Mediagazer: Do the math — The coming year will feature a surge in evidence-based journalism. (Dan Gillmor/Nieman Journalism Lab)

3:40 PM ET, December 24, 2012

Top News:

Wire cutters: Tribune Co. newspapers dropping AP — The Chicago Tribune and six other newspapers owned by Tribune Co. are dropping the services of Associated Press, effective in early January. — In addition to the flagship Tribune, other company-owned papers cutting ties …

Discussion: The Wrap and Media, disrupted

Andrew Romano / The Daily Beast:

An Oral History of Newsweek Magazine — For the last print issue of Newsweek, Andrew Romano compiles an oral history of the storied magazine. — Peter Goldman should be famous. As the voice of Newsweek from 1962 to 1988—the ace writer at a magazine read by as many as 20 million people each week …

Discussion: The Wrap and The Daily Beast

Joe Weisenthal / Business Insider:
Newsweek's Final Ever Print Cover Features A... Hashtag?

Discussion: @thetinabeast, The Verge, @sacca, The Huffington Post, Mashable!, BBC, FishbowlNY, @mat and @rsarver

Dan Gillmor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Do the math — The coming year will feature a surge in evidence-based journalism. — A high point of this month's NewsFoo gathering of journalists and technologists was a call to quality by a prominent non-journalist. Asked what advice he had for the craft, Harper Reed …

Discussion: Media, disrupted

Peter Finn / Washington Post:

Lanza's brother denies giving Facebook interview to New York Post — The brother of the Connecticut school shooter, Adam Lanza, said through a spokesman Sunday that he never conducted a Facebook interview with the New York Post and that any statements or postings attributed to him were fabricated.

Discussion: New York Post, Trust But Verify and Gothamist

David Carr / New York Times:

John Miller of CBS, at Home on Both Sides of the Police Tape — On the day of the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., reporters were struggling and failing to get their arms around a story too horrible to fathom. At our house, we stared at the incremental television coverage and came to realize that no one really knew anything.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times

Samanth Subramanian / The National:

India rape protests widen as police shoot journalist — NEW DELHI// On a day of protests against rape and sexual assault, police shot dead a journalist in the north-eastern state of Manipur and tear-gassed crowds in New Delhi. Th. Nanao, a 36-year-old cameraman, working for a private television channel …

Discussion: Telegraph, TheAustralian and Committee to Protect …

The Huffington Post UK:

Deport Piers Morgan Petition Gains 30,000 Signatures As CNN Host Attacks Second Amendment — The White House could be forced to respond to a gun lobby petition to deport Piers Morgan, which objects to how the CNN host and former British tabloid editor has attacked the right to bear arms in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Discussion: Gawker, Politico, @ggreenwald, Sky News, @jason_pontin, ibtimes.co.uk and ITV News

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

Amazon Book Reviews Deleted in a Purge Aimed at Manipulation — Giving raves to family members is no longer acceptable. Neither is writers' reviewing other writers. But showering five stars on a book you admittedly have not read is fine. — After several well-publicized cases involving writers buying …

Discussion: Media Decoder, Gizmodo, The Big Picture, The Verge and Forbes

Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The newsonomics of 2013 wizardry: Tribune, Buffett, Murdoch, Paton, Bloomberg, and more — It takes at least three special qualities to be in — much less to enter — the newspaper business these days. We can borrow them from L. Frank Baum: heart, courage, and smarts.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Associated Press:

British paper sues Lance Armstrong for $1.5m over lost libel action — Sunday Times paid now-disgraced cyclist $485,000 in 2006 over claims that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs — The disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong is being sued for more than $1.5m by a British newspaper …

Lara O'Reilly / Marketing Week:

Mail Online MD James Bromley steps down — James Bromley, the Mail Online's managing director, is leaving the company after almost five years in the post to “move on to a new challenge”. It is not yet known whether Bromley has a job to go to. In his time at Associated Newspapers …

Discussion: The Kernel

Hannah Livingston / Guardian:

Newsnight researcher: ‘It felt like the BBC were trying to rewrite history’ — As one of the people on the investigating team for the report on Jimmy Savile, I knew when the BBC wasn't getting the story right — Two months ago I was at home asleep in bed and the radio flicked on to the Today programme.