Mediagazer: Truth, Lies, and ‘Doxxing’: The Real Moral of the Gawker/Reddit Story (Danah Boyd/Wired)

4:50 AM ET, October 31, 2012

Top News:

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, Slate, Media Decoder, /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.

StreetInsider.com:

Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. — Global leader in high-quality family entertainment agrees to acquire world-renowned Lucasfilm Ltd, including legendary STAR WARS franchise. — Acquisition continues Disney's strategic focus on creating and monetizing the world's best branded content …

Discussion: Corporate Intelligence, Daring Fireball and Techdirt

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: Nieman Storyboard, mediabistro.com, Chicago Tribune, The Verge, Lifehacker.com Updates, eMedia Vitals, The Raw Story 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: New York Magazine, BuzzFeed Politics, BuzzFeed, FishbowlDC, Real-Time News from Mobile and BuzzFeed FWD

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, Business Week, Guardian, Poynter, BuzzFeed Andrew Kaczynski … and The Huffington Post

Jack Stuef / BuzzFeed:

Shashank Tripathi, Last Night's Twitter Villain @ComfortablySmug — During the storm last night, user @comfortablysmug was the source of a load of frightening but false information about conditions in New York City that spread wildly on Twitter and onto news broadcasts before ConEd, the MTA …

Discussion: The Atlantic Wire, New York Times, The Atlantic Online, Felix, PandoDaily, Gawker.com, CNET, The Verge, Bloomberg, Mashable!, The New Republic, @carr2n, Capital New York, The Raw Story and Poynter

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 …

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter: Washington Post Sunday circulation drop bad, but not quite as bad as it looks

Julie Moos / Poynter:
New York Times circulation up 40% as newspaper numbers generally flat

Discussion: The Boston Globe, Bloomberg, Media Decoder, Audit Bureau of Circulations, Gannett Blog, Agence France Presse, FishbowlNY, The Wrap and NetNewsCheck Latest

Joe Nocera / New York Times:

The Right Man for the Job? — The position of chief executive of The New York Times Company is not the easiest to fill. — There are, to start with, the obvious business challenges: like all newspaper companies, the Times Company has struggled financially as the Internet has eroded its traditional revenue sources.

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

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

Discussion: London Review of Books and @emilybell

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

Hamish McKenzie / PandoDaily:

Vimeo launches tips jar for content creators. More of this, please, media industry — Vimeo has just launched a tip jar to help content creators earn money from their videos. A “pay to view” option is coming soon. These are the first steps in what could become a widespread micropayments ecosystem on the video-sharing site.

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Yelp Launching Visual Menus With User-Contributed Photos — Yelp is announcing a new feature today that allows users to browse restaurant menus (with accompanying food porn) directly from the Yelp website and mobile app. — Last year, the company added the ability for businesses …

Discussion: Yelp Official Blog, SocialTimes, Engadget and App Advice

Shara Tibken / CNET:

Barnes & Noble inks video deals in time for Nook HD, HD+ release — 20th Century Fox and NBCUniversal programs will be available as the new tablets launch this week. — Barnes & Noble is expanding its Nook video content to include NBCUniversal and 20th Century Fox programs as it also begins shipping its HD and HD+ tablets this week.

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable, Home Media Magazine and Softpedia News

NBC Chicago: First Lawsuit Filed in Barnes & Noble Hacked PIN Pad Case

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.

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 and Electronic Frontier Foundation