Mediagazer: ESPN Suspends Commentator Over Racial Comments About Quarterback (Bill Carter/Media Decoder)

8:45 AM ET, December 15, 2012

Top News:

Jeff Sonderman / Poynter:

News orgs circulate Facebook profile, photos of unconfirmed shooter — Reporters and producers around the country, frantically searching for information online about the alleged school shooter, Ryan Lanza, found what seemed like a match. Lanza, 24, is believed responsible for the deaths …

Spencer Ackerman / Wired:

Internet Identifies, Threatens Wrong Man as Newtown Shooter — In the media's rush to find out information on the suspected Newtown, Conn., school shooter, numerous news outlets misidentified a Facebook page belonging to someone with a similar name. Denunciations and even death threats quickly accumulated.

Discussion: Fast Company, New Jersey Online, bigstory.ap.org, New York Post, Hartford Courant, Daily Download, Daily Dot and Guardian

Rebecca Greenfield / The Atlantic Wire:

Why Are CNN and NBC Interviewing the Students of Sandy Hook Elementary? — One of the many tragedies to come out of Friday's mass shooting in Connecticut is the way information has actually come out of it. Sadly, some of the best sources of information for what happened inside Sandy Hook Elementary before …

Discussion: Poynter, New Jersey Online, The Huffington Post, The Wrap, New York Times, @dougdalena, Gawker, Politico, TIME and @bobbymacreports

Erik Maza / WWD:

Fox News' Reporting Blunder — OOPS, AGAIN: On Friday afternoon, the folks at Fox News went on breaking news mode. They busted out a bright yellow “alert” scroll, and switched gears to focus on the developing news of a shooting in Connecticut. On cable news and online …

Discussion: Gawker

John Koblin / Deadspin: In Wake Of School Massacre, ESPN Tells Staff To Stop Tweeting About Sports Until Sunday …

Politico:
MSNBC launches the gun control conversation

Discussion: Politico, Daily Download, Mediaite, TVNewser, @alexkoppelman, Alexia Tsotsis, ANIMAL, @jonathanshainin, @chrisjortiz, @bydanielvictor, @alexkoppelman, Politico and Mediaite

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
Connecticut Shooting Media Coverage Follows Tragically Familiar Script

Discussion: Poynter, @daweiner and @rossneumann

Sarah Marshall / Journalism.co.uk:

Google-backed Data Journalism Awards open for entries — The Global Editors Network awards will see eight data journalism projects receive a total of €15,000 — Journalism.co.uk is a media partner of the awards — The Global Editors Network has today announced the launch of next year's Data Journalism Awards.

Discussion: Online Journalism Blog, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Big News Network.com

Stuart Hughes / BBC:

Unprepared, inexperienced and in a war zone — is a BBC World Affairs producer. Twitter: @stuartdhughes — Sarah Topol talking to fighters in Libya — For young journalists looking to become the next John Simpson or Jeremy Bowen, the first rung on the career ladder used to mean hard graft …

Reuters:

Reuters Cameramen Assaulted By Israeli Soldiers — HEBRON, West Bank, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers punched two Reuters cameramen and forced them to strip in the street, before letting off a tear gas canister in front of them, leaving one of them needing hospital treatment.

Discussion: BBC and The Wrap

Erik Wemple:

Politico gives anonymous source insulting power — Politico has long relied on anonymous sources, often with good results. A 2011 story on sexually inappropriate behavior by then-Republican presidential Herman Cain bootstrapped many unnamed sources. And the reporting bore out.

Bill Carter / Media Decoder:

ESPN Suspends Commentator Over Racial Comments About Quarterback — ESPN announced on Friday that it had suspended Rob Parker, a commentator on the network's program “First Take,” because of his racially oriented comments about the rookie quarterback for the Washington Redskins, Robert Griffin III.

Discussion: The Maynard Institute …, The Atlantic Wire and Broadcasting & Cable

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Amazon's 2012 bestseller list shows publishers and indie authors need each other — Amazon released its list of the bestselling books of 2012 on Friday morning. The list is a great summary of one of the key themes in book publishing in 2012: Self-published authors and traditional publishers need each other.

Discussion: Amazon.com, GeekWire and Softpedia News

Lauren Indvik / Mashable!:

Washington Post Moves Social Reader Off Facebook — The Washington Post Company has decided to move its Social Reader app — which displays stories from Washington Post Co. publications and 90 other news organizations, including this one, on Facebook — to a standalone site at socialreader.com, the co...

Discussion: currybetdotnet

Richard Porter / BBC:

Expanded distribution in the US for BBC World News — This week viewers to BBC World News have been watching a series of reports focusing on the Arab uprisings, two years after they first began. Correspondents have been in Damascus, Tunis, Cairo, the Syria-Lebanon border and elsewhere.

Discussion: TVNewser