Top News:
Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
The ravages of BuzzFeed's Benny Johnson — Perhaps former BuzzFeed “viral politics” staffer Benny Johnson should have asked himself the question he posted to the site's readers in May: “How Well Do You Know Basic U.S. Politics?” — That post, which leads readers through a quiz, carries this editor's note at the top:
Discussion:
@jayrosen_nyu, Gawker, The Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo and New York Magazine
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Ben Smith / BuzzFeed:
BuzzFeed fires Benny Johnson after finding 41 instances of plagiarism in review of 500+ posts, will add note to each offending post — Editor's Note: An Apology To Our Readers — What we're doing about an episode of plagiarism. — Starting this Wednesday, Twitter users began pointing …
Discussion:
@bennyjohnson, Gawker, Poynter, Guardian, Slate, Politico, PandoDaily, MetaFilter, Gawker, @stephlauren, @dickmandrake, @socarolinesays, @juliacarriew, @brianstelter, @joshualyman, @xor, @pareene, @joshtpm, @buzzfeedben, New York Magazine, Business Insider, FishbowlNY, @dcbigjohn, @adambaldwin, @davidfolkenflik, @shani_o, @poynter, @katherinemiller, @mathewi, The Daily Caller, Capital New York, The Wrap, The Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo and The Drum
Andrew Rosenthal / New York Times:
Behind NYT's decision to endorse marijuana legalization and publish its “High Time” series — Some Background on Our ‘High Time’ Series — The decision to call for the end of marijuana prohibition was long in the making. — The Times editorial board has for years supported the legalization of medical marijuana.
Leah Hunter / Fast Company:
New York Times Chief Data Scientist Chris Wiggins On The Way We Create And Consume Content Now — The New York Times turned 163 years old this year. And while it might be understandable for an institution older than almost anyone not named Yoda to be less-than-cutting edge in its digital approach …
Anil Dash / Medium:
As messages intended for friends increasingly become media fodder, what does “public” mean? — What Is Public? — It's so simple, right? — Someone could make off with all your garbage that's put out on the street, and carefully record how many used condoms or pregnancy tests …
Discussion:
@beep, @sarahkendzior, @craigmod, @anildash, @cutting, @icann_atlarge and @superglaze
Sonali Kohli / Quartz:
American TV shows might look more diverse, but their writers aren't — There's been a lot of talk about the upcoming fall TV season in the US being the most diverse one in terms of casting, from ABC's new show Black-ish to Fox's Brooklyn Nine-Nine entering its second season.
Discussion:
@caam
Henry Taylor / TheMediaBriefing:
The rise of ‘social shopping’ and why it could be a mixed blessing for publishers — Getting people to pay for content online remains one of the biggest challenges publishers face. Despite years of trying, the mechanisms for most online transactions, with a few exceptions …
Discussion:
AdExchanger
Adam Maksl / Mediashift:
More Than Yearbooks or Newspapers: High School Journalism Is About the Process — Last week, after spending 30 hours observing a high school journalism classroom, freelance writer and editor (and PBS MediaShift editorial assistant) Angela Washeck gave a first-person analysis of how today's students are producing media.
Discussion:
@mediatwit
George Arnett / Guardian:
The New York Times unveils Chronicle, an interactive app that plots news over time via keyword — Does the New York Times prefer cupcakes or cronuts? — The New York Times has created an app which allows you to look at the word frequency of different words throughout the paper's history.
Discussion:
@jamesrbuk, @dearsarah and Poynter
PandoDaily:
State of Pando: Exploding traffic, surging revenues... but some mistakes too — Back in February, Sarah wrote a long “State of Pando post, announcing our new Speaking Truth To The New Power tagline and sharing our plans for the Pando's third year. Since that time, a lot has happened …
Discussion:
@jayrosen_nyu, @jayrosen_nyu and @paulcarr
Elias Groll / Foreign Policy:
Russian Paper Issues Front Page Apology to Netherlands for MH17 — In the aftermath of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, many Russian media outlets have put forth a variety of ridiculous conspiracy theories to explain the plane's demise. In the face of overwhelming evidence …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post
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TechCrunch:
Apple Secretly Acquired “Pandora For Books” Startup BookLamp To Battle Amazon — TechCrunch has learned that Apple has made another acquisition, one that it is using to boost its e-books effort and “beat Amazon at its own game.” It has bought BookLamp, a startup based out of Boise, Idaho …
Discussion:
Digital Spy, Re/code, VatorNews, Softpedia News, VentureBeat, Cult of Mac, Business Insider, Gigaom, @jyarow, AppleInsider, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, App Advice, Gizmodo UK and The Next Web
Bloomberg:
Fox-Time Warner Cultural Divide Stands in Way of Merger — Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox Inc. and Jeff Bewkes's Time Warner Inc. couldn't be more different. One is essentially family-owned, the other purely public. One likes to contribute to Republican candidates, the other to Democrats.
Discussion:
@jcmccracken, @edmundlee and Reuters