Mediagazer: New York Times Co. Said to Focus on External CEO Candidates (Edmund Lee/Bloomberg)

5:15 PM ET, March 20, 2012

Top News:

McKay Coppins / Buzzfeed:

Story About White House Scrubbing Obama Daughter Travel Story Has Now Been Scrubbed — The White House's campaign to scrub a story from the internet yesterday about Malia Obama's trip to Mexico has gone meta: a media reporter's blog post about the administration's efforts to scrub the story …

Discussion: Associated Press and @weareyourfek

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Media scrubs Malia Obama vacation story — The AFP, the Huffington Post and other websites have scrubbed a report about first daughter Malia Obama's Spring Break vacation. — On Monday, the AFP reported that Obama's daughter was vacationing abroad, along with a number of friends and 25 Secret Service agents.

Discussion: National Review, TVNewser, Capital New York, TheBlaze.com, BuzzFeed, Mediaite, The Raw Story and Reason

Poynter:

The unanswered questions about ‘This American Life’ and journalism — It's rare for a program to dedicate an entire episode to retracting a previous episode and to issue a press release explaining why. “This American Life” has put time and resources into retracting “Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory.”

Discussion: Jack Shafer, MOTHERBOARD, Grist, The Jane Dough, Erik Wemple, Forbes, Erik Wemple, CJR and Mike Daisey

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Woz supports Mike Daisey's message and says you should too — Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said today that he loved Mike Daisey's show, believes his message is crucial, and said he spoke glowingly of Daisey to Steve Jobs before the Apple CEO died. In an interview with CNET …

Discussion: Gizmodo, BetaNews, The Verge, VentureBeat, Reuters and AllThingsD

Michael Wolff / Guardian:
In defence of Mike Daisey: never mind the facts, focus on the writing

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Quote and Comment and ArtsBeat

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

New York Times Co. Said to Focus on External CEO Candidates — New York Times Co. (NYT), which hired executive-recruiting firm Spencer Stuart to conduct a search for a new CEO, is focusing on external candidates, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.

Discussion: Poynter and Politico

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

NYT: We Have 454,000 Digital Subs So Let's Turn Down The Meter — The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) ends year one of limiting full NYTimes.com access to those who pay with nearly a half-million subscribers—about 454,000—and starts year two with measures to push more growth.

Discussion: CJR, MediaPost, Guardian, Media & Entertainment, 10,000 Words, New York Times, Globe and Mail, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Capital New York

Paul Starobin / CJR:

Money Talks — Gillian Tett, the US managing editor of the London-based Financial Times, is “sharp” and “glamorous,” according to a 2010 profile by The Daily Beast. She may even be “the most powerful woman in newspapers,” the Beast said, as the FT “intends to become a status symbol of American business.”

Discussion: Reuters and Inside Cable News

David Weigel / Slate:

The Media Shouldn't Apologize for Reporting What Voters Actually Say — And the journalists who report on them don't need to apologize for it. — If you don't hate Alexandra Pelosi, you hate America. A week ago, Pelosi delivered a micro-documentary to Real Time With Bill Maher about angry …

Discussion: National Review, The FJP, @carr2n, bookforum.com, Poynter and Media Decoder

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Sebastian Junger Launches Medical Training Program For Freelance Journalists In War Zones — NEW YORK — Tim Hetherington didn't have to die in Libya. It's that belief that has led Sebastian Junger, a close friend and colleague of the award-winning photojournalist, to launch Reporters Instructed …

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

How BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski mines the Internet for video gold — In a Dickens novel, Andrew Kaczynski would be The Ghost of Statements Past — haunting political candidates with visions of years-old contradictions, hypocrisy or embarrassment they would rather forget.

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Diller-backed Aereo countersues Fox, PBS — (Reuters) - Aereo Inc, an online television service backed by billionaire Barry Diller, filed a second countersuit against major broadcasters that want to stop it from retransmitting their programming. — Tuesday's lawsuit against News Corp's Fox …

Discussion: VentureBeat and The Verge

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Does the Texas Tribune's nonprofit journalism hurt journalists? — Stephen Robert Morse doesn't like the Texas Tribune's nonprofit business model for two reasons: Journalists at for-profit publications, he argues, now compete with bigger name Tribune journalists whose work newspapers can run for free …

Discussion: Erik Wemple, NetNewsCheck Latest and @markbriggs