Mediagazer: Gawker's new comment system (Peter Sterne/CJR)

9:50 AM ET, July 7, 2012

Top News:

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Journal Critique of Romney Shows Murdoch Doubt on Candidacy — To hear Rupert Murdoch tell it lately, Mitt Romney lacks stomach and heart. He “seems to play everything safe.” And he is not nearly as tough as he needs to be on President Obama. — Mr. Murdoch's thoughts on the Republican presidential candidate's prospects?

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Salon, The Daily Caller, Gawker, The Caucus, FishbowlNY, Capital New York, Media Decoder, CJR and Capital New York

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of the only metric that matters — Amid the big news of the News Corp. split, The New York Times announced its deal with Flipboard. Then, the next day, The Wall Street Journal reported its own deal with Pulse. It looked like Tablet Aggregator Wars, with the two big head …

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes Real Time: News Corp. After the Split: Bright Outlook for WSJ; The NY Post, Not So Much

David Folkenflik / NPR:

Fake Bylines Reveal Hidden Costs Of Local News … Newspapers acknowledged publishing dozens of items in print or online from outsourcing firm Journatic that appeared under fake bylines. The Chicago Tribune, for example, said the matter is under investigation.

Discussion: Poynter

Ryan Smith / Guardian:

My adventures in Journatic's new media landscape of outsourced hyperlocal news — I went public about my experience at Journatic because people should know how their local newspapers are being hollowed out — HBO's new late-night series The Newsroom is set in the busy backstage of a CNN …

Discussion: @mathewi and San Francisco Peninsula …

Jack Shafer:

How the byline beast was born — The church of journalism threw a minor fit last week after This American Life exposed the inner workings of local-news company Journatic. Based in Chicago, Journatic contracts with newspapers around the country to provide them with local news stories.

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Save your darlings: Blank on Blank gives new life to old tape — As journalists, we are taught early to “kill your darlings.” — The material may be punchy, savory, heartbreaking, or hilarious, but if it's not necessary for the story — or if it's redundant or tangential …

Discussion: Mediaite

Peter Sterne / CJR:

Gawker's new comment system — Will it help or hurt the site's young writers? — Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton recently introduced a new commenting system, called Kinja, on his network of websites. Rather than showing all comments on a given article, Kinja shows only the most interesting thread of comments and replies.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Daniel R. Schwarz / The Huffington Post:

Why, as the Gates of Newsgathering Information Have Been Opening, the Minds of Its Audience Have Been Closing? — In examining the radical changes in the dissemination of news, we need to examine not only how newspaper and news media are evolving from providing historically accurate records …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Email exchange with fictional character leads to New York Times correction — Patrick Somerville writes about the weird circumstances that led to a weird correction on Janet Maslin's review of his novel “This Bright River.” He was devastated Maslin didn't like the piece, he writes …

Discussion: New York Magazine, kottke.org, GalleyCat and Salon

Erica Orden / Wall Street Journal:

Movie Studios Spar Over WikiLeaks — Studios are jostling to be the first to bring the story of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, to the big screen. But when Hollywood attempts to harness a swift-moving news story, the task can prove very complicated. — Cengage Learning Hunts for Next CEO

Discussion: Los Angeles Times

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:

BBC global news chief on trust: ‘If they believe us, they will share it’ — Peter Horrocks tells World Media Summit in Moscow audiences trust news shared by their family and friends more than articles shared by ‘most traditional media’ — The BBC's director of global news has today …

Discussion: bbc.co.uk and BBC

John Jannarone / Wall Street Journal:

Comcast Nears Deal to Sell A&E Stake — Comcast Corp. is near a deal to sell its 15.8% stake in A&E Television Networks to joint-venture partners Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp. for about $3 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter. — Comcast said in May it exercised …

Discussion: Multichannel