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6:55 PM ET, August 29, 2011

Top News:

Jim Romenesko / Poynter:

NYT business editor responds to ombud's ‘absurd’ column — Times business editor Larry Ingrassia tells his staff that public editor Art Brisbane's Aug. 28 column on DealBook “was so absurd and so poorly reasoned that I felt compelled to write a response.” Ingrassia tells Brisbane that …

Discussion: New York Magazine, FishbowlNY, The Public Editor's Journal, The Huffington Post, The New York Observer, Talking Biz News, Future of Journalism and New York Times

Felix Salmon:
In praise of DealBook — Every so often, Andrew Ross Sorkin …

Discussion: Talking Biz News and The Awl

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

How NY1 won the Irene-hits-New York story, and what national cable news could learn from them — Somewhere around midmorning on the day Hurricane Irene landed in New York City, I switched from NY1 to CNN. This was a mistake. — Things had been calming down in the city …

Discussion: TVNewser, The Huffington Post, Forbes, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Washington Post, CJR, Pat's Papers and Future of Journalism

Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Hurricane Coverage Is Ratings Driver for Weather Channel

Discussion: Poynter, FiveThirtyEight, TVNewser, NPR, MediaPost, Yahoo! News, Company Town, The Daily Beast, mediabistro.com, The New York Observer, Adweek and The Daily Beast

Paul Smalera / MediaFile:

How to reboot Slate — The opinions expressed are his own. — There's really no schadenfreude to be had for Slate, which laid off four staffers and a few freelancers last week. After all, this is the online magazine that gave birth to a Twitter meme, #Slatepitches …

Discussion: Poynter and New York Magazine

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:

Condé Nast Deepens Its Social Connections — Readers of the online versions of Condé Nast publications will have to look no further than the bottom of their screens to see what content other readers have deemed worthy of a “Tweet” on Twitter or a “like” on Facebook.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Adweek, The Corsair, NYConvergence.com, NetNewsCheck Latest, eMedia Vitals and Future of Journalism

Kenneth Lovett / NY Daily News:

Chalk it up to the hacks: New York scraps $27 million education contract with Murdoch firm — ALBANY - The Rupert Murdoch phone hacking scandal has prompted the state to kill a controversial $27 million contract with one of the media mogul's subsidiary companies.

Discussion: paidContent, FishbowlNY, Adweek, rbr.com, NYConvergence.com and The Huffington Post

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

Flattering words from Schmidt - but he isn't going to save the TV industry — The boss of Google charms the Edinburgh TV festival but the company's relationship with the media is complex — Google is the loveable monopolist. It didn't set out, perhaps, to dominate internet search.

Discussion: GigaOM and ZDNet

Jemima Kiss / Guardian:
Google crashes TV's Edinburgh party

Discussion: MediaPost, Softpedia News and Future of Journalism

Reuters:

How to hack like a News of the World reporter — World renowned computer hacker, Kevin Mitnick, shows you step-by-step how the News of the World journalists hacked into private voicemails.

Discussion: The Huffington Post and FishbowlNY

Wall Street Journal:

For Wal-Mart, a Rare Online Success — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has stumbled often in Internet retailing, but the big-box granddad has been surprisingly successful in one online venture: digital movie downloads. — A year after buying streaming service Vudu, which lets customers rent …

Discussion: MediaPost, Mashable!, Between the Lines Blog and Digits

Polly Curtis / Guardian:

Labour seeks law change to stop News Corp renewing BSkyB bid — Fears that Rupert Murdoch could reopen bid prompts ‘public interest test’ motion by shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis — Labour is trying to secure cross-party support for an emergency change in the law to prevent News Corporation …

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Cotton Delo / AdAge:

Which Marketers Should (and Shouldn't) Tap Social-Media Darling Tumblr — As Brands' Presence Grows, Blogging Platform Finds Sweet Spot in Fashion, Media — New York-based blogging platform Tumblr has experienced astronomic growth in the past year, more than tripling its audience …

Dave Winer / Scripting News:

Why doesn't the Times have something like Quora? — There are all these Quora-like services coming online these days. — Why doesn't the Times have one? — I'm not suggesting that they develop it. Partner. The Times is a distribution channel. They already have a lot of smart readers and a smart website.

Elizabeth Jensen / Media Decoder:

Anchor to Leave PBS's ‘Need to Know’ — PBS's Friday newsmagazine “Need to Know” is losing Alison Stewart, the second of its original co-anchors to depart, when it switches to a half-hour format on Sept. 16. — Ms. Stewart has been anchoring the hour-long show on her own since Jon Meacham became …

Discussion: TVNewser, The Huffington Post and TVWeek.com

Noam Cohen / New York Times:

Link by Link: In Times of Unrest, Social Networks Can Be a Distraction — THE mass media, including interactive social-networking tools, make you passive, can sap your initiative, leave you content to watch the spectacle of life from your couch or smartphone. — Apparently even during a revolution.

Discussion: Poynter and Future of Journalism

Tim Carmody / Epicenter:

Without Jobs as CEO, Who Speaks for the Arts at Apple? — What is the secret to Apple's success? After introducing the iPad 2 in March, Steve Jobs offered one answer: … Steve Jobs' resignation as CEO of Apple leaves the company without its founder and lead visionary, but still in very capable hands.

Discussion: Evolver.fm, VatorNews, Forbes and Wall Street Journal, more at Techmeme »

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

To @ or not to @? When and how to name drop in social media — Imagine for a moment that you are at a party, standing in a circle of people and exchanging stories. You start to tell the one about the time your friend John, who is across the room, fell into the lake on a fishing trip.

Discussion: A VC