Mediagazer: Sasha Frere-Jones Backs Away from Duties at The Daily (Kat Stoeffel/The New York Observer)

9:55 AM ET, September 21, 2011

Top News:

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: Guardian, mediabistro.com, Fast Company, New York Magazine, The New York Observer, Foreign Policy and ShortFormBlog

Aljazeera:
Al Jazeera director general steps down

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

Ben Fenton / Financial Times:

Newspaper editors argue for self-regulation — Newspapers need to maintain a self-regulatory regime despite the excesses that led to the phone hacking scandal, members of a high-level panel said last night as they discussed whether the UK got the press it deserved.

Discussion: Erik Wemple

Guardian:
Met police drop action against the Guardian over hacking sources

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Press Gazette, The First Post and Jon Slattery

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

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.

Discussion: FishbowlNY

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, Deadline.com and Guardian

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

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

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:

On the Media: It's time for America to talk class — Income disparity isn't a headline-grabbing topic, but the nation needs to have a serious discussion about it. — In a week that saw the number of people in poverty hit a half-century high and President Obama propose a tax increase …

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: MinOnline, Media News, Forbes, The Atlantic Online, Media Matters for America, GigaOM, Guardian, MediaPost, FishbowlNY, NYConvergence.com, All Facebook, VentureBeat and mocoNews

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

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

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, eMedia Vitals, Bits, CNET News and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »

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

Greg Marx / CJR:

Passing Interference — As politicians find new ways to connect with voters, journalists need a fresh playbook — At the Poynter site last week, Jason Fry had a sharp post about a major change reshaping the sports journalism landscape. The endless MSM-vs.-bloggers feuds are fading …

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

BBC Overhauling Its Website For ‘Swipabiity’ — Expect to see more of this. The BBC is redesigning its website to take account of how users are now “swiping” using touchscreen devices. — The programme began under new future media director Ralph Rivera's regime on Wednesday …

Discussion: Pocket-lint, Guardian and New Media Age

John Koblin / WWD:

More, and Less, of Harper's Bazaar — MORE, AND LESS, OF HARPER'S BAZAAR: Now that Hearst has had its hand on Elle for four months, the publisher is ready to roll out some changes at one of its other fashion titles: Harper's Bazaar. WWD has learned that, in the coming months …

Rip Empson / TechCrunch:

New Enterprise, Benchmark, Ron Conway And More Pour $10 Million Into Web Talk Radio Startup Stitcher — Last we heard, video had killed the radio star. But thanks to the Web, radio is finding new distribution channels and a new mobile home. When you think of Web radio, you might think of Pandora — and for good reason.

Discussion: GigaOM and AllThingsD, more at Techmeme »

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.