Mediagazer: Rafat Ali's Skift aims to be the Politico of travel websites (Laura Hazard Owen/paidContent)

5:30 PM ET, July 30, 2012

Top News:

Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:

Jonah Lehrer Resigns From New Yorker After Making Up Dylan Quotes for His Book — Jonah Lehrer, the staff writer for The New Yorker who apologized in June for recycling his previous work in articles, blogs and his bestselling book “Imagine,” resigned from the magazine, he said in a statement.

Discussion: The New York Observer, Forbes, Speakeasy, The Huffington Post, Poynter, FishbowlNY, BBC, The Corsair, mediabistro.com, Gawker, @jbflint, @davidfolkenflik, Mashable!, @tcarmody and @poynter

Michael C. Moynihan / Tablet Magazine:

Jonah Lehrer's Deceptions — The celebrated journalist fabricated Bob Dylan quotes in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. “It's a hard thing to describe,” Bob Dylan once mused about the creative process. “It's just this sense that you got something to say.”

Discussion: Mediaite, Forbes, @juliebosman, CJR, New York Magazine, GalleyCat, Politico, paidContent, @chansteele, @felixsalmon and @mikeriggs

Guy Adams / The Independent:

#NBCFail: Journalist at The Independent has Twitter account suspended after complaining about NBC's coverage of London 2012 Olympics — On Friday afternoon, like every resident of America, I was not watching the Olympic opening ceremony. Instead, I was sat at home, quietly fuming at the fact that NBC …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Deadline.com, Mediaite, Media Decoder, BetaNews, The Latest Word, PC Magazine, Mashable!, The Daily Fix, The Wall Blog, FishbowlLA and The Newspaper Guild

John Koblin / Deadspin:

NBC's No. 1 Tweeting Critic Has Been Suspended From Twitter — Guy Adams is The Independent's Los Angeles bureau chief. During the Olympics so far, he has carved out a nice spot on the how-much-NBC's-coverage-sucks beat. Now his Twitter account has been suspended—supposedly because NBC had it cut off after he complained:

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Exclusive: Ross Levinsohn Departs Yahoo — As I previously reported he likely would, top Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn — who lost the CEO race to former Google exec Marissa Mayer — is leaving the company, according to several sources. — Mayer also just sent a note to the company about the departure …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Business Insider, CNET and Mashable!

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

In Week Two, Marissa Mayer Googifies Yahoo: Free Food! Friday Afternoon All-Hands! New Work Spaces! Fab Swag! — Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Mayer's second week is showing even more signs of what the company will be like under her regime. — In short: It will be just like Google, from whence she came.

Discussion: PC Magazine, Mashable!, Business Insider, CNET, Marketing Land, ConversionRater, Betabeat, Softpedia News, Dave McClure, Fortune and VentureBeat

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Rafat Ali: Media builds a brand, data builds the revenue — Rafat Ali — who built paidContent, sold paidContent, took two years off to travel and said he did not want to go back to beating his head against the collapsing wall of journalism — is back in journalism.

Discussion: Adweek, Folio, @jasonhirschhorn and AdAge

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:
Rafat Ali's Skift aims to be the Politico of travel websites

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Skift.com, AllThingsD and AdAge

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Ford Foundation gives Washington Post $500,000 grant for government-accountability reporting — A memo from The Washington Post leadership to staff says the grant of a half-million dollars will allow four new hires. In May, the Ford Foundation granted the Los Angeles Times $1 million to …

Discussion: Politico

Keach Hagey / Wall Street Journal:

Henry Blodget's Second Act — On any given day, the website known as Business Insider is likely to lead off with a photograph of an attractive woman and followed by headlines about the end of the world and a slideshow featuring the latest iPhone rumors. — It is far afield of what used to be financial journalism.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Capital New York, eMedia Vitals and @felixsalmon

Timothy Burke / Deadspin:

NBC Also Edited Out A Tribute Featuring Two Dead U.S. Servicemen From Their Opening Ceremony Broadcast — NBC explained that it skipped a memorial to terrorism victims in its broadcast of the Olympic opening ceremony because its show was “tailored for our American audience.”

Discussion: BuzzMachine, NewsBusters.org blogs, USA Today and Gawker

Joan Juliet Buck / The Daily Beast:

Joan Juliet Buck: Mrs. Assad Duped Me — Just before the Arab Spring, Vogue writer Joan Juliet Buck did an infamous interview with Syria's first lady. For the first time, she tells the story behind the debacle.

Discussion: Slate, New York Magazine, Jezebel, The Daily Beast, Washington Examiner and The New Republic

Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:

In Defense of NBC: There Are Two Olympics — It's not the network's fault; it's just that the Internet is the ultimate spoiler. — This weekend, attendees at London's Olympic events were asked to avoid sending non-urgent text messages and tweets during those events …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Erik Wemple, CNET, The Atlantic Online, Deadspin and Reuters

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:
Clearly, Tape Delay Isn't Hurting NBC's Olympics Ratings

Discussion: Radio & Television …, Adweek, Broadcasting & Cable, Guardian, Poynter, MarketWatch, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, New York Times, Guardian and Reuters

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

BusinessWeek was in danger of being closed before it was sold to Bloomberg — Stephen B. Shepard, the former editor in chief of BusinessWeek from 1984 to 2005, has a forthcoming autobiography called “Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital.”

Jim Romenesko:

Post-Dispatch columnist's advice to CEO: Don't announce layoffs just after pocketing a bonus — Veteran St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan points out that “at the same time the workers are stressed, the big bosses are making more and more.” In fact, it seems there is a certain correlation between layoffs and bonuses.

Discussion: St. Louis Post-Dispatch