Mediagazer: ‘Frontline’ Chooses an Heir Apparent (Brian Stelter/Media Decoder)

8:40 AM ET, July 22, 2012

Top News:

Katherine Rushton / Telegraph:

Rupert Murdoch steps down from NI boards — Rupert Murdoch's grip on UK newspapers is loosening “finger by finger”, as he resigns string of directorships. — Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly insisted that he remains committed to his UK newspapers, vowing that he will remain a “very active chairman” of the publishing busines.

Discussion: BBC, Reuters, The Atlantic Wire, Gothamist, Deadline.com, Business Insider, @carr2n, Daily Mail, Washington Times, Runnin' Scared, Mediaite, @jeffjarvis, New York Times, Digital Spy and Adweek

Matt Williams / Guardian:

Murdoch quits as News International director — Move fuels rumours of sell-off of UK newspapers despite media mogul's reassurance that he is ‘fully committed’ as chairman — Rupert Murdoch has stepped down as a director of News International, in a move that will fuel speculation the media mogul …

Discussion: The Daily Beast, New York Magazine, Forbes Real Time, Wall Street Journal and The Wrap

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

The Colorado shooting and the crowdsourced future of news — Only a few days ago, we were writing about how users of Twitter and Reddit used those networks to tell a compelling story about a mass shooting in Toronto, and now the same phenomenon is playing out in real-time during another horrific incident …

Discussion: Beet.TV, The Wrap, Poynter, CNN, Erik Wemple, Mediaite, Poynter and BuzzFeed, Thanks:@megangarber

Alex Pappas / The Daily Caller:

Colorado tea partier describes ‘surreal’ day of wrongly being linked to theater massacre — Colorado Tea Party Patriots member Jim Holmes told The Daily Caller in a Friday interview that his day has been “surreal” after falsely being linked to the movie theater massacre in Colorado by an on-air ABC News reporter.

Discussion: Politico, NewsBusters.org blogs, ABCNEWS, Instapundit and Poynter

Jakob Schiller / Wired:
When Tragedy Hits, Photojournalists Balance Reporting and Emotion

Discussion: Poynter and Politico

Jack Shafer:
What the Colorado shooting says about us

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Crooks and Liars and The New Republic

Jim Romenesko:

Chicago Tribune decides to stick with Journatic — The Chicago Tribune is hiring 44-year newsroom veteran Randy Weissman as a consultant to help develop and implement appropriate changes at embattled Journatic and the Chicago Tribune, which has invested in the hyper-local content provider.

Tom Foremski / ZDNet:

‘Access journalism’ ... and the Silicon Valley reporter — Summary: Controlling access to top executives is a traditional way that Silicon Valley companies try to ensure favorable coverage. — Follow @tomforemski — David Weidner, a 15 year veteran reporter on the Wall Street beat …

Discussion: @karaswisher

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

‘Frontline’ Chooses an Heir Apparent — BOSTON — “Frontline” has promoted Raney Aronson, one of its top lieutenants, to be deputy executive producer, in effect signaling that she will one day succeed David Fanning, the longtime executive producer of the award-winning television documentary series.

David Taintor / TPM:

MSNBC's Chris Hayes: No Symmetry Between Fox News And MSNBC — MSNBC's Chris Hayes: No Symmetry Between Fox News And MSNBC — Can you describe what you read, how you get the news? — I subscribe to a number of magazines. I've always been a magazine lover from the time I was 11 or 12.

Discussion: @jayrosen_nyu, NewsBusters.org blogs, Inside Cable News and Mediaite

Helena Williams / Journalism.co.uk:

Typewriter art installation tells stories of journalists ‘risking their lives to give us a tweet’ — The typewriter installation by interactive art director Julian Koschwitz is hooked up to generative software producing words and images based on slain journalists' data from the Committee to Protect Journalists and other web searches

Dorian Benkoil / MediaShift:

The Return of the Human: Why Tech Companies Are Tapping Journalism Talent — In digital media, it turns out, editors — actual human beings — might actually be necessary. — At least that seems to be the trend as developer-laden ventures like Tumblr, Flipboard and even an ad network bring …

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Alexander Cockburn, Left-Wing Journalist, Dies At 71 — Alexander Cockburn, a prominent radical columnist and journalist, has died at 71 after a lengthy battle with cancer. — Cockburn's death was announced by his friend and journalism partner Jeffrey St. Clair on Counterpunch, the website they ran together.

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Los Angeles Times, CounterPunch, International Business Times, Runnin' Scared, NewsBusters.org blogs and The Nation

Andrew Phelps / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Wielki sukces! Piano Media expands its national paywall model to Poland — Piano Media, the Slovakian company with plans to erect a pan-European paywall, expanded today into its third and largest market, Poland. Seven major media companies have agreed to put some of their content behind a single national paywall.