Mediagazer: Surmounting the Insurmountable: Wikipedia Is Nearing Completion, in a Sense (Rebecca J. Rosen/The Atlantic Online)

4:00 AM ET, October 28, 2012

Top News:

Al Jazeera creates interactive video transcripts of debates — Each word in the transcripts of the US presidential debates is linked to the exact point in the video where that word is spoken by Obama or Romney — The four US presidential debates maybe over but Al Jazeera English now offers …

Rebecca J. Rosen / The Atlantic Online:

Surmounting the Insurmountable: Wikipedia Is Nearing Completion, in a Sense — And that's something of a challenge for the collaborative encyclopedia going forward — For about the last five years, Wikipedia has had trouble getting and keeping new volunteer editors.

Discussion: The Verge and Guardian

Margaret Sullivan / The Public Editor's Journal:

‘Great Journalism’ That Has Unwanted Business Impact in China — Here's one memorable part of the coverage of the Chinese government's censorship Friday of The New York Times's Chinese-language Web site: the word “harmonized.” — The word crops up in a Washington Post story …

Discussion: PandoDaily, New York Times, Quartz, FP Passport, Guardian, Fast Company, WorldViews, Vanity Fair and Globe and Mail

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
The ‘Times’ hits its first hurdle in its quest to capture the Chinese market

Discussion: CNET, The Week, DealBook, FishbowlNY and New York Times

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
‘Times’ foreign editor says readers in China are finding their way to the site despite government blockade

Discussion: New York Times, Guardian and CNET

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

CNN bans ‘Frankenstorm’ term for Hurricane Sandy — Hurricane Sandy, a big storm expected to hit the Eastern Seaboard just shy of Halloween, has taken on the popular nickname of “Frankenstorm.” A Newsday story takes the moniker to punning extremes, noting, “Meteorologists expect …

Discussion: Mediaite, New York Magazine and The Huffington Post

Jennifer Epstein / Politico:

New York Times endorses Obama ‘enthusiastically’ — The New York Times editorial board, rather unsuprisingly, endorsed President Obama on Saturday. But unlike many other papers calling for the president's re-election with some resignation, the Times is “enthusiastically” backing him.

Discussion: New York Times, The Raw Story, @palafo, @jcstearns, @jayrosen_nyu, Pressing Issues and JIMROMENESKO.COM

David Weigel / Slate:

The Power of James O'Keefe — This is a fact, and it will piss of liberals, but: James O'Keefe has had more of an impact on the 2012 election than any other journalist. His newest victory occured in Virginia, where a reporter from his Project Veritas approached Patrick Moran …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Los Angeles Times and WorldNetDaily

New York Times:

Spain's Troubles Catch Up With a Storied Newspaper — MADRID — El País established itself as the leading newspaper in Spain in the late 1970s, serving as a frontline witness to the formative period when Spain returned to democracy after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco.

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

BuzzFeed adapts its branded content approach to political advertising, and Obama's in — Add this to the signs that BuzzFeed is becoming a serious player in the media business: campaign ads. — More specifically, native, BuzzFeed-y, campaign ads. This month Obama for America became …

Discussion: the Econsultancy blog and Wired

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of Rupert Murdoch, American publisher — State governments finally cracked down on Amazon's sales tax exemption, and Jeff Bezos found a workaround: same-day-delivery of retail ("The newsonomics of Amazon vs. Main Street"). European governments and the European Community …

Adrianne Jeffries / The Verge:

In 2012 election, the meme factory hones its assembly line — From binders full of women to horses and bayonets, candidates find themselves navigating the first ‘Meme Election’ — About 100 people had gathered for a generously-catered, open bar party in the West Village offices of Livestream …

Discussion: GigaOM

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

New Megaupload To Launch On Police Raid Anniversary — With 50 million visitors per day at its peak, Megaupload was one of the largest websites on the Internet. — This abruptly ended January this year when the U.S. Government took down the file-hosting service and had several key employees arrested including founder Kim Dotcom.

Discussion: Gizmodo, The Next Web and Softpedia News

Ryan Chittum / CJR:

The paywall prevents a deeper downturn at the NYT — Digital subs keep a weak earnings report from turning into a disastrous one — New York Times Company shares plummeted Thursday as ad revenues were worse than expected, pushing down profits from a year ago. — That's the bad news.

Discussion: BtoB Magazine and Poynter