and Alex Byers, a web producer for Politico in Washington, both collected the conversation using Storify.

Discussion: Alex Byers

Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Why Do We Link in News Stories? A Discussion

Discussion: Poynter and GigaOMGigaOM

Steve Myers / Poynter:

What news organizations owe the fixers they rely on, leave behind in foreign countries — When four New York Times journalists were released by the Libyan government in March, many journalists knew their names: Stephen Farrell, Anthony Shadid, Lynsey Addario, Tyler Hicks.

Discussion: Felix Salmon and Felix

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Next Issue Media Releases App Editions for Seven Magazines, First Step Toward Print's Digital Storefront — Major Publishers' Own App Store Now Expected in the Fourth Quarter — Next Issue Media, a consortium of five major publishers, has released app editions of seven magazines …

Discussion: Poynter, FishbowlNY, NYConvergence.com and Noted

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
“Hulu For Magazines” Opens Its Android Newsstand

Discussion: VentureBeat, Epicenter, PC Magazine, MediaPost, Wall Street Journal, MarketingVOX, MediaPost, SocialTimes.com, Adweek, eBookNewser, Techland, paidContent, AppleInsider, NetNewsCheck Latest, Engadget, Electronista, SAI, eMedia Vitals and AdAge

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Say hello to Encyclo, our new encyclopedia of the future of news — Today, the Nieman Journalism Lab unveils Encyclo, an encyclopedia of the future of news. We've put a lot of work into it, and I hope you'll check it out. — So what is Encyclo? It's an attempt to figure …

Discussion: Poynter, Journalism.co.uk, ReadWriteWeb, New York Post, mediabistro.com and Big News Network.com

Joe Pompeo / Yahoo! News:

New York Times announces new weekly TV show — The New York Times produces more than a hundred videos each month for its website and other digital offerings. — Some of those videos will reach a targeted television audience starting next week, with the premiere of “NYTV.”

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

The New York Times finds 850 new ways to sell print subscriptions — For more than a year, coverage of the New York Times as a business has been relentlessly about its “metered model” pay wall and other digital matters. But without any media news notice, the newspaper has engineered a coup on the legacy side of its operations.

Discussion: Future of Journalism and INMA

Hillary Chabot / Boston Herald:

White House shuts out Herald scribe — The White House Press Office has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama's Boston fund-raiser today, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper's front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news “fairly.”

Discussion: Hot Air, Media Nation, Gatekeeper, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, Poynter, Chickaboomer, San Francisco Peninsula … and The Hill

John Eggerton / Broadcasting & Cable:

Comcast's Cohen on Baker Hiring: Nothing Inappropriate Happened — Says she was hired because she is a ‘rare talent’ — Comcast EVP David Cohen says that the company hired FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker because she is a “rare talent,” in the telecom space; that both she and Comcast …

Discussion: Hillicon Valley and Multichannel