Mediagazer: ‘This is my paper. This is my town’ (Bret J. Schulte/CJR)

8:30 PM ET, May 20, 2012

Top News:

Foer Returns to New Republic as Editor — Two months after buying a majority stake in The New Republic, the technology entrepreneur Chris Hughes has lured one of its former stars, Franklin Foer, back to the magazine as its editor. Mr. Foer, 37, left The New Republic two years ago after a successful five-year run as editor.

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire and The Huffington Post

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Report: Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over Blasphemous Content, Facebook Complies? [Update: Back Up] — 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 …

Discussion: PC Magazine, DAWN.COM, The Express Tribune, Associated Press, VatorNews, TechCrunch, Gawker, CNET, VentureBeat, New York Times, The Verge, @senrehmanmalik, The Next Web, The Raw Story, Global Voices, Waqas Ali and GigaOM

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 …

Bret J. Schulte / CJR:

‘This is my paper. This is my town’ — One year after a devastating tornado, The Joplin Globe feels stronger — Jack Kaminsky lives with his mother now. He is 63 years old, broad shouldered, with silver hair and a silver beard. He's the circulation director of The Joplin Globe …

Discussion: Garcia Media

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

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

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.”

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.

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

Richard Horgan / FishbowlLA:

Chuck Philips Calls Out the LA Times — A remarkable essay has been published on the Village Voice website. Under the headline “Tupac Shakur, the Los Angeles Times, and Why I'm Still Unemployed: A Personal History by Chuck Philips”, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist details …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, @romenesko and @moorehn

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