Mediagazer: Memoir's truthy obligations: a handy how-to guide (Nieman Storyboard)

2:55 PM ET, July 29, 2011

Top News:

Tom Grubisich / Street Fight:

Why Hyperlocals Are Making Anonymity Obsolete — I don't ordinarily read anonymous comments, but “patriotmommy” stopped my browsing eyes recently on Patch's Reston, Va., site. I was reading an upbeat story about graduation at the high school where my two daughters were educated.

Discussion: EdCone.com and eMedia Vitals

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Hyperlocal sites tend to ban anonymous commenting — Many editors of news websites in small communities require that real names are attached to comments on their sites, Tom Grubisich reports. Batavian publisher Howard Owens explains, “If you have people commenting in a public forum …

Seattle PostGlobe:

Goodbye and thank you from Seattle PostGlobe — It's been an eventful two years - sometimes fun, sometimes a mountain of work, but always worthwhile. And now it's time for the PostGlobe to say goodbye and thank you. It's time for us to move on. — We started as a nonprofit news site created …

Discussion: Poynter and GeekWire

Steve Buttry / The Buttry Diary:

A false choice — and an excuse — for journalists: Better to be first or right? — An editor asks by email a question I hear often as journalists address the challenges of digital journalism: “Is it better to be first, or be right?” — Three times recently, the editor said, his staff was beaten …

Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:

Does Apple have any interest in buying Barnes & Noble? — We received a tip from an unproven source claiming to have knowledge of discussions within Apple to possibly purchase Barnes & Noble. While this might seem like a strange move at first, it actually makes a whole lot of sense.

Discussion: Technologizer, AppleInsider, Good E-Reader Blog, App Advice, TeleRead, The Next Web, Tech Trader Daily, Gizmodo, Future of Journalism, MacRumors, The Digital Reader, WebProNews and VentureBeat

Anthony DeRosa:

Getting it right is platform agnostic — Yesterday, in the rush to be first, what appeared to be a legitimate breaking news story from a reliable source spread like wildfire in the Twitter-verse, only to have it turn out to be completely false. I happened to be one of the people who saw Jon Snow …

Discussion: Felix Salmon, FishbowlNY and Soup

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:
Anatomy of a Twitter rumor: When a story's too juicy not to retweet

Discussion: Poynter, Adweek, American Journalism Review, GigaOM, The New York Observer, Felix, Guardian, On Media's Blog, Editors Weblog, Regret the Error, Lost Remote, New York Magazine, AdAge and Kirk LaPointe's …

Steve Smith / MinOnline:

The Economist Gives iPhones a Welcome Data Dump — If you are a policy wonk with a jones for statistics, then The Economist has the iPhone app for you. The highly regarded international magazine of economics and policy has turned its franchise World in Figures book series into a highly usable …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Questions for Baratunde Thurston: What The Onion can teach real news organizations about social media — The Onion is funny because it looks and feels like real news. To do that well, The Onion has to act like a real news organization. — So when Baratunde Thurston …

Discussion: Mediaite

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

FT Has Attracted A Third More Digital Subs In The Last Year — iPad and mobile are becoming of increasing importance to The Financial Times, accounting for 22 percent of web traffic and 15 percent of new subscriptions during the first half of this year. — Last year, iPad had been responsible …

Discussion: Pearson, Guardian, Press Gazette and Publishers Lunch

Mike Shields / digiday:DAILY:

AOL's Vanishing Video Strategy — What's Arianna's video strategy, assuming she has one? — When AOL acquired The Huffington Post in February, Arianna Huffington was given carte blanche over the company's entire editorial strategy. Since that time, video seems to be nearly forgotten at AOL.

The Atlantic Online:

The Almost-Free Toolkit We Use to Make Longshot Magazine — At 3 pm today, the Longshot Magazine team will begin work on our third issue. 48 hours later, we'll close the 60-page book. — Longshot is a crazy project that I cofounded with Sarah Rich and Mat Honan about a year and a half ago.

Discussion: Portfolio and Jacket Copy

John Morton / American Journalism Review:

In Love with Newspapers — Rupert Murdoch's lifelong devotion to newsprint. Fri. July 29, 2011 — John Morton (mortoninc@msn.com), a former newspaper reporter, is president of a consulting firm that analyzes newspapers and other media properties. — Every journalistic scandal …

Nieman Storyboard:

Memoir's truthy obligations: a handy how-to guide — How true does a memoir have to be? That question has been the basis of an ongoing debate kicked off by the revelation, five years ago, that much of James Frey's bestselling “A Million Little Pieces” was made up. — Unfortunately, it has never been adequately answered.

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab and Kirk LaPointe's …

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Former News of the World staff offered jobs in Siberia and Finland — Journalists who lost their jobs when News International closed the News of the World have been offered News Corp posts as far afield as Russia, South Africa, Siberia, Finland and Dubai — Former staff at the News …