Mediagazer: Dear Newsroom Curmudgeon, (Steve Buttry/The Buttry Diary)

9:00 PM ET, April 7, 2012

Top News:

Parting Ways — Anyone who has read Derb in our pages knows he's a deeply literate, funny, and incisive writer. I direct anyone who doubts his talents to his delightful first novel, “Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream,” or any one of his “Straggler” columns in the books section of NR.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Huffington Post and ThinkProgress

Frances Martel / Mediaite:

Internet Responds To John Derbyshire's Shockingly Racist ‘Non-Black Talk’ With Universal Disgust — John Derbyshire is likely best known as a contributor to National Review, though he became the target of intense revulsion this weekend for something he wrote elsewhere- at Taki Mag …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, The Atlantic Wire, National Review, Media Matters for America, Slate, NY Daily News, ThinkProgress, The Barrometer and The Huffington Post

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

NBC Fires Producer of Misleading Zimmerman Tape — NBC News has fired a producer who was involved in the production of a misleading segment about the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. — The person was fired on Thursday, according to two people with direct knowledge of the disciplinary action …

Discussion: Mediaite, The Daily Caller, Reuters, Politico, The New York Observer, The Wrap, Inside Cable News, The FJP, TVNewser, The Volokh Conspiracy, Reuters, Chickaboomer, Business Insider and Deadline.com

Guardian:

Murdoch press savages Australian rival in pay TV row — News Limited accuses Fairfax group of trashing media principles — Australia's raucous press is no stranger to confrontational journalism, but the last week has seen a bitter war of words between the country's two largest newspaper groups …

Discussion: NPR, NPR and NPR

paidContent:

DRM is crushing indie booksellers online — In June of 2011, my friend Emily Gould came up with an idea for a new kind of online bookstore: one that would sell only e-books, but would strive to offer the personalized customer service and curation of a local independent bookshop.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Why Bob Woodward is wrong about the internet and journalism — Anyone who has followed the media for the past half century or so knows that Bob Woodward is a giant in the field, one half of the legendary investigative team of Woodward and Bernstein — a man who helped to bring down a U.S. president …

Robert Channick / Chicago Tribune:

Britannica experiences run on final print edition — The decision to end publication of the printed edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica after 244 years has turned it into a best seller. — When the Chicago-based company announced March 14 that the printed version of Britannica …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Steve Buttry / The Buttry Diary:

Dear Newsroom Curmudgeon, — I sometimes share your anxiety and occasionally share your concerns about some of the changes in journalism. I learned journalism in the old school, same as you. I am steeped in the same values of accuracy, fairness, dogged reporting and good writing that you cherish.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Virgin Atlantic tip-off allegations put workings of media back in spotlight — Leveson inquiry urged to examine secret trade in private information that fuels the paparazzi — They are the secret tip-offs at the heart of the paparazzi. Far from the heavily trailed showbiz parties and red-carpet events …

Discussion: Press Gazette, Guardian and Digital Spy

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Exclusive: Yahoo's Chief Product Officer Blake Irving Resigns — According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo's Chief Product Officer Blake Irving has turned in his resignation and it has been accepted by the company. — The process for Irving's departure is a bit more formal since …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Search Engine Land, FishbowlNY, Deadline.com, The Verge and Reuters

Roger Parloff / Fortune:

The real importance of the revived Viacom-YouTube case — The case is a modest win for content-owners. But it also fiddles with bedrock definitions that determine the outcome of a crucial recurring question: When are companies liable for their users' copyright infringement? — By Roger Parloff, senior editor

Discussion: Techdirt and paidContent

Alison Flood / Guardian:

American digital public library promised for 2013 — Two million books will be available in an online digital library to rival Google's collection, according to Professor Robert Darnton, who promised the new database would overcome copyright hurdles by next year

Discussion: TechCrunch