Mediagazer: Is Aaron Kushner the Pied Piper of Print? (Gustavo Arellano/OC Weekly)

2:54 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: @glennf, @jaredbkeller, @max_read, @julesdwit, @buzzfeedben, Poynter and Mother Jones

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: The Huffington Post, ANIMAL, The Daily Beast, Mediaite, New York Times, MiamiHerald.com and Chickaboomer

Matt Bors:

I am Facebook Friends With Ryan Lanza, Which Became A Problem — I woke up late Friday morning and posted my latest comic before realizing no one would be talking about it or any other issue that day except the latest massacre unfolding before our eyes - this time involving children. Not “this time.”

Discussion: GigaOM and Poynter

Will Oremus / Slate:

Building a Better Truth Machine — Emergency workers stand in front of the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn. — When something momentous is unfolding—the Arab Spring, Hurricane Sandy, Friday's horrific elementary school shooting in Connecticut—Twitter is the world's fastest …

Discussion: The Verge

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

Discussion: Online NewsHour, Speakeasy, NY Daily News, Mediaite, New Yorker, @brianstelter, Associated Press and The Rural Blog

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

Discussion: @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: Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Huffington Post, The Verge, @digiphile, 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!

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, TheMediaBriefing and The New Republic

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

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.

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of college news innovation — On May 29, the news of the death of daily newsprint swept two ends of the country. — In New Orleans, the rumors were verified: The Times-Picayune would be going to three days a week of printing. In Eugene, Oregon, one of the country's oldest college papers …

Derek Thompson / Quartz:

Young mobile news readers still prefer stories the way their great-great-grandparents did: In columns of text — In the eyes of employers, marketers, and brand gurus, Generation Y tends to be treated like a separate species, forged in the primordial stew of Internet, whose habits …

Discussion: TheMediaBriefing