Mediagazer: Nick Denton tells a crowd there isn't enough Internet gossip (Joe Pompeo/Capital New York)

3:45 PM ET, June 19, 2012

Top News:

Jonah Lehrer's NewYorker.com ‘Smart People’ post borrows from earlier WSJ piece — Last Tuesday, The New Yorker posted Jonah Lehrer's “Why Smart People Are Stupid.” It begins this way: Jonah Lehrer Here's a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents.

Discussion: Poynter

Joe Coscarelli / New York Magazine:

New Yorker Writer Jonah Lehrer Plagiarizes Himself Repeatedly [Update] — Did you ever pull that old college trick where you wrote the same paper for two classes? It's frowned upon, but hard to get caught. Not so on the Internet: New Yorker staffer Jonah Lehrer, who just moved over from Wired …

Discussion: Gawker

Larry McShane / NY Daily News:

Alec Baldwin punches Daily News photographer after obtaining marriage license in New York — For his second upcoming wedding, perennial hothead Alec Baldwin tried to make a Daily News photographer black and blue. The volatile “30 Rock” star punched lensman Marcus Santos outside …

Discussion: FishbowlNY, The Wrap, FishbowlDC, New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, ABCNEWS, BuzzFeed, TMZ.com and Gothamist

Elizabeth Jensen / New York Times:

New Hits Needed; Apply to NPR — On an unseasonably warm spring night at the Bell House, a hip club in Brooklyn, a new NPR quiz show was taking shape. Like its hit older sibling “Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!,” the new show, “Ask Me Another,” is taped before a live audience.

Discussion: @romenesko, Free Press and The Huffington Post

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

‘Inspiring leader’ or ‘empty suit’? Mixed assessment as Dow Jones president Todd Larsen steps down — The president of Dow Jones, Todd Larsen, has resigned after 13 years with the company. The move comes several months after former Bloomberg executive Lex Fenwick was named C.E.O. of Dow Jones …

Discussion: Media Decoder, FishbowlNY, paidContent and Wall Street Journal

Reuters:

Ecuador says WikiLeaks' Assange seeks asylum — (Reuters) - WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange has asked for political asylum in Ecuador and officials in the South American nation are considering his request, its foreign minister said on Tuesday. — “Ecuador is studying and analyzing the request …

Discussion: Guardian, @noelapdc, Gawker, Betabeat, Telegraph, This Just In, @ggreenwald, @davidclinchnews and @producermatthew

BBC:

Leveson asks for comments over ‘quit’ claims — Lord Justice Leveson has asked “core participants” to his inquiry for their comments on a newspaper story which claimed he had threatened to quit. The Mail on Sunday said he had made his threat following comments by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Tom Harper / London Evening Standard:
Exclusive: Leveson questioned David Cameron's support for his inquiry

Discussion: New York Times

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Nick Denton tells a crowd there isn't enough Internet gossip — “Everyone knows that Anderson Cooper is gay.” So pronounced Gawker Media proprietor Nick Denton, perched last night atop a tall stool on a small stage on the third floor of The Standard Hotel, before questioning his own pronouncement.

Discussion: CJR

Dylan Byers / Politico:

BuzzFeed names DC chief: John Stanton — BuzzFeed has hired Roll Call reporter John Stanton to head its new Washington, D.C., bureau. — Stanton joins BuzzFeed after seven years with Roll Call and more than a decade on the congressional beat. — “John Stanton is a reporter's reporter …

Discussion: FishbowlDC and FishbowlNY

Stu Woo / Wall Street Journal:

What Makes Jeff Bezos Tick? A $42 Million Clock — Jeff Bezos changed the way we shop, with Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +1.94% He transformed how many of us read, with his Kindle e-reader. He has a few other potentially life-changing ideas, too. In a patent application made public in August 2011 …

Discussion: Business Insider

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Publishers gain ground on music-video payday — Music videos are making a comeback with help from Vevo and YouTube. Indie music publishers want their fair share. — Follow @sandoCNET — Songwriters and music publishers don't want to get left out of the online music-video boom.

Mark Harris / Vulture:

TV's Best Talker: Aaron Sorkin on The Newsroom, Sorkinism, and Sounding Smart — On June 24, HBO will air the debut of The Newsroom, the first cable series from Aaron Sorkin, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning creator of The West Wing and writer of The Social Network.

Discussion: Mediaite, Digital Spy and mediabistro.com

NY Convergence:

NY Post Quietly Removes Safari Block on Paid iPad App — Last year around this time, it was reported that the New York Post launched a special paywall for their iPad app that made all content on nypost.com unavailable to iPad users, unless they downloaded the newspaper's official paid app …