Mediagazer: If you must quote anonymous sources, make sure they say something! (Jack Shafer)

1:25 PM ET, August 18, 2014

Top News:

View of #Ferguson Thrust Michael Brown Shooting to National Attention — Ferguson, Missouri, was just a place — a working-class suburb of St. Louis — before an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by the police, before protests and looting erupted …

Gabrielle Bluestone / Gawker:

Ferguson Police Threaten to Shoot Reporter, Mace Chris Hayes — Ferguson police were caught on camera Sunday night threatening to mace one reporter and shoot another. At least two other journalists also claim they were arrested while following police orders.

Byron Tau / Politico:
Ferguson rioters harass, threaten reporters

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @mattdpearce, @mattdpearce, @bmoreconetta, @bkesling, NY Daily News, @pipstodollars, @jtierney6 and @byrontau

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

Time Inc. Rates Writers on How “Beneficial” They Are to Advertisers — Time Inc. has fallen on hard times. Would you believe that this once-proud magazine publishing empire is now explicitly rating its editorial employees based on how friendly their writing is to advertisers?

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

NYT's James Risen on Obama: “He's the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation” — Where's the Justice at Justice? — WASHINGTON — JIM RISEN is gruff. — The tall slab of a reporter looks like someone who could have played an Irish Marine sergeant in an old World War II movie.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, @roncharles, Talking New Media, Guardian, The Huffington Post and The Daily Caller

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

BuzzFeed's Ben Smith: 'We didn't fully think through' the removal of old posts — Several months ago, roughly half a dozen early BuzzFeed writers were told to go back through their pre-2012 work and decide what they wanted to save. Anything they didn't want to keep or update should be removed from the site, they were told.

Discussion: Quartz, @abeaujon, Guardian and TechCrunch

Nicholas Watt / Guardian:

Online music videos to carry age rating from October, says David Cameron — PM announces pilot to protect children from graphic content, saying rules for online videos should be in line with content bought offline — Online music videos will carry an age classification from October as part …

Discussion: Contactmusic.com, The Independent, BBC, Digital Spy, Telegraph, Wired.co.uk, Music Week, The Drum, NME and Daily Mail

Michael Depp / NetNewsCheck:

Scripps group developing new digital businesses like a severe weather app, original news shows — Inside Scripps' Entrepreneurial A-Team — E.W. Scripps CEO Rich Boehne says he's “never seen real R&D units work,” so he created the Digital Solutions Group, a unit directly tasked …

Jack Shafer:

If you must quote anonymous sources, make sure they say something! — A decade ago, both the Washington Post and the New York Times conceded that they had lost control of the use of anonymous sources in their pages and each set up new guidelines to police the practice.

Discussion: New York Times, The Dish, @_biancah, @dcabo, @ahmed and @mlcalderone

Alastair Reid / Journalism.co.uk:

How The Marshall Project will illuminate US justice system — Editor-in-chief Bill Keller and managing editor for digital Gabriel Dance talk storytelling, interactives and building their own CMS at the non-profit start up — Credit: By on Lonpicman on Wikimedia.

Discussion: @macloo, @marshallproj, @ivarvong and @ultracasual

Chris Ariens / TVNewser:

Anthony Bourdain and VICE Each Take Home Outstanding Informational Series Emmy — In a rare occurrence, there were two winners for Outstanding Informational Series at last night's Creative Arts Emmy awards. — CNN's Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown was honored for the second straight year.

Discussion: CNN and Guardian

Press Association:

South Yorkshire police says BBC violated own editorial guidelines in Cliff Richard case — Cliff Richard case: South Yorkshire police complain to the BBC — Force accuses the corporation of breaching its editorial guidelines and failing to clear police of leaking quickly enough

Discussion: Guardian, The Independent, Metro.co.uk, BBC, The Independent, TheAustralian, Daily Mail, The Drum and Latest News & Headlines

Seth Fiegerman / Mashable:

Washington Post has had Amazon ‘Buy It Now’ buttons for 5 years on the side of articles, mistakenly put them in text during redesign — Washington Post Stories Briefly Feature Amazon ‘Buy It Now’ Buttons — For a few hours this weekend, it looked like Jeff Bezos had finally showed his hand with The Washington Post.