Mediagazer: A Robot Stole My Pulitzer! (Evgeny Morozov/Slate)

5:30 AM ET, March 20, 2012

Top News:

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” — Many consider this week's THIS AMERICAN LIFE episode one of the most painful they've ever listened to. In particular the segment with me is excruciating—four hours of grilling edited down to fifteen minutes.

Discussion: The latest episodes …, Washington Post, Slate, AllThingsD, @kashhill, @jackshafer, @jayrosen_nyu, The Wrap, PopWatch, Techland, CNET, The Huffington Post, The Stranger … and Poynter

Michael Wolff / Guardian:

In defence of Mike Daisey: never mind the facts, focus on the writing | Michael Wolff — The This American Life controversy shows that the problem with journalism may not lie with facts or truth, but the form itself — Most journalists are terrible writers.

Discussion: ArtsBeat, New York Times and Chickaboomer

Matthew Baldwin / defective yeti:
Putting the I in Story — I worked as a customer service …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Erik Wemple, Mashable!, MacStories, Gawker, Poynter, Fast Company and BetaNews

Craig Silverman / Poynter:
4 important truths about Mike Daisey's lies & the way ‘This American Life’ told them

Discussion: New Beans, CJR, CNET, The Huffington Post, App Advice, 9to5Mac, Radio & Television …, Techland, Innovation in College Media, The Stranger … and Forbes

Adrian Chen / Gawker:
How I Was Duped By Mike Daisey's Lies

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Betabeat, Forbes, The Atlantic Online and CNET

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Newspapers And Video: Slow And Steady Or Flood The Zone? — The Wall Street Journal (NSDQ: NWS) has embraced video with gusto. The venerable paper is pumping out hours of live news clips and splashing them onto everything from the iPhone to the X-Box. — According to Alisa Bowen …

Discussion: Beet.TV and NetNewsCheck Latest, Thanks:@jeffjohnroberts

Jeff Roberts / paidContent:

Why The Wall Street Journal Isn't Adding Digital To Its Sunday Edition — Common wisdom says there's no future in print newspapers and that the rest of the country is fed up with Wall Street. But both propositions fall flat in the case of the Wall Street Journal (NSDQ: NWS) Sunday edition.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

AOL Prepping New Weekly iPad Magazine Called ‘Huffington’ — Eat your heart out, Oprah. (Not actually what it will look like, probably.) — At a conference in London today, David Shing, AOL's “digital prophet” (actually his title), expressed a strong view on the superiority of websites …

Discussion: The Next Web

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 …

Business Week:

Former Gannett CEO gets $32M severance package — MCLEAN, VA. — Former Gannett Co. CEO Craig Dubow's received a severance package valued at about $32 million after chronic health problems prompted his resignation from the largest U.S. newspaper publisher.

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Media Culture Shifts: theory vs. reality — This weekend, my ritual readings were dominated by corporate media culture issues: How to transition from the legacy media culture to the more agile and chaotic digital world? I've been reading up on this topic — and sometimes conferencing about it — for years.

Discussion: Guardian

Daniel Frankel / paidContent:

Nielsen, GroupM To Develop New Ratings Tool — As more people watch TV content on something other than TV, ad firms and their clients are eager for a tool that lets them analyze the success of TV advertising across those devices and platforms. Recently, there's been a burst of activity on that front.

Discussion: ClickZ

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Oprah Winfrey Network to Lay Off 30 — OWN, Oprah Winfrey's cable channel, said on Monday that it had decided to lay off 30 people in a restructuring of its operations in Los Angeles and New York. — The staff cutbacks are the latest public setback for the young channel, which is co-owned by Ms. Winfrey and Discovery Communications.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable and The Wrap

Evgeny Morozov / Slate:

A Robot Stole My Pulitzer! — How automated journalism and loss of reading privacy may hurt civil discourse. — Can technology be autonomous? Does it lead a life of its own and operate independently of human guidance? From the French theologian Jacques Ellul to the Unabomber, this used to be widely accepted.

Discussion: The FJP

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

If you have news, it will be aggregated and/or curated — The Pew Research Center has come out with a massive new report on the state of media as part of its Project for Excellence in Journalism, and it comes to a number of conclusions about where the industry stands …

Discussion: Garcia Media, AllThingsD, PC Magazine and Forbes

Alan Travis / Guardian:

Murdoch met Thatcher before Times takeover — The media mogul requested a meeting at Chequers to personally lobby the PM, and explicitly briefed her on his bid - something long denied by both sides — • Read the original documents here — A secret meeting between Rupert Murdoch …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Hacking inquiry and The Independent