Mediagazer: What's happening at the BBC (Emily Bell/CJR)

11:30 PM ET, November 11, 2012

Top News:

Emily Bell / CJR:

What's happening at the BBC — The Corporation is facing a serious challenge to its future and to its independence — “To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” — A very British crisis needs a very British epigraph.

Discussion: Forbes, Daily Mail, The Huffington Post, Reuters, Guardian, @jeffjarvis, @moorehn and @jayrosen_nyu

Reuters:

BBC must reform or die, says Trust chairman — (Reuters) - BBC director general George Entwistle resigned just two months into the job, after the state-funded broadcaster put out a program denounced by its chairman as shoddy journalism. — The BBC, reeling from revelations …

John Ware / Guardian:

A personal tragedy, and a hammer blow for an honest institution — Paralysis at the top left the BBC's Newsnight exposed. Will this be rectified following Entwistle's departure? — The resignation of George Entwistle as the BBC's director general is both a personal tragedy and a hammer-blow for the BBC.

Discussion: Telegraph, Charlie Beckett, Daily Express, Business Insider, Daily Mail, BBC and Digital Spy

George Entwistle / BBC:

Statement from George Entwistle — In the light of the fact that the Director-General is also the Editor-in-Chief and ultimately responsible for all content; and in the light of the unacceptable journalistic standards of the Newsnight film broadcast on Friday 2nd November …

John Plunkett / Guardian: Newsnight insiders fear it will not survive scandal

Spencer Ackerman / Wired:

How I Was Drawn Into the Cult of David Petraeus — Gen. David Petraeus gives the thumbs up with his wife Holly at his retirement ceremony. Photo: DOD — When it came out that CIA Director David Petraeus had an affair with his hagiographer, I got punked. “It seems so obvious in retrospect.

Discussion: Boing Boing, New York Times, New York Magazine, @moorehn, @gitagovinda, @dangillmor, Guardian, Pressing Issues, The New York Observer and BuzzFeed

Michael Hastings / BuzzFeed:

The Sins Of General David Petraeus — Petraeus seduced America. We should never have trusted him. — The fraud that General David Petraeus perpetrated on America started many years before the general seduced Paula Broadwell, a lower ranking officer 20 years his junior, after meeting her on a campus visit to Harvard.

Discussion: @techsoc, Pressing Issues, @moorehn, @dangillmor and @buzzfeedben

David Carr / New York Times:

Fox News's Election Coverage Followed Journalistic Instincts — It has been suggested, here and elsewhere, that Fox News effectively became part of the Republican propaganda apparatus during the presidential campaign by giving pundit slots to many of the Republican candidates and relentlessly advocating …

Discussion: Chickaboomer, The Huffington Post and Slate

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

Which Polls Fared Best (and Worst) in the 2012 Presidential Race — As Americans' modes of communication change, the techniques that produce the most accurate polls seems to be changing as well. In last Tuesday's presidential election, a number of polling firms that conduct their surveys online had strong results.

Discussion: Pressing Issues

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

MSNBC, Its Ratings Rising, Gains Ground on Fox News — On Tuesday night, with a minute to go until the polls closed in the battleground state of Virginia, the MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews received word through their earpieces that the state was too close to call …

Discussion: Mediaite, @jayrosen_nyu and @gabrielsherman

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Luring developers into the newsroom: A new class of Knight-Mozilla fellows tries to bridge a cultural divide — The laws of supply and demand are working very differently in two different parts of major newsrooms. — In the United States, at least, there's a surplus of people who want to make phone calls …

Discussion: Knight Foundation

Josh Sternberg / Digiday:

Can NowThis News Crack Mobile Video? — News clearly needs a healthy dose of reinvention. NowThis News is an ambitious attempt to do just that with news video made for a mobile world. — NowThis, founded by former Huffington Post execs Ken Lerer and Eric Hippeau and backed by $5 million …

Discussion: NYConvergence.com

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Changing Channels: YouTube Will Pull the Plug on at Least 60 Percent of Its Programming Deals — YouTube has helped fund about 160 “channels” as part of a new strategy to make the video site more TV-like. — And just like the TV world, YouTube isn't going to renew all of last season's programs.

Discussion: AdAge, The Verge and @pkafka