Mediagazer: Why is ‘issue coverage’ so boring—and often wrong? (Walter Shapiro/CJR)

10:10 AM ET, July 9, 2012

Top News:

Newspaper Industry Is Running Out of Time to Adapt to Digital Future — While the rest of us were burning hot dogs on the grill last week, the newspaper industry seemed to be lighting itself on fire. — There have been cracks in publishing operations that are both hilarious and terrifying.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Jim Hopkins / Gannett Blog:
A pension plan report that's worth a closer look

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Tom Goldstein / SCOTUSblog:

We're getting wildly differing assessments — The announcement of the Supreme Court's decision largely upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Thursday, June 28 precipitated a genuine media drama. Millions tuned in to get the result in real time, and were rewarded …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Politico, Forbes Real Time, Boing Boing, Poynter, Chickaboomer, @pbsgwen, @buzzfeedben, @jayrosen_nyu, JIMROMENESKO.COM and EdCone.com

Jim Romenesko:

Times-Picayune reporter: I can't keep my mouth shut and pretend everything is okay — “Sometimes I just want to scream about what is happening around me” at the newspaper, she writes. — “Those of us laid off still have jobs to do until the 30th of Sept, but it's going from bad to worse,” she tells Romenesko readers.

Discussion: DashThirtyDash

Tracie Powell / Poynter: How the digital divide developed in New Orleans & what that means for the future of news there

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

Young tablet owners more willing to pay for news — Paying for online news is still a minority sport - but participation may be growing thanks to tablet computers. — Those who have paid for digital news ranges from 12 percent in Denmark to four percent in the UK, according to the Reuters Institute …

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

Phone hacking: prosecutor will decide on charges within weeks — Ex-News of the World journalists will soon know whether they are to face trial, as Keir Starmer says CPS will finish considering 13 case files by the end of July — Prosecutors aim to decide by the end of this month whether …

Discussion: Grey Cardigan

Ian Burrell / The Independent: How The Times undermined its own good work on Leveson Inquiry

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

What's really going wrong (and right) at The Washington Post — Not so long ago, Donald Graham was being lionized as the model of a results-driven CEO. Even The New York Times, a sometimes catty rival to other high-profile papers, quoted a Post staffer who hailed Graham's Washington Post as America's “best-run newspaper company.”

Paul Bradshaw / Online Journalism Blog:

Let's explode the myth that data journalism is ‘resource intensive’ — Is data journalism ‘time consuming’ or ‘resource intensive’? The excuse - and I think it is an excuse - seems to come up at an increasing number of events whenever data journalism is discussed.

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

Walter Shapiro / CJR:

Why is ‘issue coverage’ so boring—and often wrong? — Slavish fidelity to campaign position papers and official statements short-changes voters — As we sipped red wine in Washington last week, Republican pollster David Winston suddenly asked me, “Why doesn't the media write more about issues …

Discussion: Erik Wemple

Brian Farnham / Street Fight:

Ex-Patch EIC: Journatic Episode Illustrates Cost/Quality Issue in Hyperlocal — Well, that didn't take long. — Journatic was bound to make a mistake or two when they took over the Tribune Company's large TribLocal ops. But the cost-and-scale-minded content startup has really stepped …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM

Fabrizio Bensch / Photographers Blog:

Robo-cams go for Olympic gold — Is it possible to get 11 photographers into a box and put them in a position where you could never place a photographer? Normally, it would be absolutely impossible. But nothing is impossible when it comes to the Olympic games.

Joel Schectman / The CIO Report:
NBC, Google, Stage ‘War Games’ To Prepare for Olympic Disruptions

Discussion: PC Magazine, Mashable!, The Next Web and Boing Boing

Natan Edelsburg / Lost Remote:

Exclusive: NBC News launches ‘Dateline Chatline’ to make broadcast more social — When Dateline first launched on NBC News back in 1992, it was unclear whether this TV news magazine would fail after so many other NBC attempts had tanked. Now in it's 20th season, the network is launching …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Thanks:@steverubel

Marcus Vanderberg / FishbowlLA:

U-T San Diego Hires Larry Graham from ESPN.com — U-T San Diego has hired Larry Graham as their new executive sports editor. — Graham is currently the NFL editor at ESPN.com and was previously the sports editor at the Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina.

Alex Howard / GovFresh:

Social citizenship: CNN and Facebook to partner on “I'm Voting” app in 2012 election — Two years ago, I wondered whether “social voting” on Foursquare would increase voter participation. — That experiment is about to be writ much larger. In a release today, first reported …

Tim Molloy / The Wrap:

What's Wrong With CNN? (And What's Right) — You know the knocks on CNN: Its ratings are down. Its reputation for breaking news took a hit last week with an embarrassing mistake about the Supreme Court's Obamacare ruling. Its nonpartisan approach to news denies it the built-in liberal audience …

Discussion: Adweek