Mediagazer: In Small Towns, Gossip Moves to the Web, and Turns Vicious (A. G. Sulzberger/New York Times)

7:30 PM ET, September 20, 2011

Top News:

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

WSJ Social, For a World Where Facebook Is the New Internet — Is Facebook a friend of news companies, or is it a rival? No matter how much success publishers have piggybacking off its traffic, they can't escape the cruel math: The more of their time consumers spend on Facebook …

over(heard) & under:

I have some news to share. — Today, I'm excited to unveil a project I've been working on over the last few months: WSJ Social, a standalone news publication on Facebook. — Having recently moved from startup hub San Francisco — where I mused about the future of newspapers in the app economy …

Discussion: Adweek, Future of Journalism and Talking Biz News

Megan Garber / Nieman Journalism Lab:

With WSJ Social, the Wall Street Journal is rethinking distribution of its content...on Facebook — The most recent stats could be, for news outfits, pretty grim: Americans spend 22.5 percent of their time online visiting social networks and blogs, and only 2.6 percent of their time learning about current events.

Discussion: Forbes

Bloomberg:

Turner: Murdoch ‘Going to Have to Step Down’ — Billionaire Ted Turner said News Corp. (NWSA) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch will probably have to leave the helm of his media company after a phone-hacking scandal that began at one of its newspapers.

Discussion: New York Magazine, FishbowlNY, Hollywood Reporter, The Huffington Post, Mogulite and ShortFormBlog

Greg Farrell / Bloomberg:

News Corp. Said to Get U.S. Letter Seeking Information For Bribery Probe — News Corp. (NWS) was sent a letter by U.S. prosecutors investigating foreign bribery, requesting information on alleged payments employees made to U.K. police for tips, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Discussion: Guardian

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

Can Ginia Bellafante Save the New York Times' Soul? — In your provocative Tuesday media column: the NYT's new Big City columnist gives us hope, Ted Turner vs. Rupert Murdoch, Utah newspaper standards war, the internet won't be free forever, and Cenk Uygur to Current TV.

Discussion: TVNewser and Mediaite

A. G. Sulzberger / New York Times:

In Small Towns, Gossip Moves to the Web, and Turns Vicious — MOUNTAIN GROVE, Mo. — In the small towns nestled throughout the Ozarks, people like to say that everybody knows everybody's business — and if they do not, they feel free to offer an educated guess.

Discussion: Gannett Blog, The Atlantic Wire, Business Insider, New York Magazine, Future of Journalism and Gawker

Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:

Exclusive: Facebook seeks exec to build Hollywood, media ties — (Reuters) - Facebook is looking to hire a big-name executive to cultivate relationships and strike deals with the film and music industries to bolster its media offerings. — In recent months, Facebook had discussions …

Discussion: Future of Journalism and scribbal.com

Guardian:

Met police drop action against the Guardian over hacking sources — Scotland Yard has dropped bid to force the Guardian to reveal confidential sources behind phone hacking stories — The Metropolitan police has dropped its attempt to force the Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal.

Discussion: Jon Slattery and Telegraph

Richard Littlejohn / Daily Mail:
No, I'm not kidding. We really have to defend the Guardian

Discussion: Jon Slattery, Press Gazette and Guardian

Tanzina Vega / Media Decoder:

Former NPR Official Gets New Position — Nine months after resigning as senior vice president for news at National Public Radio, Ellen Weiss has been named executive editor at the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit investigative news organization in Washington.

Discussion: The New York Observer and Poynter

Alex Alvarez / Mediaite:

Cenk Uygur On His Current TV Show: Wanted A Place Not ‘Encumbered By A Media Conglomerate’ — Cenk Uygur is joining his fellow former MSNBC veteran Keith Olbermann and heading to Current TV. Uygur's new show, The Young Turks, will be an original televised news program airing every weeknight at 7 p.m. …

Discussion: Adweek, Media Decoder, Media & Entertainment and Broadcasting & Cable

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Public streaming, recording make Google Hangouts more useful for journalists — Journalists have new ways to use the group video chat Hangouts in Google+ thanks to new features announced today. A new version called “Hangouts On Air” allows a discussion to be publicly livestreamed and recorded.

Discussion: Google Mobile Blog, MediaFile, GalleyCat, The Official Google Blog and L.A. Times Tech Blog, more at Techmeme »

David Kaplan / paidContent:

Time.com Ad, Traffic Strategy Focuses More Heavily On Verticals — The value of being a weekly print brand in the online era has been in doubt for years, but Time magazine believes that it can retain relevance by not just emphasizing the Time the brand online, but ramping up attention a lot …

Discussion: Poynter, MediaPost and Future of Journalism

Aljazeera:

Al Jazeera director general steps down — Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's top executive since 2003, to step down after leading the network to global prominence. — Al Jazeera's director general, Wadah Khanfar, has announced that he will step down after eight years as the network's top executive.

Discussion: Associated Press, TVNewser, On Media's Blog, Guardian, Broadband TV News and CJR

Quote and Comment:

Could we please see this sentence in the New York Times more often? — It's the one that goes, “This is false.” — Somebody on Twitter sent the link to me. They knew I would appreciate it. — Here it is in context, in an article on Ray's Pizza (the real one) closing down in Soho.

Discussion: Boing Boing and Gawker

Emily Witt / The New York Observer:

New Yorker Writer Peter Hessler and Radiolab Producer Jad Abumrad Among This Year's MacArthur Geniuses — Abumrad. — The MacArthur geniuses have been announced. Here's how we read the list: scientist, scientist, scientist, long-form journalist and New Yorker contributor Peter Hessler!

Discussion: Poynter, Gothamist, Transom and The Book Bench