Mediagazer: Insecure reporters need to stiffen their backbone (Patrick B. Pexton/Washington Post)

5:10 AM ET, July 31, 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: Forbes, Speakeasy, BBC, @jbflint, @davidfolkenflik, @tcarmody, @poynter, Poynter, The Huffington Post, Mashable!, FishbowlNY and Gawker

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: CJR, WWD Media Headlines, Poynter, Forbes, Erik Wemple, Guardian, Politico, @juliebosman, @mikeriggs, @chansteele, @felixsalmon, Mediaite, New York Magazine, paidContent and GalleyCat

Foster Kamer / The New York Observer:

Q & A: Michael C. Moynihan, The Blogger Who Uncovered Jonah Lehrer's Fabrication Problem — Long story short, over the last three weeks, widely ballyhooed author, contemporary thinker, and erstwhile New Yorker writer Jonah Lehrer has been questioned for what one reporter suspected …

Discussion: The Corsair, bookforum.com and Forbes

David Daley / Salon:

Jayson Blair: Jonah Lehrer's story reminds me of my own — The former New York Times reporter says fabulists cross the line out of fear they can't live up to expectations — Jonah Lehrer resigned his position at the New Yorker today after admitting that he fabricated the Bob Dylan quotes he used in his new best-seller, “Imagine.”

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: Mashable!, Guardian, BetaNews, CNN, ValueWalk, Mediaite, The Latest Word, The Daily Fix, CNET, Forbes, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, Deadline.com, The Wall Blog, FishbowlLA, USA Today, Big News Network.com, Boing Boing, Media Decoder 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: Wall Street Journal, AdAge, Betabeat, paidContent, AdExchanger, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Adweek, Business Insider, Forbes, Mashable!, CNET and ReadWriteWeb

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Here's the Do-Not-Forward Mayer Memo Bidding Goodbye to Ross “The Hair” …

Discussion: ValueWalk and The Verge

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Rafat Ali on building a media company on top of public data — Ten years ago, Rafat Ali wanted to build a company that could chronicle the transformation of media and technology. Now he hopes to do it again, this time in the world of travel. His new project Skift sounds at first a lot like paidContent …

Discussion: TechCrunch and Business Insider

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:
Rafat Ali: Media builds a brand, data builds the revenue

Discussion: MediaNama, Adweek, Folio, AdAge and @jasonhirschhorn

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

Discussion: Skift.com, AdAge and AllThingsD

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Nielsen Sued for Billions Over Allegedly Manipulated TV Ratings — In a huge new lawsuit, the business of TV ratings is fingered for rampant corruption by India's largest TV news network. — New Delhi Television Limited, India's oldest and largest news network, has lobbed a legal grenade at The Nielsen Company.

Discussion: TVNewser

Patrick B. Pexton / Washington Post:

Insecure reporters need to stiffen their backbone — Should reporters allow their sources to alter a quote after it has been spoken, or even to review drafts of their stories before publication? — In the former, I say usually no. In the latter, I say “Hell, no.”

Discussion: @stevebuttry

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

David Carr / New York Times:

Journalism's Misdeeds Get a Glance in the Mirror — Imagine this chain of events: a division of a large multinational company is accused of a pattern of corporate misconduct that includes surveillance, hacking into phones and bribery of law enforcement officials.

Dylan Byers / Politico:

ABC, Univision seal deal on joint channel — video platform video management video solutions video player — ABC News and Univision News have officially closed the deal on their new joint 24-hour news channel. — The two networks officially announced the channel in May …