Mediagazer: Media bias? Give me more, please! (Jack Shafer)

2:55 AM ET, September 21, 2011

Top News:

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: New York Magazine and Guardian

Bloomberg:
Turner: Murdoch ‘Going to Have to Step Down’

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

David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:

After Disclosures by WikiLeaks, Al Jazeera Replaces Its Top News Director — CAIRO — Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news network controlled by Qatar, named a member of the Qatari royal family on Tuesday to replace its top news director following disclosures from the group WikiLeaks indicating …

Discussion: Foreign Policy and ShortFormBlog

Aljazeera:
Al Jazeera director general steps down

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

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: GigaOM, Forbes, The Atlantic Online, Media Matters for America, VentureBeat, Guardian, FishbowlNY, All Facebook and paidContent

over(heard) & under:
I have some news to share. — Today, I'm excited to unveil …

Discussion: AdExchanger.com, MediaPost, PC World, ReadWriteWeb, Pulse2, Chris Saad and Mixed Media, more at Techmeme »

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Sobees Brings Social News Reader NewsMix To Facebook

Discussion: VentureBeat, VatorNews, Mashable!, The Next Web and Marketing Pilgrim

Jack Shafer:

Media bias? Give me more, please! — The views expressed are his own. — Before we go any further on the topic, may we first please thank the gods for media bias? — If not for media bias, I'm certain that my news diet would taste so strongly of sawdust and talc that I would abandon news consumption completely.

Discussion: Poynter and Future Journalism Project

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

10 ways journalists can use Twitter before, during and after reporting a story — There's no doubt that Twitter is a useful tool for news organizations. I see journalists use it throughout the day to find story ideas, share news and talk with one another, so I've long known …

Discussion: The News About The News and App Advice

Matthew Lynley / VentureBeat:

Digg delivers automatically curated news content with new Newsrooms — News aggregation site Digg unveiled Newsrooms today, a new section of the site that features automatically curated news content on specific topics like technology or politics. — Here's how it works …

Discussion: Digg Blog, CNET News, Bits and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

Kat Stoeffel / The New York Observer:

Sasha Frere-Jones Backs Away from Duties at The Daily — Sasha Frere-Jones, The Daily's bold-face culture editor and New Yorker pop music critic, has relinquished his full-time editing duties at the iPad tabloid, a source familiar with the operations told The Observer.

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: CyberJournalist.net, 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: Deadline.com and Future of Journalism

Diana Marszalek / TVNewsCheck:

How Social Should A Newscast Be? — KOMU Columbia, Mo., in DMA138, has taken the plunge into social media news, last week launching a 4 p.m. newscast that makes viewers an integral part of the show. And there's a social media desk that includes two reporters tracking bloggers …

Discussion: Poynter

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: Deadline.com and Jon Slattery

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

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong: Our Goal Is To Be No. 3 — Tim Armstrong. Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife — Remember “Beat the Internet”? That was the slogan AOL CEO Tim Armstrong cooked up last year to encourage his employees to think big. But the bravado that powered that sentiment has gotten a haircut, it seems.

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog

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: Poynter and The New York Observer

Wall Street Journal:

TV Lures Ads but Viewers Drop Out — Here's a business riddle: More people are turning off their televisions. So why are advertisers spending ever-larger sums—at ever-steeper rates—to advertise on TV? — In many ways, the very fragmentation of modern media has made television all the more valuable.

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