Mediagazer: John F. Stacks, Writer and Editor, Dies at 70 (Leslie Kaufman/New York Times)

5:45 AM ET, September 7, 2012

Top News:

Fact: AP Unclear on Definition of ‘Fact’ — Myth: We suck. FACT: You suck. — This Associated Press “fact check” of Bill Clinton's speech last night has attracted a fair amount of Internet abuse, but not nearly enough. It's not only a prime specimen of journalistic idiocy …

Discussion: CJR, Paul Krugman and Pressing Issues

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

AP Defends Decision To Fact-Check Bill Clinton Using Monica Lewinsky — CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The Associated Press defended its invoking of the Monica Lewinsky scandal in a Thursday fact-check of former President Bill Clinton's speech, amid criticism of its relevance to a point Clinton was making about welfare.

Discussion: FactCheck.org, Erik Wemple and @mlcalderone

Dylan Byers / Politico:
AP's Clinton fact-check cites Lewinsky

Discussion: Poynter, Associated Press and ThinkProgress

Wall Street Journal:

Apple Seeks to Create Pandora Rival — Apple Inc. is in talks to license music for a custom-radio service similar to the popular one operated by Pandora Media Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be a bid by the hardware maker to expand its dominance in online music.

Discussion: New York Times, AllThingsD, Softpedia News, Business Insider, MacRumors, The Next Web, Mashable!, CNET, Engadget, 9to5Mac, TUAW and Gizmodo

Ina Fried / AllThingsD:

Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite: Four Years in the Making — Amazon executives gush about their new e-reader as the Kindle they always wanted to make. — While the latest Kindle Touch came out last year, the technology behind the Kindle Paperwhite's new lit screen is four years in the making.

Discussion: Media News, CNET, AllThingsD, Forbes, MinOnline, GigaOM, Amazon.com, MediaPost, Wired.co.uk, Pocket-lint, ZDNet, The Verge, TechCrunch, Pocket-lint, TechCrunch, GigaOM, AdAge, The Verge, TechCrunch and Engadget

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Amazon Confirms The Launch Of New, Episodic Publishing Format — Kindle Serials

Discussion: The Next Web, AllThingsD, @gartenberg, WebProNews and Techland

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Amazon's Writing Is On The Wall For Physical Books

Discussion: MacRumors and The Verge

Reuters:
Amazon introduces new Kindle Fire, starts at $159

Discussion: The Verge, AllThingsD, @joshuatopolsky, @nickbilton, MediaFile, @parislemon, @jbenton and @edmundlee

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Exclusive: USA Today to redesign paper, relaunch website — USA Today is planning a major relaunch of its newspaper, website and mobile platforms, complete with a new “USA TODAY” logo, POLITICO has learned. — The redesigned USA Today newspaper is tentatively scheduled to debut on Sept. 14 …

Discussion: Garcia Media and Gannett Blog

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

Journal Register, future-of-news star, is bankrupt again — Yesterday, John Paton announced that Journal Register Company is filing for bankruptcy for the second time in three years. That's something of a surprise to people who's read his announcements of soaring digital revenues and profits credulously.

Discussion: Newspaper Death Watch, Radio & Television … and Gannett Blog

Matt DeRienzo / Connecticut Newsroom: What bankruptcy means for Journal Register Company newsrooms

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:
Journal Register can't afford for legacy costs to derail Digital First progress

Discussion: Publishing Executive …, GigaOM, The Latest Word, Nieman Journalism Lab and Reuters

Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
The news we can afford — I want to see news organizations grow again.

Discussion: Poynter and Nieman Journalism Lab

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Oracle-Google judge ends probe into paid bloggers — (Reuters) - The federal judge overseeing a major lawsuit over smartphone technology between Oracle Corp and Google Inc has quietly ended his examination of those companies' relationships with paid bloggers and other commentators.

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Tumblr Finally Gets Serious About Ads — By Hiring Someone to Sell Ads — Tumblr has poached top Groupon sales exec Lee Brown as it aims to finally try to make money from its millions of blogs and billions of page views. — Brown was at Yahoo for more than 10 years before joining Groupon two years ago.

Discussion: Betabeat, CNET, AdExchanger, Business Insider and GigaOM

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:

Judge approves e-book price-fixing settlement in surprise ruling — In a surprise move, a federal court abruptly approved a settlement between the Department of Justice and three publishers that will resolve a controversy over e-book pricing. In an opinion filed Thursday in Manhattan …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Engadget, Publishers Weekly, CNET, Media Decoder and GalleyCat

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Four More Years? Roger Ailes in Talks Over New Contract — With the presidential contest too close to call, both campaigns are planning for the aftermath. At Fox News, Roger Ailes is planning for his next term as well. According to two sources with knowledge of the discussions …

Discussion: Deadline.com and CJR

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Newspapers bury Democrats' meltdown — Please rate the comparative news merits of these two events: Event One: This is a carefully planned and scheduled political speech. The public has known that it was coming a month before it happened. It includes no new announcements about policy.

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Dare the Palace complain to the PCC over The Sun's Prince Harry picture? — The advisers to the royal family are facing a real dilemma over Prince Harry's naked pictures. Dare they make a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about The Sun publishing one of the intimate photos?

Leslie Kaufman / New York Times:

John F. Stacks, Writer and Editor, Dies at 70 — John F. Stacks, a former reporter and senior editor at Time magazine and the author of a well-regarded biography of James B. Reston, the influential editor and columnist for The New York Times, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 70.

Jason Del Rey / AdAge:

Marissa Mayer: Yahoo is Staying in Ad Tech, Won't Sell Right Media — Marissa Mayer has made one of her first big strategic decisions as Yahoo CEO, as the company announced it was not going to sell its ad exchange Right Media. Some execs under past leadership teams had pushed the company …

Discussion: Forbes, AdExchanger, Adweek, GigaOM and Business Insider

Glenn Greenwald:

Reply to response from CNNi — CNN International has posted a six-point response to my Guardian story from Tuesday on its refusal to broadcast a documentary featuring Amber Lyon showing the repression and violence used against protesters in Bahrain and its substantial financial relationships …

Discussion: @fieldproducer

CNN:
CNN International's Response to the Guardian

Discussion: @ggreenwald

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

News International attempts to block phone-hacking damages case — News International is trying to have a phone-hacking damages case involving Elle Macpherson's former adviser thrown out of court, 18 months after her claim was launched. Mary-Ellen Field, who acted as the model's financial adviser …

Discussion: Bloomberg