Mediagazer: The sex scandal as civic lesson (Jack Shafer)

12:50 AM ET, November 16, 2012

Top News:

Jessica Roy / Betabeat:

Social Media Companies Have Absolutely No Idea How to Handle the Gaza Conflict — After announcing their intention to attack Hamas on Twitter, the Israeli Defense Force began military operations in Gaza yesterday. The Alqassam Brigades, Hamas's military arm, also has a Twitter account …

Discussion: Wired, The Verge, Daily Dot, Ynetnews, WorldViews, BBC, Red Alert Politics, AllThingsD, Mother Jones, BAGnewsNotes, Forbes, Poynter, GigaOM, Wired, IDF Blog, Betabeat, The Huffington Post and New York Times

Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Anonymous Hackers Hit Israeli Sites In Retaliation For Gaza Attacks

Discussion: CNN, KDVR.com and SocialTimes

Nick Bilton / NYT Bits:
In Israeli Attack on Hamas: Shock, Awe and Social Media

Discussion: Foreign Policy, New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Wrap, The Week, GigaOM, The Hill, Softpedia News, The Stream and BuzzFeed

Tara Conlan / Guardian:

BBC rules out costly search for George Entwistle replacement — BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten and trustees will not follow lengthy search and interview process for next director general — Lord Patten, the BBC Trust chairman, and fellow trustees have ruled out another lengthy and costly search …

Sky News:
Lord McAlpine And BBC Reach Settlement

Discussion: Poynter

Paul Sonne / Wall Street Journal:
BBC Faces Probe Over Abuse Scandal

Discussion: @skynewsbreak, Press Gazette, Media Decoder and New York Times

Martin Robinson / Daily Mail:
Lord McAlpine to sue Twitter users who called him a paedophile as BBC agrees taxpayer-funded payout for Newsnight slur

Discussion: @iankatz1000 and @lisaocarroll

Amy Chozick / Media Decoder:

Viacom Profit Increases, but Movie Division Hurts Revenues — Viacom's net income for its fiscal fourth quarter increased by 12 percent, while its revenue fell 17 percent as a result of a decline in domestic advertising revenue and a corporate strategy to release a diminished slate of movies through its Paramount Pictures studio.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine, Hollywood Reporter and Radio & Television …

Jennifer Saba / Reuters: Viacom posts higher profit; CEO says MTV is not broken

Chris O'Shea / FishbowlNY:

Guy Fieri Responds to Pete Wells: ‘He Had an Agenda’ — Guy Fieri got his restaurant blasted by Pete Wells in The New York Times, so this morning he went on the Today show to defend his food and American Bar and Grill. Fieri said that Wells' review was over the top, and that it seemed …

Discussion: Gawker, TVNewser, AdAge, Eater National and 10,000 Words

Mallary Jean Tenore / Poynter:
New York Times hosts ad client dinner at Guy Fieri restaurant it panned earlier in the day

Discussion: Gawker, The Braiser, Every Day Forever, Daily Dot, Speakeasy, Eater National and Bites

Jim Romenesko:

How Elizabeth Spiers got Mediabistro noticed - then failed to profit from its sale — When Mediabistro was sold in 2007, I told some people that I thought Elizabeth Spiers deserved at least a few of the millions that Laurel Touby took to the bank. — Touby (left) and Spiers

Discussion: The Awl

Penelope Green / New York Times:
The Loft That Mediabistro Built

Discussion: Gawker, @real_kaplan, @laureltouby and @laureltouby

Ben Sisario / Media Decoder:

A Counterculture Totem to Return as a Leaner Magazine — From 2002 to 2008, Arthur was music's version of a literary-minded “little magazine.” Distributed free in record stores and coffee shops, it celebrated underground culture of all kinds and attracted writers like Alan Moore ("Watchmen" …

Discussion: The Awl and Arthur Magazine

Ben Fritz / Los Angeles Times:

Variety lays off staff, plans to reduce frequency of publication — Variety has laid off nearly 20 staffers and will cut back on its print frequency. (Variety) — The new owner of Variety is laying off nearly 20 employees at the Hollywood trade paper while preparing to cut back on the number of times it prints each week.

Discussion: Deadline.com

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Brauchli's wife: Washington Post has become 'place where you can't speak truth to power' — Former Los Angeles Times reporter Maggie Farley is married to outgoing Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli. In a public posting on Facebook Tuesday evening, she wrote:

Discussion: City Desk

Ryan Chittum / CJR:
Marcus Brauchli's impossible task

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Capital New York and Media Decoder

Glynnis Macnicol / Capital New York:

Nate Silver receives the adulation of New York's media demimonde in Nick Denton's Soho loft — “It's like we've taken a time machine back to 2007,” remarked one guest as he mounted the staircase to the second-floor loft apartment of Nick Denton, lord of the Gawker Media empire.

Daniel Terdiman / CNET:

Hollywood bigwig Peter Chernin joins Twitter's board — The former News Corp. executive, who also helped launch Hulu, has become the eighth member of Twitter's board of directors. … Twitter said this afternoon that former News Corp. executive Peter Chernin has become the newest member of its board of directors.

Discussion: @twitter, Lost Remote, GigaOM, The Next Web and AllThingsD

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Election Night Was a Second Screen Extravaganza — If you are reading this there are very good odds that you spent all or part of election night online. Because, why wouldn't you? — Still, here's some data that shows how commonplace that behavior was, beyond your personal filter bubble …

Discussion: Pew Research Center … and Lost Remote

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The New York Times' Chronicle tool explores how language — and journalism — has evolved — It's possible The New York Times is using the word “signature” too much. I'll let Philip Corbett, the paper's standards editor, explain: … As the guy in charge of standards …

Discussion: eMedia Vitals

John Jannarone / Wall Street Journal:

Drop in Ratings for DVR Viewing Mirrors Live TV — Some television executives have blamed use of digital video recorders as a reason for sharp declines in “live” viewing of most major broadcast networks this fall. But data capturing a full week of delayed viewing through DVRs reveals nearly identical audience declines.

Max Fisher / Washington Post:

The story behind the photo: Journalist's 11-month-old son killed in Gaza strikes — BBC journalist Jihad Masharawi carries his son's body at a Gaza hospital. (Associated Press) — The front page photo on Thursday's Washington Post tells, in a single frame, a very personal story …

Discussion: Telegraph, Gawker and The Huffington Post

Jack Shafer:

The sex scandal as civic lesson — The saturation coverage of the Petraeus sex scandal has yet to annoy many people besides policy wonks, but it won't be long before a full-throated essay attacking the endless column inches and hours of airtime devoted to the salacious story arrives.

Discussion: CNN, Daily Dot, Guardian and Poynter

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Exclusive: Spotify to begin rolling out browser-based music app in beta today — Spotify today plans to begin the roll out of its first ever browser-based music player, The Verge has learned from sources close to the company. From the looks of it, the web player looks a lot …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Features and Columns, Betabeat, PC Magazine, iDownloadBlog.com, The Next Web, SocialTimes, Gizmodo, WebProNews, Wall Street Journal Europe and hypebot

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Mark Shapiro is candidate for top job at CNN — Former Dick Clark Productions Chief Executive Mark Shapiro has emerged as a candidate for the top job at the cable news channel CNN, according to people familiar with the matter. — Shapiro, who prior to running Dick Clark Productions …