Mediagazer: The Lens will pick up many of the newsgathering functions planned for NewOrleansReporter.org (Andrew Beaujon/Poynter)

8:35 AM ET, September 17, 2012

Top News:

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 — Quartz — Atlantic Media's business news startup, set to take flight later this month — may be bursting into the marketplace at a gem of a time. — Tepid growth is taking hold in the U.S., with second recession worries ebbing; Europe appears headed for a “soft landing.”

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

Margaret Sullivan / New York Times:

He Said, She Said, and the Truth — IN journalism, as in life, balance sounds like an unassailably good thing. — But while balance may be necessary to mediating a dispute between teenage siblings, a different kind of balance — some call it “false equivalency” — has come under increasing fire.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Big News Network.com and Pressing Issues

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

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

The Lens will pick up many of the newsgathering functions planned for NewOrleansReporter.org — Plans for NewOrleansReporter.org, a nonprofit newsroom stemming out of a partnership between NPR affiliate WWNO and the University of New Orleans, have been “revised.” How revised?

Discussion: Wall Street Journal

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

US university to close its j-school — Let's hope this isn't the start of a trend? An Atlanta university is to shut down its journalism department. Faculty at Emory University were stunned by the news that its j-school will be phased out over the next two years.

Discussion: Emory News Center, JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Associated Press

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

How Human Rights Watch got into the quasi-journalism business — Media from nonprofits has boomed in recent years. But that doesn't just mean the ProPublicas and Texas Tribunes of the world — nonprofit advocacy groups are also inching their way into the media business.

Leonard Downie Jr / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Len Downie: The teaching hospital model works, but it will require drastic change — When the Nieman Journalism Lab asked for my thoughts at the beginning of another academic year, I realized how my career has been book-ended by meaningful experiences in journalism education.

Hazel Sheffield / CJR:

James Brown estate case reporter slapped with subpoenas — The 60-year-old journalist believes South Carolina is attempting to hush her — When the judges responsible for distributing the estate of the late musician James Brown started refusing freedom of information requests …

Discussion: Estate of Denial and Common Sense Journalism

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, @ggreenwald, @jrubinblogger, @frankrichny and Gawker

Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:

Google Has No Plans to Rethink Video Status — SAN FRANCISCO — Google said on Friday that it would not comply with a White House request to reconsider the anti-Islam video that has set off violent protests in the Arab world in light of its rules banning hate speech on YouTube, which it owns.