Mediagazer: Huffington Post Now Has Its Own “Labs” Site For Online News Experiments (Klint Finley/TechCrunch)

5:00 PM ET, August 29, 2012

Top News:

CNN's Exquisitely Awkward Spot — You've probably seen that last night a convention attendee was ejected from the hall for pelting a black CNN camerawomen with nuts and saying the words “this is how we feed animals.” Follow up reports this morning say actually two people were ejected.

Discussion: Rolling Stone, Gawker, The Stream, The Daily Dish, @joshuafoust, Mediaite and Pressing Issues

The Huffington Post:

Republican Attendees Thrown Out After Racist Attack On CNN Worker — Two attendees at the Republican National Convention were thrown out of the convention center in Tampa on Tuesday after throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman and saying, “this is how we feed the animals.”

Discussion: CNN, Talking Points Memo, Gawker, Erik Wemple, Politico, @deggans, New York Magazine, Clutch Magazine and The Huffington Post

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Yahoo News fires David Chalian — TAMPA, Fla. — Yahoo News has fired Washington bureau chief David Chalian after he was caught on a hot-mic during an online video broadcast today saying that Mitt Romney and his wife Ann had no problem with African Americans suffering as a result of Hurricane Isaac …

Discussion: Media Decoder, LA Observed, Poynter, Deadline.com, Mediaite, CNN, Tampa Bay Times, JIMROMENESKO.COM, NewsBusters.org blogs, Business Insider, The Huffington Post and Washington Free Beacon

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:

Yahoo! News Washington Bureau Chief: Romneys ‘Happy To Have A Party When Black People Drown’ — In an ABC News/Yahoo! online broadcast of the Republican National Convention, Yahoo! News' Washington bureau chief David Chalian was captured on tape joking to colleagues that Republican presidential …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Exclusive: Amazon NY to sell its ebooks through B&N, Kobo, other retailers — Amazon's New York-based book publishing imprint, which is headed by publishing industry vet Larry Kirshbaum, has signed a deal with Ingram to distribute its ebooks to other retailers, paidContent has learned.

Discussion: WebProNews, The Verge and Bookseller news

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:

Kobo to Replace Google E-Books for Independent Booksellers — Kobo has struck a deal to sell e-books and its line of e-readers through independent U.S. booksellers, giving the Toronto firm a new chance to establish a foothold in the American digital books market.

Discussion: GalleyCat, Digital Book World, Los Angeles Times and paidContent

Arthur S. Brisbane / The Public Editor's Journal:

Pre-Publication Disclosure of Dowd Column: A Breach of Two Boundaries — My final column as public editor was published in print on Sunday. However, I remain on duty through Friday and want to offer my take on the controversy this week over the pre-publication disclosure of a Maureen Dowd column.

Discussion: Guardian, The Huffington Post, Judicial Watch and Pressing Issues

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
NYT reporter was supposed to help fact-check a column, not send it to CIA

Discussion: @craigsilverman, Talking Points Memo, Media Decoder, Gawker, Politico and New York Magazine

Dan Gillmor / Guardian: What Mark Mazzetti's Maureen Dowd CIA tipoff means for the New York Times

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Leveson ‘loading a gun’ against press industry, warns Indy editor — The editor of the Independent has said he fears that Lord Justice Leveson is “loading a gun” against the industry as he prepares his final report and recommendations following his inquiry into press culture and ethics.

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:
Leveson rulings expected to include ‘excoriating’ criticism of the press

Discussion: @benfenton, @joshhalliday, @benfenton, @lisaocarroll and @dansabbagh

Severin Carrell / Guardian:
Phone-hacking police arrest former News of the World Scotland editor

Discussion: @jamesdoleman

Press Association:
Patrick Foster, Former Times Journalist, Arrested Over Hacking Of NightJack Blogger's Emails

Discussion: @davidallengreen

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:

During Night One Of RNC, Fox News Draws More Viewers Than Any Other Network — On night one of the Republican National Convention, Fox News Channel was the clear ratings winner on TV, drawing substantially more viewers than any other TV network, including NBC, CBS and ABC. NBC was tops in the key adults 25-54 demo.

Discussion: Radio & Television …, Politico, FishbowlDC, The Wrap, Mediaite, SocialTimes, Broadcasting & Cable, 10,000 Words and TVSpy

Adrienne LaFrance / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Wall Street Journal wants its reporters filing microvideo updates for its new WorldStream — The Wall Street Journal has been busy expanding its video offerings and experimenting with dedicated news streams in recent months. Today, the natural merger of the two debuts: a stream of reporter-generated videos called WorldStream.

Discussion: Rolling Stone, eMedia Vitals and Digiday

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:
Wall Street Journal rolls out video network powered by smartphone-toting journalists

Discussion: The FJP

Jim Romenesko:

National Writers Union blasts Huffington Post for not paying Oasis masseuses — The National Writers Union says the Huffington Post has reached “new heights of shamelessness” by not paying masseuses for their work at HuffPo's Convention 2012 Oasis relaxation stations.

Discussion: New York Magazine, LA Observed, @dylanbyers, The Huffington Post and The Newspaper Guild

Klint Finley / TechCrunch:

Huffington Post Now Has Its Own “Labs” Site For Online News Experiments — News publishers are becoming tech companies, right down to the Google Labs style experimental sites: The New York Times Company Research & Development Lab, The Globe Lab, WapPo Labs...

Discussion: Poynter and NetNewsCheck Latest

Dan Conover / Xark:

Why Fact Checkers fail — My interest in fact-checking grew out of years of running political coverage in the Carolinas, in places where facts were often far less important than the nameless angers that animate our Southern culture. Doing that job is, in fact, a political act, though not a partisan one.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online

Jim Romenesko:

Boston Globe won't name editorial writer who lifted from WBUR.org — The Boston Globe isn't naming the staffer whose editorial contained “similarities in phrasing and structure” to a WBUR.org op-ed that ran a few days earlier, but Globe-hater Howie Carr claims that Joan Vennochi has been suspended for two weeks for the infraction.

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

President Obama hits Reddit on ‘Ask Me Anything’ — President Obama will be participating in an open question-and-answer session this afternoon on the Web community Reddit, as the subject of one of the site's regular “Ask Me Anything” threads. — Reddit announced that the president …

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, rt.com, TechPresident, The Next Web and The Raw Story