Mediagazer: Is Twitter a newspaper, or is it the phone company? (Mathew Ingram/GigaOM)

6:00 PM ET, February 20, 2012

Top News:

Jeremy Lin headline slur was ‘honest mistake,’ fired ESPN editor Anthony Federico claims — EXCLUSIVE: ‘This had nothing to do with me being cute or punny’ — Jeremy Lin looks on during Knicks' victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday. — The ESPN editor fired Sunday for using …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Capital New York, WKBW-TV, Bleacher Report, Patterico's Pontifications, St. Petersburg Times, WebProNews, Mediaite, Mother Jones, Gothamist, CBS Chicago, Deadspin, SBNation.com and The Daily Caller

Lucas Shaw / The Baltimore Sun:

ESPN fires employee over racist Jeremy Lin headline — ESPN has fired one employee and suspended another for using the same racist word in connection to New York Knicks' guard Jeremy Lin. In both cases, an employee used the word “chink” in reference to Lin, a Palo Alto, California, native of Chinese descent.

David Carr / New York Times:
Media Hype for Lin Stumbles on Race

Discussion: Gothamist and @darrenrovell

E.D. Kain / American Times:

Possible Conflict Of Interest In ABC's Exclusive Access To Apple Chinese Supply Chain — ABC has been granted exclusive access to Apple's Chinese supply chain. — In January, the New York Times published a controversial and troubling report about working conditions in FoxConn factories where Apple products are manufactured.

Discussion: 9to5Mac, ABCNEWS, The Huffington Post, Fortune, Techland, Gizmodo and The TechBlock, more at Techmeme »

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Nook 8GB Tablet coming on February 22nd to better compete with Kindle Fire — The Nook Tablet's biggest problem so far has been that it costs $50 more than Amazon's Kindle Fire while targeting the same budget-conscious Android tablet market. That's likely to change soon, however …

Discussion: DigiTimes, ITProPortal, Mashable!, VentureBeat, WebProNews, Electronista, Kindle Review, VatorNews, paidContent, TeleRead, The TechBlock, GeekWire, Engadget, Softpedia News, TechCrunch and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »

Bill Keller / New York Times:

WikiLeaks, a Postscript — THIS is apparently the revenge of Julian Assange: everyone who runs afoul of the rock-star leaker is condemned to spend eternity discussing the cosmic meaning of WikiLeaks. As the editor of The Times during our publication of many articles based on that treasury …

Discussion: Gawker and The Nation

@wikileaks: The only explanation for Bill Keller's bizarre attacks on Wikileaks, his former benefactor, is fear. The question is, of what?

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Memorial fund set up in honour of New York Times journalist — The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced a memorial fund in honour of Anthony Shadid, as well as plans for a scholarship and ‘possibly’ an award in his name — The university at which New York Times foreign correspondent …

Discussion: New York Times and Journalism.co.uk

James Barron / New York Times:

Anthony Shadid, Times Correspondent, Posthumously Honored — A 24-year-old reporter who covered the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State and a Maine newspaper that uncovered substandard conditions in subsidized housing were among the winners of George Polk Awards in Journalism for 2011 announced …

Discussion: California Watch, The New York Observer, Wall Street Journal, Long Island University and Poynter

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

Sun on Sunday: Rivals likely to take the biggest hit this weekend — Expect Murdoch's new edition to sell about 2.5m - and for the Sunday Mirror, People and Daily Star Sunday to forfeit readers — Rupert Murdoch's Sun on Sunday marks the rebirth of one newspaper.

Discussion: Guardian and Digital Spy

Andrew Pugh / Press Gazette:
No bail curbs to stop return of arrested Sun journalists

Discussion: Tom Watson MP

Mark Sweney / Guardian: Sun on Sunday: NI plots ad-backed push for sales top spot

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian: Sun on Sunday to be edited by Dominic Mohan

Martin Phillips / The Sun:
The Sun next Sunday

Discussion: Guardian, Reuters, Digital Spy, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post, Big News Network.com, Journalism.co.uk, Guardian, @rupertmurdoch, @dansabbagh, FleetStreetBlues, @paulcarr and Jon Slattery

Guardian:
Rupert Murdoch to launch Sun on Sunday next weekend

Discussion: mnilive.com, Globe and Mail, Media Week, Press Gazette and Big News Network.com

Duncan Gardham / Telegraph:

Bulger killer could be in line for compensation from News of the World — One of the killers of James Bulger is seeking to sue News International for more than £50,000 after he was informed that his phone may have been hacked by the News of the World. — Robert Thompson

Discussion: The Week UK

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian: Rupert Murdoch letter to News International staff ‘full of legal errors’

Chris Satullo / newsworks:

Newsrooms, not newspapers, are the asset that needs to be saved — I worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer for 20 years, and every time this one thing happened, I hated it. At regular intervals, a magazine writer or a reporter for one of the alternative weeklies would decide it was time to trot …

Discussion: Poynter

Will Bunch / Philly.com:
An open letter to the next owners of Philadelphia Media Networks

Discussion: Poynter, Strange Attractor, @stevebuttry, @romenesko and @jeffjarvis

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Is Twitter a newspaper, or is it the phone company? — Is Twitter a publisher and distributor of information like a newspaper, or is it just a dumb pipe like a telephone network? Lawyers in Australia seem to believe that a case could be made that Twitter is a publisher, like a newspaper …

Discussion: citmedialaw.org, Thanks:@mathewi

Julie Moos / Poynter:

James O'Shea calls early reporting on Chicago News Coop's demise “sloppy” and “inaccurate” — Chicago News Cooperative is planning to suspend operations next Sunday, editor and CEO James O'Shea announced in a letter to readers today. Word of the Coop's fate spread on Friday …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, blogs.phillymag.com and Time Out Chicago

Sarah Fenske / Squid Ink:

Jonathan Gold Is Leaving the L.A. Weekly — Yes, it's true. The Weekly's longtime food critic, Jonathan Gold, has accepted a job with the L.A. Times. He'll be leaving here in a few weeks. — We're sad to see him go, as Gold is not only the first — and only …

Discussion: The Wrap, Fork in the Road, LA Observed and The Atlantic Wire