Mediagazer: Legitimate News Source Ditches Credibility for April Fool's Fun (Louis Peitzman/Gawker)

8:40 AM ET, April 2, 2012

Top News:

A Shooting, And Instant Polarization — What seemed like a single shooting incident in a midsize Florida city — the killing in February of Trayvon Martin — now threatens to divide a country. How did that happen? — How did a discrete local event take on the scale of a presidential election …

Discussion: AlterNet.org

Erik Wemple:

NBC to do ‘internal investigation’ on Zimmerman segment — NBC told this blog today that it would investigate its handling of a piece on the “Today” show that ham-handedly abridged the conversation between George Zimmerman and a dispatcher in the moments before the death of Trayvon Martin.

Discussion: Mediaite, NewsBusters.org, New York Magazine, TVNewser, americanthinker.com, Mother Jones, @romenesko, The Volokh Conspiracy and Chickaboomer

James Crugnale / Mediaite:

Geraldo Rivera Apologizes To Trayvon Martin's Parents For Hoodie Comments — On Fox News' Geraldo At Large Sunday night, Geraldo Rivera spoke with Trayvon Martin's parents and asked them for their forgiveness over his controversial comments that Martin's hoodie was as much responsible for his death as shooter George Zimmerman.

Discussion: New York Magazine and The Huffington Post

Journalism.org:
How Blogs, Twitter and Mainstream Media Have Handled the Trayvon Martin Case

Discussion: The Wrap

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Keith Olbermann's Angry Email Trail Traces Breakup With Current TV — His bitter divorce from Al Gore's network followed months of escalating complaints to Current TV executives. Howard Kurtz unearths the acrimonious correspondence. — It was a terrible marriage from the beginning.

Discussion: Gothamist, Business Insider, New York Magazine, Hollywood Reporter, The Huffington Post and TMZ.com

Brian Stelter / New York Times:
News Analysis: Olbermann Set the Tone at Current and MSNBC

Discussion: ShortFormBlog

David Carr / Media Decoder:
Keith Olbermann: Machine Gun for Hire

Discussion: The New Yorker Blog, Mediaite, NPR, Apoplectic Skeptic, Gothamist and The FJP

Louis Peitzman / Gawker:

Legitimate News Source Ditches Credibility for April Fool's Fun — For a brief moment, Google News' top story was “Romney Drops Out of Race, Endorses Santorum.” This is decidedly untrue — but hey, it was published by Forbes, so it must be worth something, right?

Discussion: ShortFormBlog, Runnin' Scared, The Impertinent Economist, The Impertinent Economist, @lenburman, @antderosa, americanthinker.com, Mashable!, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Soup

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

The best and worst April fools: Chicago Mayor FOIAs himself, Forbes burns Romney and Google, Onward State mocks itself — The problem with April Fools' journalism pranks isn't that they compromise the integrity of a news organization with a once-yearly joke.

Discussion: TechCrunch, 10,000 Words and Adweek

Lucia Moses / Adweek:

Bloomberg and Reuters: The Future of News — There's no mistaking where Andy Lack feels Bloomberg LP is positioned versus its competitors. “We may be the last man standing,” says Lack, who oversees the news organization's multimedia operations. — A veteran of network television …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Booking Battle at the Morning Shows — Set your alarm clocks for 6:59 a.m., America. — On Monday morning, “Good Morning America” on ABC will have Katie Couric; “CBS This Morning” will have Oprah Winfrey; and the “Today” show on NBC will have a surprise guest who isn't being revealed in advance.

Discussion: TVNewser, @jennifer_k_long, Forbes, Gawker, Chickaboomer and JIMROMENESKO.COM

NY Daily News:

Roger Ailes helps conservative writer out-Fox rival — What, Roger Ailes worried? We hear the Fox News CEO is helping conservative writer Zev Chafets fast-track a book about Ailes' and the “Fair and Balanced” cable-news network because he's worried about the exhaustively reported book …

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

DirecTV and Tribune Fail to Reach Deal — Some DirecTV customers woke up on Sunday without Fox or the CW networks on their television sets, the result of a failed negotiation with Tribune Broadcasting, which owns or operates 23 television stations across the United States.

Discussion: Company Town, Hillicon Valley, The Wrap, Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg, Multichannel and Adweek

Rob Grimshaw / Wired:

Sink or Swim: Digital Publishers Need to Be Bold — When the Financial Times decided to focus its digital model on subscriptions, the reception from commentators was skeptical to say the least. Fast-forward a few years and the criticism has melted away. With 270,000 digital subscribers …

Discussion: @steverubel and @timoreilly

Paul McNally / Journalism.co.uk:

NUJ: statutory reform of press regulation has become ‘inevitable’ — Journalists' union also calls for communications bill to tackle issue of who regulates websites belonging to a broadcaster or newspaper publisher — NUJ Newsquest members at a recent strike. The union has submitted new proposals to the Leveson inquiry