Mediagazer: Washington, U.N. criticizes Ivory Coast on newspaper bans (Joe Bavier/Reuters)

4:50 PM ET, September 14, 2012

Top News:

USA Today explains its ‘cool balls’ — Gannett chief marketing officer Maryam Banikarim sent a memo to employees this morning with USA Today artist/illustrator Sam Ward's explanation of his paper's new logo and “cool balls.” — He writes: — “Just what are our balls? Well, they are what we will make of them.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, Garcia Media, AdAge and Charles Apple

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:
The USA Today Redesign: Too Little, Too Early?

Discussion: Media Decoder and New York Times

Julie Moos / Poynter:
USA Today's new design debuts in print today

Discussion: The Week, Gannett Blog, Charles Apple, The New York Observer, @mattmansfield, Tampa Bay Times, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Adweek

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:

‘Village Voice’ editor Tony Ortega quits the paper; it's Maura Johnston's last day, too — Tony Ortega, editor of The Village Voice, just announced on the weekly's news blog Runnin' Scared that he's leaving the paper. — “Next week will be my last as editor of the Voice,” Ortega wrote.

Discussion: paidContent, The Atlantic Wire, @camilledodero, @zinoman, @weareyourfek, @willsommer, @weareyourfek, @michaelroston, @choire, Media Decoder and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Media Decoder:

Village Voice Is Losing Its Editor in Chief and Music Editor — After five-and-half-years as editor of The Village Voice, Tony Ortega announced in a by-the-way blog post that he will be leaving to work on a book about Scientology while music editor Maura Johnston took to Twitter to say she was leaving the paper as well.

Discussion: Poynter, Runnin' Scared, FishbowlNY and Gawker

Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke / The New York Observer:
Runnin' Scared: Was Tony Ortega Pushed Out at the Village Voice?

Discussion: The Wrap and New York Magazine

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Google's Islam-Baiting Video Censorship: A Well-Meaning Mistake — The line between responsibility and censorship can be hard to make out at times. Google just tripped over it. — The decision to block access on YouTube to an inflammatory movie trailer in countries where it has already …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and The Huffington Post

David Nakamura / Washington Post:

White House asked YouTube to review anti-Muslim film — The White House has asked YouTube to review an anti-Muslim film posted to the site that has been blamed for igniting the violent protests this week in the Middle East. — Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council …

Discussion: Mediaite, Mashable! and Los Angeles Times

Joseph Ax / Reuters:

Twitter surrenders Occupy protester's tweets — (Reuters) - Twitter handed over tweets from an Occupy Wall Street protester to a New York criminal judge on Friday after months of fighting a subpoena from prosecutors. — The company surrendered the micro-blogging posts …

Discussion: AllThingsD, Forbes, PC Magazine, CNET, Hillicon Valley, Bloomberg, Engadget, Marketing Pilgrim and GigaOM

Erik Wemple:

All Lehrer content must be Ghostbustered — First, it was the quasi-scandal over Jonah Lehrer's using his New Yorker blog posts to recycle material that he'd previously published elsewhere. — Second, it was further revelations on Lehrer's full recycling bin.

Discussion: Poynter

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
Wall Street Journal removes two Jonah Lehrer essays, corrects two others

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
‘The Wall Street Journal’ pushes its glossy magazine to monthly (almost)

Discussion: FishbowlNY, WWD Media Headlines and WWD

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

BuzzFeed Hires Web Video Pioneer Ze Frank — Here's a good chocolate/peanut butter combination: Buzzfeed, the click-factory that has figured out Facebook and Twitter, plus Ze Frank, the guy who figured out Web video back in its infancy. — Together they're going to try to figure out modern-day YouTube.

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:
BuzzFeed Makes Its First Acquisition To Tackle A Big Revenue Opportunity

Discussion: TechCrunch, Fast Company and Betabeat

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Topless Kate photos: royals sue Closer — St James's Palace confirms Kate and William are launching proceedings against Silvio Berlusconi-owned magazine — The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have launched legal proceedings in France against the Silvio Berlusconi-owned celebrity magazine …

Discussion: AJE, The Daily Beast, Media Law Prof Blog and Media Week

Stuart Kemp / Hollywood Reporter:
Topless Pictures of Kate Middleton Published in French Magazine

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

Study: Smaller news websites depend more on social media for traffic than larger sites — In any local market, the dozens or hundreds of available news websites make up a news ecosystem. — In any real-life nature ecosystem — think of the food chain diagram you learned in 5th grade — the many species develop their own roles.

Discussion: Street Fight, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Huffington Post and Knight Digital Media Center

Tim Carman / Washington Post:

Producer of ‘pink slime’ textured beef suing ABC and ABC News — Of all the media outlets that have taken shots at Beef Products and its “lean, finely textured beef,” the South Dakota-based company apparently feels slimed by only one: ABC and its ABC News division.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Rural Blog, AdAge, TVNewser and Eatocracy

Edmund Lee / Bloomberg:

Time Inc.'s CEO Aims to Unify Print and Online Fiefdoms — Time Inc. Chief Executive Officer Laura Lang, hired last year to revive the struggling magazine publisher, is forging a plan to unify its long-sparring online and print fiefdoms. — Lang wants to give customers the ability …

Dean Starkman / CJR:

The hamster wheel vs. the quality imperative — The real problem with JRC/Advance free model and the unappreciated benefit of a paywall … The Journal Register Company has cast itself as an avatar of the future of news, making tough decisions now that other, less stout-hearted …

Discussion: It's All Journalism

Patrick Lannin / Reuters:

Freed Swedish journalists say faced mock execution in Ethiopia — (Reuters) - Two Swedish journalists pardoned by Ethiopia after spending 11 months in jail for aiding a rebel group said on Friday they had been subjected to a mock execution, and accused the country of using anti-terrorism laws to stifle journalism.

Discussion: Big News Network.com