Mediagazer: Bearing Witness in Syria: A War Reporter's Last Days (Tyler Hicks/New York Times)

1:15 PM ET, March 4, 2012

Top News:

Bearing Witness in Syria: A War Reporter's Last Days — It was damp and cold as Anthony Shadid and I crossed in darkness over the barbed-wire fence that separated Turkey from Syria last month. We were also crossing from peace into war, into the bloodiest conflict of the Arab Spring …

Matt DeRienzo / NewspaperTurnaround.Com:

Is linking a ‘keystone habit’ that can convert newsrooms to ‘open journalism?’ — Elaine Clisham was shaking her head at the latest dust-up over whether media organizations should link to other news outlets and sources of information in their reporting on the web.

Discussion: @vincrosbie, @ksablan and @stevebuttry

Mark Armstrong:

The Hot Dog Shooter & the Takeout Bag: A Portable Content Manifesto — Read It Later users keep content on their tablets and phones for an average of 96 hours after they've saved it. What does that say about the lifespan of content and how we value it? — The other night I had this nightmare …

Discussion: Canadian Magazines and Poynter

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

Crowdfunding journalism: How one project secured $50,000 in 38 hours — The co-founder of Matter discusses how the project used Kickstarter to test whether there was an appetite for a digital project dedicated to in-depth science and technology journalism — Backers will receive a range of rewards …

Benjamin Hart / The Huffington Post:

Rush Limbaugh Apologizes For Calling Student A ‘Slut’ — Rush Limbaugh has issued an apology for calling student Sandra Fluke a ‘slut’ on his radio show this week—comments which ignited a media firestorm, caused advertisers to flee from his show, and even prompted President Obama to weigh in.

Discussion: carbonite.com, The Caucus, Media Decoder, Guardian, @carr2n, Forbes, msnbc.com, Rush Limbaugh, Reuters, Detroit Free Press, Associated Press, NewsBusters.org, New York Magazine, The Week and Mediaite

Alex Howard / O'Reilly Radar:

In the age of big data, data journalism has profound importance for society — The promise of data journalism was a strong theme throughout the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting's (NICAR) 2012 conference. In 2012, making sense of big data through narrative and context …

Discussion: The FJP

Carla Murphy / CJR:

How to Chill the Independent Journalist — Facing arrest without institutional backup — After her arrest last November, Alisen Redmond quit covering Occupy Atlanta. She felt that she had to. At the time, Redmond was the news editor of Kennesaw State University's Sentinel …

Michael Kelley / The Digital Shift:

Librarians Feel Sticker Shock as Price for Random House Ebooks Rises as Much as 300 Percent — A Guide to Publishers in the Library Ebook Market — (This story has been updated to clarify the meaning of “simultaneity” and include remarks from the North Texas Library Partners.)

Discussion: Brave New World, The Digital Reader, TechCrunch, paidContent and Publishers Lunch

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Court Filings Suggest Google Fighting Feds Over Megaupload Emails — A pair of cryptic court filings surfaced in Virginia this week that suggest Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is in a fight with the federal government over Megaupload, the file-sharing site that was shut down in a dramatic raid in January.

Discussion: Gizmodo

Paul Smalera / MediaFile:

Content everywhere? More like content nowhere — Will Big Media and Big Tech companies ever stop punishing their biggest fans? — Like many people, I woke up yesterday and reached for my iPad for my morning hit of news, entertainment and information, so I could start my day.

Erik Wemple:

Breitbart on journalism: ‘Anybody’ can do it — One of the wonders of Andrew Breitbart was how many personas he could fit into a single hide. Though a product of liberal west Los Angeles, he became one of the right's leading crusaders. And when prompted, he could recite the catechism …

Discussion: Forbes, Washington Post and Capital New York

Jim Romenesko:

USA Today sports staff told to reapply for jobs — Jim Hopkins has some of the story on his Gannett blog, but he doesn't seem to have it all. Some posters there have said the ME was away on vacation when the announcement was made. — I have asked USA Today spokeswoman Heidi Zimmerman for comment.