Mediagazer: Why it's time, author says, for journalism to raise its intellectual standards (Christina Pazzanese/Harvard University …)

7:40 AM ET, December 15, 2013

Top News:

Jacob Fischler / BuzzFeed:

AP Reporter: Keeping The Levinson Story A Secret Was The “Hardest Thing I've Done” — The government asked several journalists to stay quiet — even as other media outlets — and occasionally their own — told a story they and others knew to be false or incomplete. — Handout / Reuters

Discussion: Gawker, @buzzfeedben, @poynter, @passantino, The Verge, @ggreenwald and Boing Boing

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:
New York Times Withheld News Of Missing American's CIA Ties For Six Years

Discussion: New York Times, ABC News and Capital New York

Dylan Byers / Politico:
W.H.: CIA report ‘highly irresponsible’

Discussion: WebProNews, @jeneps, ABC News, @markknoller, Post Politics, TIME, The Daily Pulp and The Huffington Post

Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

Welcome to the Internet of Thingies: 61.5% of Web Traffic Is Not Human — And here's how to build your own little traffic bot, even though you shouldn't — It happened last year for the first time: bot traffic eclipsed human traffic, according to the bot-trackers at Incapsula.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …, @brandcottage, @fareedzakaria, @digiphile, Business Insider, SocialTimes and Forbes

Karen Fratti / 10,000 Words:

New Web Pub Focuses on ‘American Renewal’ and Compelling Readers to Act — If you're looking for something other than cute animals or faux civil rights controverseries to inspire you on the internet, it's arrived. It's called NationSwell, a new media company that focuses on good things.

RT:

Reporters Without Borders calls for attacks on journalists to be labeled war crimes — Reporters Without Borders, the international non-governmental organization that defends press freedoms, wants attacks on journalists to be considered war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Discussion: GlobalPost and Associated Press

Christina Pazzanese / Harvard University Gazette:

Why it's time, author says, for journalism to raise its intellectual standards — Why it's time, author says, for journalism to raise its intellectual standards — In a new polemic, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Thomas Patterson calls for sweeping changes to the education of journalists and the practice of journalism.

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Ad Age Survey: What Advertisers Really Think About Twitter — Marketer Attitudes Toward Twitter Are Similar to Facebook In 2012 — There's little question that Twitter's intial public offering in October was a success, but what about its ad business? Still a work in progress, but with plenty of upside, according to Ad Age readers.

Discussion: @jonathanmendez

Alejandro Martínez / Journalism in the Americas:

New documentary highlights dangers, government pressures that journalists face in Latin America — Spanish-language TV network Univision has produced a new documentary on the government pressures and dangers that journalists face today throughout Latin America.

Discussion: KABE-LP

Ken Doctor / Newsonomics:

New Hollywood Sequel: Aaron Kushner's L.A. Register — Why, I asked, Aaron Kushner, is he announcing the new L.A. Register as we're winding down toward the end of the year? Given that the big questions about it — when will it launch, how will it be staffed — are as yet unannounced, why put the news out now?

Discussion: New York Times, @palewire, The Wrap, FishbowlNY, Hollywood Reporter, @ocregister, Poynter and Orange County Register

Brendan O'Connor / The Awl:

The Golden Era Of Spam Comments Has Ended — The search engine optimization community has spent the last two years in a panic. SEO people flood our Internet with spam links and fake Twitter bots and paid traffic, to help bad websites look more popular than they are, to deliver fake viewers to web ads.

Discussion: @therealfitz, @thijs and Boing Boing

Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times:

Online publications see a future in print — While pundits bemoan the death of print, Pitchfork and the L.A. Review of Books are among the online magazines embracing ink on paper — A few digital publications are making the jump from the Web to print, including Jezebel, the L.A. Review of Books and Pitchfork.

Discussion: @stevesilberman, @rachelrosenfelt and @mattdpearce

Peter Elkind / Fortune:

Bloomberg News reaffirms ban on writing about Mike Bloomberg — The news organization owned by Bloomberg LP has an unusual, self-imposed policy preventing itself from writing about its founder. — FORTUNE — When Michael Bloomberg retires as New York's mayor in January after 12 years in office …

Discussion: @dangillmor, The Huffington Post, Talking Biz News and Hit & Run

Marc Graser / Variety:

Microsoft to Launch First Original Shows on Xbox in Early 2014 — At Dealmakers breakfast, Tellem says Xbox isn't Netflix or Amazon but its ‘own animal’ — Developing original series for Microsoft has taken a little longer than veteran TV executive Nancy Tellem had hoped …