Mediagazer: LAT employees settle ESOP lawsuit for $32 million (Jim Romenesko/Poynter)

2:45 AM ET, August 21, 2011

Top News:

Echo:

Real Names are not the Real issue with comments — Matthew Ingram over on Gigaom has once again addressed the issue of ‘Real Names’ in comments and the perceived pros and cons of using FB comments. — Having being involved with Comments for 4+ years, Echo has a little experience in this area.

Thanks:chrissaad

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Handing comments over to Facebook is a double-edged sword — When Facebook launched the ability to embed Facebook comments on third-party websites, a lot of publishers saw it as a life-saver: not only would it improve traffic by exposing their content to others on the social network …

Discussion: Zombie Journalism, Poynter, One Man & His Blog and Adweek

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

How The Daily's David Knowles came up with the ‘Best. Lede. Ever.’ — Romenesko Misc. The Daily — He coulda been a credenza. — That lede on David Knowles' piece about the estate of Marlon Brando suing a retailer over its “Brando” furniture line has gone viral.

Discussion: Techdirt and Bleacher Report

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Reuters' Anthony De Rosa: I watch TweetDeck so you don't have to — In a video on Reuters.com, social media editor Anthony De Rosa talks about how he uses Twitter to report news from faraway places. He searches for the best sources at the scene and uses Twitter lists to keep track of their posts in TweetDeck.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Robert Niles / Online Journalism Review:

Advice for this year's incoming journalism students — By Robert Niles: I'm making this an August tradition, so here is my advice for this year's incoming journalism students. These tips are given to encourage new students to look beyond the typical j-school curriculum …

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

LAT employees settle ESOP lawsuit for $32 million — The employees, who filed their suit in 2008, The employees contended that the leveraged buyout that resulted in creation of the Tribune employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) violated federal pension law. About 13,000 current …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and The Wrap

Wall Street Journal:

Tabloid's Pursuit of Missing Girl Led to Its Own Demise — LONDON—In April 2002, News Corp.'s News of the World tabloid scrambled at least eight reporters and photographers to an Epson ink-cartridge factory in Britain's Midlands region, hoping to land a big scoop: Missing Milly Dowler Found Alive.

Matt Thomas / The Independent:

Murdoch staff who ordered hacking to be named — Court tells private investigator he must identify ‘News of the World’ executives who asked him to intercept voicemails — Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the phone-hacking affair, will be forced this week to reveal …

Jack Shafer / Slate:

Print vs. Online: How the print edition of the New York Times trumps the online version. — A little over five years ago, I announced that I was canceling my subscription to the New York Times. My cancellation wasn't in protest of Times coverage of the Middle East, ethnic minorities …

Discussion: Garcia Media

Nick Bilton / Bits:

F.T.C. Says It Will Not Investigate Ashton Kutcher — It looks like Ashton Kutcher is in the clear. — Mr. Kutcher drew criticism this week after the release of an online-only version of Details magazine that he guest-edited. In the issue, Mr. Kutcher failed to fully disclose his investments …

Discussion: Poynter, MediaFile, NYConvergence.com, Forbes, digiday:DAILY, The Wire, The First Post, Betabeat and Bits

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media: Ashton Kutcher and the Absurdity of Policing Endorsements

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Editing Community Kibin Helps You Proofread Your Writing Fast And For Free — I am primarily writing about this startup because I need it desperately, and because it is the problem I would attempt to solve if I ever decided to flip the switch and become a startup founder instead of the personification of …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, Pulse2 and Betabeat

Maxwell Wessel / HBR.org:

Why AOL Should Double Down on Patch — Disclosure: The author is a shareholder in AOL. — It's been funny watching the financial press and the tech community eviscerate AOL's Patch.com since last week's disappointing earnings call. The irony is that Patch is AOL's last, best chance to build a growth engine.

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

New generation of Web analytics applies ‘big data’ to newsroom decisions — New data tools, perhaps best described as Web analytics on steroids and with psychic powers, are making their way into newsrooms and changing the way that editors decide what stories to promote, where, and when.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Bye Bye, Babes! Maxim's iPad App Bows Out. — Tablet magazine app launches still get plenty of attention, so it seems only fair to note when one disappears: Maxim HD, an iPad-specific version of the baberific print magazine, has called it quits, less than a year after launch.

Discussion: FishbowlNY