Mediagazer: The Guardian formalizes audience curation with #smarttakes (Justin Ellis/Nieman Journalism Lab)

4:00 PM ET, July 18, 2012

Top News:

Yahoo! creates new editors-in-chief for news, finance — Marissa Mayer isn't Yahoo's only high-level appointment this week. The Silicon Valley search portal-turned-content titan, which on Monday named Mayer, a popular Google executive, as its new C.E.O., has tapped some internal talent …

Discussion: Forbes Real Time, FishbowlDC, Adweek, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wrap, @michaelwolffnyc, @dylanbyers, FishbowlNY, ready,fire,aim, Uncrunched, New York Times and CNET

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The newsonomics of Marissa Mayer's Yahoo legacy challenge

Discussion: Adweek

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Why Marissa Mayer may not be a good fit for Yahoo

Discussion: Forbes Real Time, Adweek, iMediaConnection Blog, Street Fight, MediaFile, Wired, New York Times, NetNewsCheck Latest, Business Insider, ANIMAL, The Atlantic Online, paidContent and Wired, Thanks:@mathewi

Amy Tennery / The Jane Dough:
Howard Kurtz Doesn't Understand Sexism — Or The Marissa Mayer Phenomenon

Discussion: Bits, The Daily Beast, Washington Post and Mashable!

Charles E. Schumer / Wall Street Journal:

Memo to DOJ: Drop the Apple E-Books Suit — Restoring Amazon's monopoly in digital publishing is not in the public interest. — Recently the Department of Justice filed suit against Apple and major publishers, alleging that they colluded to raise prices in the digital books market.

Discussion: GalleyCat, Hillicon Valley, App Advice, paidContent, 9to5Mac and Publishers Lunch

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

E-books Are Booming, and Still Sort of Small — No surprise to anyone who reads a site like this one: Sales of e-books are booming. — But just like most media formats, the book market is still a long way from converting completely to digital: Last year, print accounted for 85 percent …

Discussion: VentureBeat

Merrill Knox / TVNewser:

Hannity Gets First Interview with George Zimmerman — Sean Hannity has secured the first interview with George Zimmerman, the man accused of killing Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. The hour-long exclusive will air on Hannity's Fox News Channel program tonight at 9pmET.

Discussion: Multichannel, Broadcasting & Cable, Capital New York, Mediaite, mediabistro.com, theGrio, The Young Turks …, Global Grind and The Huffington Post

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Twitter, Reddit and the newsroom of the future — By now, many people are becoming used to Twitter as a source of breaking news, whether it's a report about the death of Osama bin Laden or details about the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt. But it's still fascinating to come across new examples …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, eMedia Vitals, Toronto Star, Daily Dot, CBC News and msnbc.com, Thanks:@palafo

Andy Borowitz / The New Yorker:

SHOCKER: The New Yorker Acquires the Borowitz Report — After eleven years of writing nothing but fake news at the Borowitz Report, I have to tell you something that actually happened. — I'm excited to announce that The New Yorker has acquired the Borowitz Report.

Discussion: GalleyCat, New York Magazine, paidContent, Poynter, JIMROMENESKO.COM, @jcstearns and WNYC News Blog

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

David Gergen Reveals Extent Of Bain Capital Ties While ‘Reporting’ On Firm — NEW YORK — CNN senior political analyst David Gergen defended Mitt Romney this week against the Obama campaign's charges that the Republican nominee hasn't been honest about his tenure at Bain Capital …

Discussion: Mediaite and TVNewser

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Phone hacking: ‘significant’ email from News International executive emerges — The existence of an email of “enormous significance” written by a News International executive that refers to the phone hacking of a “well-known individual” has emerged in the high court, in a hearing to discuss …

Discussion: Bloomberg

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian: Glenn Mulcaire forced to reveal who gave phone-hacking order

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

ProPublica gets $1.9 million from Knight to expand its efforts in data journalism — ProPublica is getting a $1.9 million data journalism grant from the Knight Foundation, the nonprofits jointly announced on Wednesday. — The money will be used to support ProPublica's News Applications team, including adding one full-time staffer.

Discussion: The ProPublica Nerd Blog, ProPublica, Journalism.co.uk and Knight Foundation

Katherine Fung / The Huffington Post:

New York Times Contract Talks: Union Fury As Paper Proposes Separate Plans For Print And Digital — The long and contentious contract negotiations at the New York Times took an unexpected twist on Tuesday when the paper's management presented two different proposals for print and digital employees.

Discussion: CJR

Jim Romenesko:
Union: NYT wants to negotiate separate contracts for print and digital

Discussion: Felix and @mathewi

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Politico's Harris: ‘Quote doctoring does bother me’ — News organizations continue to react to New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters' story about campaigns “routinely demanding that reporters allow them final editing power over any published quotations.” Or, to use the term AJR's Carl …

Discussion: The Independent Journalist and Politico

Jeff Jarvis / Guardian:
Journalists who allow quote approval become complicit in political spin

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Erik Wemple and Poynter

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Jim Warren to head NewsBeast OFA beat — Newsweek/Daily Beast has hired Jim Warren, the former Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune, to serve as Chicago Editor-at-Large, POLITICO has learned. — Now through November, Warren will head Obama campaign coverage out of Chicago for the website and the magazine.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Media General reports income increase, net loss in second quarter — Operating income was up 164 percent at Media General in its second quarter, the company announced today. It attributed the rise to political advertising and retransmission fees, which were up 80 percent.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Broadcasting & Cable

Jeanne Whalen / Wall Street Journal:

WikiLeaks Nearly Out of Cash — WikiLeaks said it is close to running out of money, a problem the site blamed on Visa and MasterCard, which have prohibited users from donating to the site. — WikiLeaks' cash reserves have fallen from €800,000 ($983,600) in December 2010 to less …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

For NBCNews.com, a new website comes with new privacy standards — It's unlikely that many news consumers will read the fine print that comes with the splashy rebranding from MSNBC.com to NBCNews.com. — The new website's privacy policy was adopted to “align with NBC Universal standards in privacy …

Discussion: Media Decoder

John Cook / Gawker:

‘It Was Like a War Zone’: A Former Nanny for Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng Speaks Out — A former household staffer and tutor for Rupert Mudoch and Wendi Deng's children is speaking out for the first time about the relentless nightmare that is working for the Murdochs: Screaming tantrums …