Mediagazer: How Mobile Phones Could Bring Public Services to People in Developing Countries (Miguel Paz/MediaShift Idea Lab)

2:00 PM ET, October 9, 2011

Top News:

Mike Fleming / Deadline.com:

Sony Pictures Acquiring New Steve Jobs Biography For Major Feature Film — EXCLUSIVE: I've just learned that Sony Pictures is making a hefty deal to acquire feature rights to Steve Jobs, the upcoming authorized biography by former CNN chairman and Time Magazine managing editor Walter Isaacson.

Discussion: CNET News, TUAW, Mediaite, Softpedia News, MacStories, Variety, The Next Web, Media Decoder, Gizmodo, App Advice, Digital Spy, Electronista, New York Magazine and The Moviefone Blog, more at Techmeme »

James Rainey / Los Angeles Times:
On the Media: Steve Jobs and Apple vs. a free press

Discussion: LA Observed and San Francisco Peninsula …

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
Steve Jobs and the media: For the most part, it was a love affair

Discussion: FT Tech Hub

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Al-Jazeera's chief extols virtues of ‘journalism for the people’ — The revolutionary fervour of the Arab Spring came alive last night at City University London in a lecture by Wadah Khanfar, the former director general of Al-Jazeera. — In describing his reaction to the various uprisings …

Josh Constine / Inside Facebook:

News Outlets Preserve Privacy by Giving Users Ways to Mute Facebook's Frictionless Sharing — Several news outlets are testing different interfaces that let their readers opt out of sharing their reading activity to Facebook. Since gaining the ability at last month's f8 …

Discussion: Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

Miguel Paz / MediaShift Idea Lab:

How Mobile Phones Could Bring Public Services to People in Developing Countries — In Santiago, Chile, more than 60 percent of the poorest citizens don't have access to the Internet. In the rest of the country, that number increases to 80 percent, and in rural areas, an Internet connection is almost nonexistent.

Discussion: Future of Journalism

Dan Roberts / Guardian:

The Guardian is opening up its newslists so you can help us make news — Get in touch with reporters and editors via Twitter and have your say during our open newsdesk trial — Few documents are more carefully guarded in newspaper offices than the newslist.

Dan Frommer / SplatF:

Adventures in self-publishing: SplatF's first quarterly report — Holy cow, it's already been three months since I started publishing SplatF. Among other clichés: Time flies when you're having fun. — As I've noted all along, one of the reasons I'm doing this is to see if self-publishing online is a viable business.

Alessandra Stanley / New York Times:

The TV Watch: ‘The Early Show’ on CBS Is Sober but Stronger — There isn't much news you can use on “The Early Show” on CBS. It no longer offers dieting tips, barbecue recipes or audience makeovers. There are no pop concerts or “Growing Pains” cast reunions.

Discussion: TVNewser

Troy Thibodeaux / Poynter:

5 tips for getting started in data journalism — Data journalist. Computer-assisted reporter. Newsroom developer. Journo-geek. If those of us who work in the field aren't quite sure what to call ourselves, it's little wonder that sometimes even the people who work beside us are puzzled by what we do.

David Lister / The Independent:

Twenty-five years is a long time in arts journalism — I feel a little queasy about writing an anniversary piece, as I was in the room in August 1986 - two months before the launch of The Independent - when the founding editor Andreas Whittam Smith declared that one of the many ways …

Andrew Goldfarb / IGN:

Scoop: Toy Story Scribes May Pen Farmville Film — The social franchise may be headed to the big screen. — In an interview about their work on upcoming game Skylanders Spyro's Adventures, Toy Story writers Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen have revealed that they're currently in talks to pen a film based on Farmville.

Discussion: Joystiq, /Film and New York Magazine, more at Techmeme »

NPR:

Barry Eisler's ‘Detachment’ From ‘Legacy’ Publishing … Thriller writer Barry Eisler has turned his back on traditional publishing — or as he calls it, legacy publishing. His latest book, The Detachment, was released as an e-book in September. It comes out in paperback in October.

Discussion: The Corsair, The New York Observer and TeleRead

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Police Clashes Spur Coverage of Wall Street Protests — The Occupy Wall Street protests, by design, began with little in the way of concrete goals or strategy. — But the protests in Manhattan, now in their third week, and in other parts of the country, have found two ways to draw attention to their cause.