Mediagazer: Newspaper Circulation Holds Steady Again (Nat Ives/AdAge)

10:50 AM ET, October 31, 2012

Top News:

David Holmes / PandoDaily:

Meet the man behind “Is Twitter Wrong?” who helped debunk fake pictures during Hurricane Sandy — Yesterday was a big day for citizen journalism. At one point during the storm users were posting 10 pictures to Instagram every second, and check out this dizzying website that displays in real …

Discussion: Poynter, WebProNews, New York Magazine, Storyful Blog, CNET, mediabistro.com, Chicago Tribune, Lifehacker.com Updates, eMedia Vitals and iMediaConnection Blog

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

Councilman Pushes For Charges Against Twitter User Who Spread Falsehoods — “I hope the fact that I'm asking for criminal charges to be seriously considered will make him much less comfortable and much less smug,” says Vallone — New York City Councilman Peter Vallone told BuzzFeed Tuesday …

Discussion: Betabeat, New York Times, The Daily Caller, New York Magazine, ABCNEWS, Nieman Storyboard, Forbes, ZDNet, BuzzFeed Politics, BuzzFeed, FishbowlDC and Poynter

Jeff John Roberts / GigaOM:

Tweeting fake news in a crisis — illegal or just immoral? — When Hurricane Sandy battered their city on Monday night, New Yorkers looked after each with courage and generosity. Unfortunately, a few people behaved badly and one person was downright despicable.

Discussion: Forbes, Poynter, NetNewsCheck Latest, PublishersWeekly.com, mediabistro.com, Wall Street Journal, Techdirt, Philly.com, The Huffington Post, The Verge, Capital New York, Business Week, Guardian and AppNewser

Jack Stuef / BuzzFeed:
Shashank Tripathi, Last Night's Twitter Villain @ComfortablySmug

Michael J. De La Merced / DealBook:

With Lucasfilm Deal, Disney Spends Big to Land a Lucrative Franchise — With its $4.05 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm, the Walt Disney Company is proving yet again that it is willing to pay up to land a big franchise. — Disney's takeover of Lucasfilm, keeper of the the Star Wars franchise …

Discussion: Business Wire, ArtsBeat, Media Decoder, Slate, Media Decoder, Corporate Intelligence, /Film, Forbes and Forbes

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Disney buys Lucasfilm for $4.05B including ILM, LucasArts and other tech, Star Wars VII coming in 2015 — Media giant Disney has purchased movie and TV production house Lucasfilm for $4.05B in cash and stock. Star Wars Episode 7 is targeted for release in 2015, with more feature films expected to continue the Star Wars saga.

Guardian:

BBC to investigate death of journalist who complained of harassment — Family of Russell Joslin, who died on 22 October, accuses corporation of failing to act on his reports of sexual harassment — Police and the BBC are to investigate the apparent suicide of a journalist who complained …

Discussion: BBC

Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:
Impressive integrity from two New York Times writers over BBC scandal

Discussion: Telegraph

Michael Wolff / Guardian:
The Jimmy Savile scandal, Mark Thompson and the New York Times

Discussion: London Review of Books and @emilybell

Joe Nocera / New York Times:
The Right Man for the Job?

Discussion: Guardian, Guardian, @dansabbagh, The Wrap and The Raw Story

Jim Romenesko: NYT publisher to NYT columnist: No comment on Mark Thompson

Elspeth Reeve / The Atlantic Wire:

Nerds Rush to Nate Silver's Defense — The great war between people who write about politics for a living is not between liberals and conservatives, but between humanities majors and math nerds, and their battleground is currently the validity of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight election prediction model …

Discussion: Nieman Journalism Lab, Change of Subject, Wonkblog, TechCrunch and Daily Download

Mark Milian / Bloomberg:

Wal-Mart to Sell Boxee TVs Challenging Apple and Roku — In a coup for New York-based startup Boxee Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) will sell and promote its new Web-connected device that brings live television and online video together, the companies said.

Discussion: CNET, The Verge and GigaOM

Jeremy Wagstaff / Reuters:

Analysis: E-readers grapple with a future on the shelf — (Reuters) - Amidst our growing love affair with the tablet, spare a thought for its increasingly shelfbound sibling: the e-reader. — Take Taiwan's E Ink Holdings Inc, which makes most of the monochrome displays for devices …

Charlie Osborne / CNET:

EFF: TV networks use ‘craven’ tactics against streaming service — Startup Aereo's free broadcasting service remains the target of television networks as they try to shutter it based on copyright infringement. — The Electronic Frontier Foundation is backing startup Aereo …

Discussion: Home Media Magazine

Nat Ives / AdAge:

Newspaper Circulation Holds Steady Again — Digital Circulation Now 15.3% of the Total — Paywalls still seem to be paying off for newspapers. — The industry's average weekday circulation over the six months ending in September slipped just 0.2% from the equivalent period a year earlier …

Discussion: Bloomberg, eMedia Vitals, Poynter, NewsBulletin Connection and NetNewsCheck Latest

Danah Boyd / Wired:

Truth, Lies, and ‘Doxxing’: The Real Moral of the Gawker/Reddit Story — Sitting U.S. President Ford was visiting San Francisco in 1975 when a woman attempted to shoot him. A former marine named Oliver Sipple grabbed the gun, preventing the assassination attempt.

Discussion: The Kernel