Mediagazer: Building a Better Truth Machine (Will Oremus/Slate)

8:30 AM ET, December 17, 2012

Top News:

Newtown has Mixed Feelings About the Media Horde in Its Midst — NEWTOWN, Conn. — Wolf Blitzer understands that his presence here is not appreciated by some local people, who wish that the TV satellite trucks, and the reporters who have taken over the local Starbucks would go away and leave them to ache, grieve and mourn in peace.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM and danah boyd

BuzzFeed:

A Local Crisis Meets The Global Social Web — A crisis unfolds in a small town. A shooting rampage at an elementary school — children and teachers have been killed — ends with the alleged shooter dead on the scene. A law enforcement official names the alleged shooter in the Sandy Hook shooting …

Discussion: Poynter, @glennf, @jaredbkeller, @max_read, @julesdwit and @buzzfeedben

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

It's not Twitter — this is just the way the news works now — If it seems like just yesterday that we were talking about how error-prone Twitter and other social-media outlets were during a crisis, that's because it was almost yesterday — Hurricane Sandy, the last event to really stress-test …

Discussion: Softpedia News, The Daily Beast, ANIMAL, Adweek, The Huffington Post, Mediaite and Chickaboomer

Matt Bors:
I am Facebook Friends With Ryan Lanza, Which Became A Problem

Discussion: The Age, GigaOM and Washington Post

Julie Moos / Poynter:
How The Newtown Bee is covering Sandy Hook Elementary shooting

Discussion: Online NewsHour, Guardian, Mediaite, Speakeasy and @brianstelter

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:
How can we explain shootings if we don't report on mental illness?

Discussion: The Blue Review and @sesmithwrites

David Carr / Media Decoder:

Group Aims to Be a Conduit for WikiLeaks Donations — A group advocating a more transparent government has formed a nonprofit organization called the Freedom of the Press Foundation to serve as a conduit for donations to organizations like WikiLeaks. The goal is to insulate …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, The Huffington Post, @digiphile, Forbes, The Verge, Boing Boing and @xeni

David Carr / New York Times:

Buffeted by the Web, but Now Riding It — When the consumer Web exploded in the mid-1990s, part of the promise was that it would transform careers and the concept of work. Remember the signs on telephone poles and banners all over the Internet? “Work at home and turn your computer into a cash register!

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Frédéric Filloux / Monday Note:

Mobile's Rude Awakening — Mobile audiences are large and growing. Great. But their monetization is mostly a disaster. The situation will be slow to improve, but the potential is still there — if the right conditions are met. — This year, a major European newspaper expects …

Discussion: Guardian

Nat Ives / AdAge:

A Look at Newspapers Turning a Profit — Yes, There Are Some — and Those That Are Not … The Times of London — Unprofitable — The upscale broadsheet is running in the red, with an operating loss equivalent to $21.4 million before taxes and other charges for the 12 months ended July 1.

Allison Goldstein / American Journalism Review:

Blogging about the Mob — A longtime organized crime reporter takes a buyout from the Philadelphia Inquirer and tries his hand at blogging for a new Web site that provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of big trials. A couple of big differences: no editing, and he doesn't have to resort to ‘expletive deleted.’ " Fri., December 14, 2012.

David J. Hill / Singularity Hub:

Patented Book Writing System Creates, Sells Hundreds Of Thousands Of Books On Amazon — Philip M. Parker, Professor of Marketing at INSEAD Business School, has had a side project for over 10 years. He's created a computer system that can write books about specific subjects in about 20 minutes.

Discussion: broadstuff

Sarah Laskow / CJR:

I am a journalist; ask me anything — Media figures are flocking to Reddit to converse with fans — On Wednesday, Chris Anderson, the ex-EIC of Wired, went on Reddit and told users to ask him anything. On Monday, it was Carl Zimmer, the science journalist.

Jack Shafer:

The best of the year in review! — From their lazy fingers to your scratchy eyeballs, journalists are now transmitting their “year in review” articles and “best of 2012″ lists if, unlike the New York Times Book Review, they haven't already published their lists of 100 notable books or their 10 best round-up.

Discussion: Melville House Books

Gustavo Arellano / OC Weekly:

Is Aaron Kushner the Pied Piper of Print? — Can the novice publisher save The Orange County Register and transform journalism in the process? — Aaron Benjamin Kushner looked every bit the OC master of the universe ready to get his happy-hour on as he strolled into Mesa's lounge the evening of Nov. 27.