Mediagazer: Rather Defends George Bush Report, Slams Corporate-Owned Media On Real Time (Josh Feldman/Mediaite)

1:35 PM ET, May 20, 2012

Top News:

Josh Stearns / Groundswell:

Hindsight Journalism — In an earlier post I picked apart Ted Koppel's graduation speech to the students at UMass Amherst. However, I wanted to return to his remarks briefly and take a closer look at one portion of the speech that I didn't contend with in my earlier post.

Thanks:@jcstearns

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

When is a website not a website? For Talking Points Memo, the turning point was in 2012 — About six months ago, Talking Points Memo publisher Josh Marshall had a realization. — It was something that had been bouncing around in his head for a while, but only then was he sure …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Report: Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over Blasphemous Content, Facebook Complies? — Another day, another example of a country making it harder for its people to use the web and some of its most effective channels of communication? There are reports coming in from Pakistan that it has become the latest country to ban the use of Twitter.

Discussion: VentureBeat, CNET, DAWN.COM, Waqas Ali, GigaOM, New York Times, The Verge, The Express Tribune and The Next Web

Josh Feldman / Mediaite:

Rather Defends George Bush Report, Slams Corporate-Owned Media On Real Time — Dan Rather sat down with Bill Maher tonight for a candid conversation about what the news has come to these days with the rise of opinion journalism and consolidated media. In the middle of the discussion …

Discussion: The Huffington Post and The Raw Story

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

How tiny Silverton, Colo., saved its newspaper (and ended up on the ‘Today’ show) — Silverton, Colo., has a population of 637 in the last census, but it didn't let its newspaper die, Bob Dotson reports on “Today.” The San Juan County Historical Society agreed in 2009 to become publisher of the Silverton Standard.

Keith J. Kelly / New York Post:

Reader's Digest CEO: It's time for a haircut — Just a little off the top, please. — Reader's Digest Association CEO Robert Guth is asking bondholders to take a 5 percent haircut on its senior debt. — The company said yesterday that it was giving bondholders until June 14 to decide whether …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

NBC's ‘Community’ to Lose Its Temperamental Maestro — The rabid (if relatively few) fans of the NBC comedy “Community” got the word they were fearing late Friday night when the studio that owns the series, Sony Television, decided to replace Dan Harmon as the creative hand in charge of the series.

Discussion: Vulture, TMZ.com, Dan Harmon Poops, The Huffington Post, Daring Fireball, The Verge, Gawker, The Wrap, TMZ.com, ArtsBeat, /Film and TVLine

Sambuddha Mitra Mustafi / CJR:

Why China ejected Melissa Chan — Is this the kind of reporting that got Al Jazeera correspondent Melissa Chan expelled from China last week? The foreign ministry did not give an official reason for the first expulsion of a journalist in 15 years, except to say that “the media concerned know in their heart what they did wrong.”

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

What is Vice Media's Shane Smith really selling? It's hard to say, but everyone's buying — A little after 3:00 on Thursday afternoon, Shane Smith, the voluble, bear-like co-founder of Vice Media, walked into the Soho loft space that had been selected as this year's headquarters for Internet Week New York …

Discussion: @hamiltonnolan

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

Social journalism research helps explain how information is verified on Twitter — Alfred Hermida's research on social journalism can help journalists better understand verification and accuracy on Twitter. Two papers in particular caught my eye: “Tweets and Truth: Journalism as a Discipline …

Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch denies claims that News Corp may sell UK newspapers — Mogul says News Corporation is ‘firmly committed’ to its papers including the Sun, Times and Sunday Times — Rupert Murdoch has denied reports that News Corp is considering spinning off its British newspapers to protect …

Discussion: Financial Times, Future of Journalism, Financial Times, Telegraph, CJR and Jon Slattery

Erik Larson / Bloomberg:

News Corp. Sued Over Hacking by Victim of 2005 London Bombings — News Corp. (NWSA) (NWSA)'s U.K. unit and the private investigator it hired to hack voice mail was sued by a professor who was seated next to a suicide bomber in the 2005 terror attacks on London's trains and buses.