Mediagazer: Storm Sends News Media Scrambling (New York Times)

1:05 PM 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, Storyful Blog, The Verge, WorldViews, Chicago Tribune, Lifehacker.com Updates, New York Magazine, The Raw Story, iMediaConnection Blog and eMedia Vitals

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: New York Times, Guardian, CNBC, The Daily Caller, Forbes, Gothamist, ZDNet, Poynter, The Week, BuzzFeed FWD and BuzzFeed Andrew Kaczynski …

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: Media & Entertainment, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, NetNewsCheck Latest, mediabistro.com, PublishersWeekly.com, Poynter, Philly.com, The Huffington Post, Felix, Techdirt, Capital New York, AppNewser, Hillicon Valley and Business Week

BuzzFeed:
The Man Behind @ComfortablySmug, Hurricane Sandy's Worst Twitter Villain

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 — Margaret Sullivan and Joe Nocera raise troubling questions about their own paper's incoming president and CEO, Mark Thompson — Over the past month, two New York Times columnists have displayed brave …

Discussion: Guardian, Telegraph and The Raw Story

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

Discussion: @michaelwolffnyc, London Review of Books, @emilybell and New York Times

David Carr / Media Decoder:

How Sandy Slapped the Snark Out of Twitter — Twitter is often a caldron of snark, much of it funny, little of it useful. But as a social medium based on short-burst communication, Twitter can morph during large events — users talk about “watching” the spectacle unfold across their screens.

Discussion: CBS News, PandoDaily, mediabistro.com and ZDNet

New York Times:
Storm Sends News Media Scrambling

Discussion: AdAge

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Marissa Mayer Makes a Media Deal — The Marissa Mayer messaging is that Yahoo's new CEO is about product, not media. But that doesn't mean she's shutting down everything her predecessor Ross Levinsohn was working on. — Example: Yahoo has struck a deal with Wenner Media …

Discussion: The Next Web

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: AllThingsD, CNET, The Verge and GigaOM

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

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 …