Mediagazer: How #NBCFail Became ‘the Most Watched TV Event in US History’ (Derek Thompson/The Atlantic Online)

9:30 AM ET, August 15, 2012

Top News:

Times Co. Names Mark Thompson Chief Executive — The New York Times Company has named Mark Thompson, the departing director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation, as its new president and chief executive. — Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the chairman of the Times Company and the newspaper's publisher …

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
NYT's new CEO: BBC's Thompson is custodian and curator, not digital creator

Discussion: BBC and @gabrielsherman

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics: BBC's Mark Thompson Jumps Out of the Frying Pan and into the New York Times Cauldron

Richard Gingras / Poynter:

Google's Gingras: ‘The future of journalism can and will be better than its past’ — The following address was given by Richard Gingras, director of news and social products at Google, as the opening keynote of the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication …

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:
Google acquires media companies without becoming one

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Skift and Forbes

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Should we trust Google when it comes to piracy and search?

Discussion: Plagiarism Today, The Week and ReadWriteWeb

Michael Barthel / Salon:

Cut, paste, plagiarize — Major media organizations had faith in Fareed Zakaria. CNN gave him 60 minutes each week — several million dollars' worth of time — to say whatever the hell he wanted, more or less. Time gave him a column, too, the one in which (as reported …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, @penenberg, @penenberg, @penenberg, @penenberg, @penenberg and The Huffington Post

David Frum / The Daily Beast:
A False Charge Against Fareed Zakaria

Discussion: @davidfolkenflik

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Fareed Zakaria: ‘People are piling on with every grudge or vendetta’

Discussion: NewsBusters.org blogs, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Online and American Thinker

Jeffrey Goldberg / The Atlantic Online:
Fareed Zakaria Responds to the Charge of Quote-Stealing

Discussion: Poynter, American Journalism Review and Washington Post

Stephen Foley / The Independent:

Bad news for Reuters — It is 161 years since Paul Julius Reuter, a German-born entrepreneur whose first venture in the news business was sending carrier pigeons across Europe, installed himself in the London Stock Exchange, called himself the Reuter's Telegram Company and started selling …

Discussion: Press Gazette

Andrew Torchia / Reuters:

Reuters blogging platform hacked, false Saudi blog posted — (Reuters) - The blogging platform of the Reuters News website was hacked on Wednesday and a false posting saying Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal had died was illegally posted on a Reuters journalist's blog, the company said.

RT:

Correa: Assange asylum rumors false, no decision yet — President Rafael Correa took to social networking site Twitter to dispel rumors he had granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange political asylum. Correa added that no decision has yet been made. According to an earlier report in The Guardian …

Discussion: @mashirafael, Wall Street Journal, Reuters and @wikileaks

Irene Caselli / Guardian:

Ecuador ‘to grant’ Julian Assange asylum — Ecuador's president Rafael Correa has agreed to give the WikiLeaks founder asylum, according to an official in Quito — Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, has agreed to grant Julian Assange asylum, officials within Ecuador's government have said.

Discussion: Reuters, Bloomberg, Telegraph, WebProNews, Wired, Mashable!, The Atlantic Wire, Digital Spy, Gawker, Foreign Policy and CNET

Estelle Shirbon / Reuters: Assange seeks London-Quito ticket but Sweden looms

Erik Wemple:

Politico puts ‘stop reading’ sign in article — Politico today tells us that there's an “unmistakable consensus” among Republican Beltway operatives that the choice of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate “has only a modest chance of going right — and a huge chance of going horribly wrong.”

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Forbes, Guardian, The Week, Change of Subject, Politico and NewsBusters.org blogs

Zeke Miller / BuzzFeed:
Romney Campaign Bars Press From Ryan, Adelson Event

Discussion: Politico, Reuters, Gawker, Yahoo! News and The Huffington Post

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Getty Images bought by private equity firm Carlyle Group — Co-founders Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein will remain investors as world's biggest picture agency acquired for £2.1bn — The world's biggest picture agency, Getty Images, has been acquired for $3.3bn (£2.1bn) by the private equity firm Carlyle Group.

Discussion: TechCrunch, @joshhalliday and Business Wire

Laura Amico / Homicide Watch DC:

The Next Step for Homicide Watch DC — It has been a privilege and honor to bring you coverage of every homicide in DC, from crime to conviction, for the past two years as founder and editor of Homicide Watch DC. Now an opportunity to study journalism innovation at Harvard …

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:
After a deal falls apart, Homicide Watch D.C. is going on hiatus

Discussion: Kickstarter

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

Magazines Don't Have a Digital Problem, They Have a Bundling Problem — New media and publishing dynamics have changed the economics for magazines to the extent that it is simply not possible to continue with existing models. Much of the issue is that magazine publishers are misidentifying their problems …

Discussion: One Man & His Blog, Forbes, @om, @jayrosen_nyu, New York Times, Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day, Garcia Media and eMedia Vitals

Anil Dash:

Stop Publishing Web Pages — Most users on the web spend most of their time in apps. The most popular of those apps, like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Tumblr and others, are primarily focused on a single, simple stream that offers a river of news which users can easily scroll through, skim over, and click on to read in more depth.

DiAngelea Millar / BusinessJournalism.org …:

The last Money intern at The Times-Picayune turns out the lights — I'm the last Money intern the Times-Picayune will ever have. As of Sept. 30, 2012, the Money section will cease to exist as Advance Publications cuts the printing of one of America's finest newspapers to three days a week.

James Estrin / Lens:

Criminalizing Photography — Mickey H. Osterreicher is the general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association and edits the organization's Advocacy Committee blog. He spoke with James Estrin. Their conversation has been edited. Q. It seems like photographing in public is becoming a crime.