Mediagazer: Coming to Yahoo: Fantasy Football + Robot Writers (Peter Kafka/AllThingsD)

9:15 AM ET, September 15, 2012

Top News:

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, BostInno and Guardian

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

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, Runnin' Scared and Poynter

Tom McGeveran / Capital New York:
‘Village Voice’ editor Tony Ortega quits the paper; it's Maura Johnston's last day, too

Discussion: @weareyourfek, @weareyourfek, paidContent, @michaelroston, @camilledodero, @choire, @willsommer, 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

Jim Romenesko:

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: Media Decoder, Gannett Blog, FishbowlNY, Garcia Media, Tampa Bay Times, Poynter and Charles Apple

Charles Apple:

My epic search for a new-and-improved USA Today — Oh, I'm so crushed today... My plan for Friday: 1) Get up early. 2) Just as Adam quoted me there on Facebook last night... ...rush down to my local 7-Eleven to buy a copy of the new-and-improved USA Today 3) Take a few pictures with my camera …

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

Discussion: The Week and Media Decoder

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 …

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:

Coming to Yahoo: Fantasy Football + Robot Writers — Siri can help you order tomato soup. But what if you want to read a story about your fantasy football team's exploits, immediately after the week's games finish up? — For that you need a different artificial intelligence engine — the kind Automated Insights wants to show off.

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.

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?