Mediagazer: Slashdot and CmdrTaco — the end of another geek era (Mathew Ingram/GigaOM)

3:00 PM ET, August 25, 2011

Top News:

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

Twilight of the Media Critics — Yesterday, the already-shrunken world of media reporting lost its two grandest figures: Jim Romenesko, the quiet man who singlehandedly set the agenda, like a front page editor for all media news (semi-retiring, by choice); and Slate's Jack Shafer …

Dylan Byers / Adweek:

An Interview With Jack Shafer — Slate media critic and Press Box columnist Jack Shafer lost his job on Wednesday. He was, along with three others, part of a round of layoffs at the online news magazine. The news was met with much consternation: Just that day, an article praising Shafer as a …

Discussion: The Awl and FishbowlNY

Dylan Byers / Adweek:

Slate Lays Off Jack Shafer, Several Others — Slate, the online news magazine owned by the Washington Post Company, has laid off a number of employees, including editor-at-large Jack Shafer, Adweek has learned. — “We have made some editorial changes, including a small reduction in our full …

Discussion: Mixed Media, Washington Post, On Media's Blog, Slate, Poynter, NetNewsCheck Latest, The New York Observer, @jackshafer, @antderosa, American Journalism Review, New York Magazine, paidContent and @dangillmor

Mark Lisheron / American Journalism Review:

A Fearless Media Critic — Slate's Jack Shafer has distinguished himself with his uncompromising approach to his craft. Fri. August 26, 2011 — Senior Contributing Writer Mark Lisheron (mark@texaswatchdog.org) is Austin bureau chief for Texas Watchdog, a government accountability news Web site.

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Poynter, Future Journalism Project, Media Nation, The Hillman Foundation blogs and LA Observed

CmdrTaco / Slashdot:

Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda Resigns From Slashdot 77 — from the steve-got-front-cutsies dept. — After 14 years and over 15,000 stories posted, it's finally time for me to say Good-Bye to Slashdot. I created this place with my best friends in a run down house while still in college.

Discussion: TechCrunch, ExtremeTech, Computerworld, ReadWriteWeb, The Tech Report, @ericries, The Daily Caller and MetaFilter

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Slashdot and CmdrTaco — the end of another geek era — There's only one technology story that matters to most geeks this week, and that's the departure of Steve Jobs, the iconic CEO of Apple. But there are other icons in the geek community — although their influence may not be quite …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, AdPulp and Adweek

Bloomberg:

‘Today’ Promotes Curry to Hot Seat as Surging ABC Closes Gap — NBC's “Today” show, making its biggest talent change since Katie Couric left in 2006, heads into the new television season with its 15-year dominance of morning TV challenged by a resurgent ABC.

Discussion: MediaPost and TVNewser

Jenna Goudreau / Forbes.com:

Ann Curry: 'I Didn't Ask To Be Co-Anchor Of Today' — Subscribe to Forbes Get a Free Trial Issue … It is inching towards 7:30 a.m. as I stifle a yawn and scan the eager crowd assembled at Rockefeller Center to watch a taping of NBC's Today. Suddenly Ann Curry, the program's new co-anchor …

Discussion: TVNewser

Dan Gillmor / Guardian:

The ghostwritten op-ed: an unacceptable deception | Dan Gillmor — If I'd fail a journalism student for a paper written by another, why does the media give a pass to the rich and powerful? — My former employer, the San Jose Mercury News, recently ran an opinion column …

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …

Joe Flint / Company Town:

For Murdoch, media has often been about friends and influence — In 1996, the teenage son of a prominent political figure in Washington, D.C., got suspended from his tony prep school. — Not wanting to see himself, his family or his boss embarrassed by his son's actions, the father scrambled to keep the incident out of the news.

Discussion: Stop Big Media News

Rem Rieder / American Journalism Review:

The Romenesko Revolution — He has had an enormous impact on media coverage. Wed. August 24, 2011 — Rem Rieder (rrieder@ajr.umd.edu) is AJR's editor and senior vice president. — Life without Romenesko. It's impossible to contemplate. — Luckily we won't have to.

Discussion: Poynter, Media Nation, Editors Weblog, Yahoo! News, @brianstelter and @jayrosen_nyu

Bill Mitchell / Poynter:
How the Romenesko Years have changed journalism and Poynter

Discussion: New York Times, MediaPost, Future Journalism Project, NetNewsCheck Latest, Media News, Future of Journalism, @amyalex63, LA Observed, @jeffsonderman, Mediaite, Runnin' Scared, The Atlantic Wire, Media Decoder and The Huffington Post

Alysia Santo / CJR:

From Commenter to Contributor — On some blogs, taking the comment section seriously can mean hiring people from it — During a string of “boring, terrible” office jobs, Gabriel Delahaye started to regularly comment on Gawker's articles. He wasn't just doing this for fun.

Discussion: Poynter

Adam / One Man & His Blog:

Nostalgia is not a viable approach to journalism (part 267) — Yesterday, a rather depressing story about journalism training appeared on the Press Gazette site. It wasn't depressing because of the headline finding: … As Joanna Geary pointed out in the comments, that has a definite “Pope revealed to be Catholic” element.

Discussion: AndyDickinson.net, newsplexer and David Higgerson

Martin Belam / currybetdotnet:
Let's train journalists for the future, not for the past

Discussion: One Man & His Blog and Hacks/Hackers London …

Tom Grubisich / Street Fight:

Why Hyperlocal News Is Better Than Ever — Hyperlocal news is on the threshold of a period of impressive achievement. I'm not talking about revisiting the wishful thinking of the previous decade, when we were regaled with dithyrambics about “grassroots” and “citizen” journalism.

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of loss — Editor's Note: Each week, Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of news for the Lab. — The Bay Area News Group's announcement Tuesday caused a few ripples, and some head-scratching.

Ellie Behling / eMedia Vitals:

Paywall success stories: Three newspapers using the metered model — About a month ago we looked at traffic numbers from newspapers that put up paywalls in the last year. Despite the general assumption that charging for digital content will cause a drop in traffic, it's not always the case.

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Making a market: How ProPublica blends news that wins Pulitzers with news that wins followers — Go to the ProPublica homepage right now, and you'll see a mix of timely content whose headlines involve words like “guide.” And “FAQ.” And “Why X.” And “What is Y?” And “Z: we separate fact from fiction.”

Sarah Kessler / Mashable!:

Storify Adds Slideshow Format to Its Social Reporting Tool — The Washington Post, The New York Times and the White House have all used the social reporting tool Storify to drag and drop tweets, posts and other media culled from the social web into neat, embeddable timelines.

Discussion: Poynter

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

CNN Correspondents Describes Being Held Hostage In Libya — NEW YORK — For the past six days, CNN's Matthew Chance feared that he and roughly 35 journalists trapped by Gaddafi loyalists in Tripoli's Rixos hotel might be somehow used as part of the crumbling regime's endgame — or even executed.

Discussion: Mediaite