Mediagazer: The real writer behind the fictional Will McAvoy's Twitter account (Mallary Jean Tenore/Poynter)

1:40 PM ET, September 17, 2012

Top News:

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Newsweek's ‘Muslim Rage’ cover coincides with critique of Tina Brown — USA Today columnist Michael Wolff, a big name brought in to stoke much-needed buzz at a legacy publication trumpeting its reinvention as an Internet-age news organization, slams Newsweek Editor Tina Brown for bringing …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Gawker and Featured stories

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Newsweek's ‘MUSLIM RAGE’ Cover Draws Angry Protest — Newsweek is courting controversy yet again with its latest cover. The magazine has become famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) for its deliberately provocative cover choices and stories.

Discussion: @newsweek, @craigsilverman, @justinsreedy, @dylanbyers, @john_mcguirk, @fiverupees, @jeffjarvis and @edmundlee

Michael Wolff / USA Today:

Is there a place for Tina Brown? — What will happen to Tina Brown? And should we care? The most famous magazine editor of her generation is engaged in a desperate and operatic struggle, which almost no one anywhere believes has any chance of success, to reinvent Newsweek as a sustainable business proposition.

Discussion: Capital New York and FishbowlNY

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

The Times Needs a Policy on Quotation Approval, and Soon — David Carr wrote a great column in Monday's New York Times on the topic of news sources demanding that they approve quotations in stories. Mr. Carr's “The Media Equation” had the headline “The Puppetry of Quotation Approval,” …

Discussion: @craigsilverman, @jeffjarvis and @jeffjarvis

David Carr / New York Times:

The Puppetry of Quotation Approval — Now that it's become clear that many journalists covering politics and government agree to quotation-approval as a condition of access, it's tough not to see the pageant of democracy as just that: a carefully constructed performance meant to showcase the participants in the best light.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Politico, Daily Download, Kirk LaPointe's … and Rehak/Stuebing Mostly Media

Tom Harper / The Independent:

Exclusive: News of the World hired detective firm linked with murder to spy on Met Chief — The News of the World hired private detectives to spy on a former Metropolitan police commissioner, Independent Voices can reveal. Lord Stevens, who led Scotland Yard between 2000 and 2005 …

Discussion: @tom_watson, @alastairmorgan, @neilwallis1, @martin_hickman and @neilwallis1

Gideon Lichfield / news thing:

On elephants, obsessions and wicked problems: A new phenomenology of news — Goodbye to the beat — The first “beat reporters” were probably the men sent by newspapers to hang around the criminal courts in the early 19th century. Today almost every news outlet is organized around fixed beats …

Discussion: @zseward and Talking Biz News

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The newsonomics of the Quartz business launch

Discussion: Poynter

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Daily News names Joel Siegel politics editor — ABC News producer Joel Siegel has been named managing editor for politics at New York Daily News, according to an internal staff memo from NYDN editor Colin Myler, obtained by POLITICO. — Siegel worked for the paper for fifteen years …

Brett Smiley / New York Magazine:

Times' Maureen Dowd Accused of Playing on Anti-Semitic Stereotypes — New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd rings in the Jewish new year Sunday with a controversy brewing over her column titled “Neocons Slither Back,” in which she peddles Jewish stereotypes and uses anti-Semitic imagery …

Discussion: Politico, The New York Observer, @frankrichny, @ggreenwald, @jrubinblogger and Gawker

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:

The real writer behind the fictional Will McAvoy's Twitter account — Will McAvoy isn't very Internet savvy. On the pilot episode of “The Newsroom,” he learns he has a blog. — “Seriously ... I have a blog?” he asks, after talking with the young journalist who runs it.

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

States' ebook settlement: Preliminary approval, and a 2013 hearing — Federal district judge Denise Cote has preliminarily approved (PDF) the states' $69 million ebook pricing settlement with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. The settlement covers all the states except Minnesota …

New York Times:

Italian Magazine Publishes Disputed Images of Duchess — ROME — Chi, a glossy Italian gossip magazine, on Monday became the latest outlet to publish images of the Duchess of Cambridge, the former Kate Middleton, sunbathing topless on a vacation in France. — The magazine is owned …

Discussion: Gawker, Guardian, TMZ.com and The Sun