Mediagazer: TV Debates That Sell More Than Just Drama (David Carr/New York Times)

12:35 PM ET, October 15, 2012

Top News:

Jimmy Savile scandal: BBC director general to appear in front of MPs — George Entwistle is expected to answer questions in front of a House of Commons committee next week — The BBC director general is expected to appear to take questions from MPs next week on the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal …

Discussion: Telegraph

Amelia Hill / Guardian: Savile questioned by BBC boss 20 years ago

Martin Beckford / Telegraph: Jimmy Savile: Former BBC Trust chairman criticises ‘hysteria’

Michael Moynihan / The Daily Beast:

Nicholas Lemann: Journalism Is Doing Just Fine — When Nicholas Lemann announced that he was leaving his post as dean of Columbia Journalism School after 10 years on the job, many of his journalistic colleagues wanted to know the reason—the real reason—for his departure.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, @jimmyso, @rajunarisetti and @ksablan

Alexandra Topping / Guardian:

Murdoch: hacking campaigners are ‘scumbags’ — News Corp chief causes outrage on Twitter with caustic dismissal of victims who lobbied David Cameron last week — Rupert Murdoch has labelled victims of phone hacking “scumbag celebrities” after they met David Cameron during the Conservative party conference.

Discussion: @rupertmurdoch, Guardian, Hacking inquiry, The Wrap, @jamesro47, @dangillmor, @benfenton, @jeffjarvis, @davidallengreen, Crikey, themediablog.typepad.com and The Huffington Post

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Gannett announces rise in circulation revenue, driven by paywalls — Net operating revenues from print circulation were up 5.6 percent in the third quarter of 2012 over the same period the year before, Gannett announced Monday morning. Seventy-one of Gannett's newspapers now have a paywall.

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Wall Street Journal, Gannett Blog, Broadcasting & Cable and MarketWatch

David Carr / New York Times:

TV Debates That Sell More Than Just Drama — In 1960, John F. Kennedy was trailing Richard Nixon as they stepped into the crucible of the first nationally televised debate. While Kennedy soared, Nixon stumbled and never recovered. — Network television played a definitive role, but those were very different times.

Discussion: Poynter, Media Decoder, Prof Chris Daly's Blog and USA Today

Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong — Here's a pocket history of the web, according to many people. In the early days, the web was just pages of information linked to each other. Then along came web crawlers that helped you find what you wanted among all that information.

Discussion: TechCrunch and @buzzfeedben

T.C. Sottek / The Verge:

Reddit leaders deflect censorship criticism and defend hands-off policies — In wake of the Gawker ban controversy, Reddit's powerful moderators test commitment to free speech — Reddit's prides itself on its decentralized meritocracy —"subreddits are a free market.

Discussion: Guardian, Betabeat, Gawker and Boing Boing

John Herrman / @jwherrman:
Reddit's top admin tells me Gawker article ban “was a mistake on our part” http://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos / leaked-chat-logs-between-reddit- moderators-and-sta ...

Discussion: BuzzFeed

Natasha Singer / New York Times:

Do-Not-Track Movement Is Drawing Advertisers' Fire — THE campaign to defang the “Do Not Track” movement began late last month. — Do Not Track mechanisms are features on browsers — like Mozilla's Firefox — that give consumers the option of sending out digital signals asking companies …

Discussion: NYT Bits

Associated Press:

AP names first international social media and UGC editor — The Associated Press has expanded its commitment to social media and user-generated content as global newsgathering resources, promoting Fergus Bell to the newly created position of social media and UGC editor — international.

Om Malik / GigaOM:

Amplification & the changing role of media — For the past few days, I have been thinking about the evolution of what media is and its expanded role in the information ecosystem. What got me thinking was Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey's decision to blog his side of the story about his reduced role at Twitter.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, @zimbalist and @kevinmarks

Ryan Kohls / Poynter:

Swedish journalists explain arrest, imprisonment in Ethiopia — For 438 days, two Swedish freelance journalists were locked up in Ethiopian prisons for illegally entering the country and committing acts of terrorism. Prior to their arrest, journalists had been working in the northern part of the country …

Agence France Presse:

NY Times to launch Portuguese news site for Brazil — NEW YORK — The New York Times has announced that it will launch an online Portuguese-language edition designed for Brazil in 2013. “The new Web edition will provide Times-quality content to an audience in Brazil that is educated …

Discussion: Media Decoder