Mediagazer: Sam Bacile: The Mysterious Filmmaker Who Set the Muslim World on Fire (John Hudson/The Atlantic Wire)

4:40 PM ET, September 12, 2012

Top News:

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

Was Photo of Dead Ambassador Acceptable? — Where is the line between good taste and important journalism? And did The Times cross it when it used, in a Wednesday afternoon online photo gallery, an image of an unconscious J. Christopher Stevens, the ambassador, who was killed in an attack on the United States Embassy in Libya?

Discussion: New York Times, Deadline.com, Yahoo! News, @joshsternberg, @hilaryduffcbc and The Daily Beast

Miriam Arghandiwal / Reuters:

Afghanistan bans YouTube to block anti-Muslim film — (Reuters) - Afghanistan banned the YouTube website on Wednesday to stop Afghans watching a U.S.-made film insulting the Prophet Mohammad that sparked protests in North Africa and the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Discussion: Gawker, @lucykafanov and Mashable!

Brian Womack / Bloomberg:

Google's YouTube Blocks Film Behind Protests in Libya — Google Inc. (GOOG)'s YouTube video-sharing service is blocking access in Egypt and Libya to a film about the Prophet Muhammad that is viewed as blasphemous by Muslims, that sparked protests and an attack responsible for the deaths of four Americans.

Discussion: @mathewi

Charles Arthur / Guardian:

The Kernel sued by former contributors — The London-based blog about the tech startup scene, the Kernel, is being sued through an employment tribunal for non-payment of thousands of pounds by two of its former contributors, and is said to owe thousands more to other former staff.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Patriot-News staffers will learn next month if they've lost their jobs — Two hundred and thirty employees of the (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News will be notified by the first week of October whether they'll keep their jobs, the Associated Press reports. — In late August the Pulitzer Prize …

Discussion: @sganim and The Newspaper Guild

Associated Press: Harrisburg's daily Patriot-News to publish on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays starting Jan. 2

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

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Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Mediaite, Jonathan Last Online, Glenn Beck, TVNewser, Los Angeles Times, Radio & Television …, Deadline.com, Media Decoder, The Week, Broadcasting & Cable, The Huffington Post, Forbes, The Atlantic Wire, New York Magazine and Business Insider

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

Journal Register opens the kimono a bit — CEO John Paton gives us some hard numbers — One of my biggest criticisms of Journal Register Company and Digital First Media has been how it has cherry picked financial figures to show its transformation is succeeding, and how the press covered those incomplete numbers.

Discussion: Media Decoder

Bill Grueskin / CJR:

Open letter to John Paton, CEO of Digital First Media — Dear John, You and I have never met, but we have corresponded—a bit testily at times (more on that later). In light of last week's news, I wanted to follow up with another round of correspondence, and this time I'm doing it publicly, via the Columbia Journalism Review.

Discussion: Poynter, The Latest Word, @rajunarisetti, Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, JIMROMENESKO.COM and NetNewsCheck Latest

Rachel McAthy / Journalism.co.uk:

NRS: Guardian has highest combined print and online monthly readership for quality titles — A new study, which combines print and online readership figures for the first time, shows that more people in the UK read the Guardian online than in print, with the newspaper securing …

Discussion: Guardian and @jayrosen_nyu

Robert Andrews / paidContent:
Web adds a fifth to UK newspaper readership, print still dominates

Discussion: Guardian and NetNewsCheck Latest

John Hudson / The Atlantic Wire:

Sam Bacile: The Mysterious Filmmaker Who Set the Muslim World on Fire — Few biographical details are known about the Israeli-American filmmaker who enraged Muslims yesterday with his incendiary film about the Prophet Muhammed. But one thing is clear: Director Sam Bacile expected his film to incite violence.

Discussion: L.A. NOW, LA Observed, Gawker, The Wrap and Guardian

Jeffrey Goldberg / The Atlantic Online:
Muhammad Film Consultant: ‘Sam Bacile’ is Not Israeli, and Not a Real Name

Discussion: BuzzFeed, Guardian, Associated Press, The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, @daveweigel, ProPublica, Gawker, The Daily Beast, The latest episodes …, Religion Dispatches, The Raw Story, FP Passport, Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The Lede and Pressing Issues

Mackenzie Weinger / Politico:

Roll Call editor leaving for NPR — Roll Call editor Scott Montgomery is leaving the company and heading to NPR Digital, CQ Roll Call announced on Wednesday. — CQ Roll Call Executive vice president and managing director Keith White told staffers in an email that Montgomery will leave the publication on Sept. 27.

Betsy Rothstein / FishbowlDC: A Sneak Peek at Roll Call's New Name Plate

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Not too much for news orgs in Apple's new announcements — When Apple has one of its semiannual stage shows to show off new gear, we sometimes do a quick roundup of the implications for news organizations. But today's announcement of the iPhone 5 (and assorted other tidbits) was pretty light on angles.

Discussion: CNET, Forbes, AllThingsD, NetNewsCheck Latest, TechCrunch, Pocket-lint and ZDNet

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Exclusive: Mayer Set to Get Yahoo's Alibaba Billions in One Week (But Will Investors Get Some Back, Too?) — According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo will officially close the multi-billion-dollar sale of half its assets in China's Alibaba Group in one week.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Business Insider, Mashable!, 24/7 Wall St. and CNET

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Hillsborough report: why the Mirror refused to accept police spin — In October last year I wrote a blog item headlined The Sun's Hillsborough source has never been a secret - it was the police. So today's confirmation came as little surprise. — A couple of months later …

Dina Rickman / Huffington Post UK:
Hillsborough Tragedy: Kelvin MacKenzie, Former Sun Editor, Apologises To Liverpool For ‘That Headline’

Discussion: @fleetstreetfox, @skynewsbreak, @gavreilly, @ianconnolly, @paulwhitelaw, themediablog.typepad.com, @brokenbottleboy and Huffington Post UK

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Philadelphia newspaper owners demand immediate concessions from union — The new owners of the Philadelphia newspapers are demanding immediate concessions from the Guild that represents employees of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com, union officials Dan Gross and Bill Ross write in a blog post.

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild …

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

For next editor of ‘T’ magazine, ‘Times’ makes an offer to Deborah Needleman of ‘WSJ.’ — Two weeks after the abrupt departure of Sally Singer, The New York Times has found the person it wants to be the new editor for the paper's glossy style supplement, T magazine.

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Chris Velazco / TechCrunch:

Citing “The Math,” HBO's Alison Moore Says There Are Still No Plans For Standalone HBO GO In The U.S. — Those lucky folks in the Nordics just recently got access to an on-demand, over-the-top HBO service that bears more than a passing resemblance to HBO GO, but we here in the States haven't been quite as fortunate.