Mediagazer: How a 19-year-old student became one of the hottest political photographers in the country (Dan Kennedy/Nieman Journalism Lab)

7:15 AM ET, September 15, 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: Gannett Blog, Media Decoder, FishbowlNY, Garcia Media and Charles Apple

Charles Apple:
My epic search for a new-and-improved USA Today

Discussion: USA Today

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

Discussion: Media Decoder

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

Discussion: BtoB Magazine, Jack Shafer, The Week, @mattmansfield, The New York Observer, Gannett Blog, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Tampa Bay Times

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: Gawker, New York Magazine, Poynter and Runnin' Scared

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

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

Discussion: The Wrap and FishbowlNY

Adrian Chen / Gawker:

Confirmed: The Director of Innocence of Muslims Is a Schlocky Softcore Porn Director Named Alan Roberts — The anti-Islam film that's set off a firestorm in the Middle East was directed by a 65-year-old schlock director named Alan Roberts, we've confirmed. He's the creative vision behind …

Discussion: The Informer, The Snitch, Guardian and BostInno

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

AP issues correction for misidentifying director of ‘Innocence of Muslims’ film — The Associated Press tonight issued a lengthy correction to its reporting about the person behind the controversial “Innocence of Muslims” film that has contributed to protests in Cairo, Yemen and Libya …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, MediaShift and Boing Boing

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: AllThingsD, The Daily Beast, Cable Television News, USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Huffington Post

David Nakamura / Washington Post:
White House asked YouTube to review anti-Muslim film

Discussion: Reuters, Mediaite, Mashable! and Los Angeles Times

Dan Kennedy / Nieman Journalism Lab:

How a 19-year-old student became one of the hottest political photographers in the country — If you've spent much time scouring the Internet for news about the Republican presidential campaign, you've probably run across the work of Gage Skidmore. — Skidmore's high-quality photographs of Mitt Romney …

Ruth Samuelson / CJR:

No habla Español — Lalo Alcaraz has always embraced the word pocho. It refers to Mexican-Americans who have lost their Mexican culture and speak English, and it's what relatives occasionally called Alcaraz when he was growing up in San Diego. He has leveraged it ever since.

Edward Schumacher-Matos / NPR:

When A Popular List Of 100 ‘Best-Ever’ Teen Books Is The ‘Whitest Ever’ — When NPR Books invited audience members to nominate and vote for their favorite Young Adult novels, more than 75,000 responded. The extraordinary outpouring speaks of the passion connecting the books section and its followers.

Nitasha Tiku / Betabeat:

Paul Carr's NSFW Corp Picks Up 3,000 Subscribers and Hires 'The War Nerd'-All to Help Save Journalism — In case you haven't been keeping up with the antics of rapscallion writer Paul Carr since he dropped that resignation bomb on TechCrunch last year, here's a little refresher …

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.

Discussion: Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb and Business Insider

Betsy Rothstein / FishbowlDC:

WaPo's Wemple Has Eye For Male Journos — You may have noticed that WaPo's Erik Wemple has been playing closer attention to the males that appear on Cable TV. He took time the other day to comment on their shirts, ties, facial and head hair. Is he aiming for a gig at Metro Weekly?

Julie Moos / Poynter:

NOLA.com, other Advance websites down for 90 minutes Friday — Websites for Advance newspapers in New Orleans, New Jersey, Michigan, Cleveland and across the U.S. were inaccessible for about an hour and a half Friday. Visitors to those websites received an error message (see below).

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: Media Week, Forbes, AJE, The Daily Beast, Media Law Prof Blog and Hollywood Reporter