It’s been a strange and daunting decade for print journalism — it’s now an even stranger time for web journalism. We’ve become accustomed to reading headlines like BuzzFeed’s recent $19 million fund raising, followed by news of buyouts for veterans at the New York Times. This kind of zero sum flow of media resources from print old guard to the young online folks has started to feel inevitable — it’s not even clear that media reporters still care about the NYT.

All of this would be more comforting if the media business were headed to some cushy new world. Evangelists have long held up the web as the savior of the news business, the future of TV and the ideal for the self-expression business. They could be right. But all that digital triumphalism ignores web media’s basic economic dilemma: we’re simply producing far too much of it than is economically justified.

Ryan McCarthy 
Al Gore said on Tuesday that tough competition from major U.S. television networks forced him to sell Current TV, a struggling progressive cable channel, to Al Jazeera, and he praised the Arabic news broadcaster’s coverage of climate change. Gore, a former vice president who won a Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness about the problems with climate change, said on NBC’s “Today” show that he was proud of the channel and had never thought of it as simply a monetary investment. “As an independent network … we found it difficult to compete in this age of conglomerates,” he said. Earlier this month, Qatar-based Al Jazeera announced it was buying Current TV, a move that could enable it to better compete with American news networks like CNN, MSNBC and Fox. READ ON: Al Gore says tough competition forced sale of Current TV
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Al Gore said on Tuesday that tough competition from major U.S. television networks forced him to sell Current TV, a struggling progressive cable channel, to Al Jazeera, and he praised the Arabic news broadcaster’s coverage of climate change.

Gore, a former vice president who won a Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness about the problems with climate change, said on NBC’s “Today” show that he was proud of the channel and had never thought of it as simply a monetary investment.

“As an independent network … we found it difficult to compete in this age of conglomerates,” he said.

Earlier this month, Qatar-based Al Jazeera announced it was buying Current TV, a move that could enable it to better compete with American news networks like CNN, MSNBC and Fox.

READ ON: Al Gore says tough competition forced sale of Current TV

I have never quite figured out why people do it and I find it endlessly fascinating, especially in the case of Jonah Lehrer, where the quotes were, so, kind of, insignificant. It was so unnecessary.
Journalist Michael Moynihan, in a chat with Reuters on how he exposed misquotations by the New Yorker’s Jonah Lehrer.
Why shouldn’t acts of plagiarism committed online be preserved online for study and enlightenment? Publishers don’t attempt to collect and destroy the newspapers, magazines or books they sell if they are later found to contain works of plagiarism. Nor do the copyright cops invade libraries to snip from the newspaper microfilm rolls the frames that are later discovered to have contained plagiarized material. We’ve wisely agreed that instances of print plagiarism should be preserved for study and for re-judgment in case the accused is innocent – and yes, also for fingerpointing.
Opinion by Jack Shafer: “When editors bury that which cannot die”
At noon London time on July 12, 2012, Britain will slip silently into a new era of radio history. At the top of the hour, the BBC World Service - once the voice of the British empire - will transmit its last radio news bulletin from its imposing home, Bush House in central London. For more than 70 years the art-deco building was the beating heart of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s overseas service and a bastion of press freedom around the world. From here King George V addressed the Empire in 1932, Charles de Gaulle defied the Nazis, and legions of emigres sent news in dozens of languages to the unmistakeable introductory strains of Lilliburlero, its signature tune. READ ON: End of era as BBC bids good-bye to majestic home
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At noon London time on July 12, 2012, Britain will slip silently into a new era of radio history.

At the top of the hour, the BBC World Service - once the voice of the British empire - will transmit its last radio news bulletin from its imposing home, Bush House in central London.

For more than 70 years the art-deco building was the beating heart of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s overseas service and a bastion of press freedom around the world.

From here King George V addressed the Empire in 1932, Charles de Gaulle defied the Nazis, and legions of emigres sent news in dozens of languages to the unmistakeable introductory strains of Lilliburlero, its signature tune.

READ ON: End of era as BBC bids good-bye to majestic home

TV news is ultimately much more an arm of the entertainment industry than it is of the news industry. Its star anchors get paid millions of dollars because they’re popular on TV, not because of their reporting skills; and while the occasional news magazine program will sometimes break news, newspapers and websites have always been the undisputed leaders on that front.
Felix Salmon: “News Corp’s digital divergence”
Social media editors will be an indispensable resource to Twitter for some time, and it’s possible that direct curation will never be fully productized. But the clarification that the hashtag product is designed for events not brands along with the hiring of Mark Luckie (@marksluckie) as Twitter’s Creative Content Manager for Journalism suggest otherwise.
Ross Neumann: “Twitter wants to put social media editors out of business”
Marco Avila, a reporter in Sonora, Mexico was buried over the weekend after being found in a black garbage bag.  He’s the sixth current or former journalist killed in Mexico in less than a month. Considering the number of gruesome atrocities committed by the country’s drug cartels (the latest being the 49 decapitated, hand-less, foot-less bodies found on the side of a highway), it makes sense that the people covering the news in these areas have become targets too.  [Photo: REUTERS/Stringer] THE ATLANTIC WIRE: Being a journalist in Mexico can be deadly
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Marco Avila, a reporter in Sonora, Mexico was buried over the weekend after being found in a black garbage bag. 

He’s the sixth current or former journalist killed in Mexico in less than a month. Considering the number of gruesome atrocities committed by the country’s drug cartels (the latest being the 49 decapitated, hand-less, foot-less bodies found on the side of a highway), it makes sense that the people covering the news in these areas have become targets too. 

[Photo: REUTERS/Stringer]

THE ATLANTIC WIRE: Being a journalist in Mexico can be deadly

Scoops & scandals: How the net is changing the news in China

Chinese political dramas have grabbed global headlines, roiled the leadership ranks, and could spark a public crisis. But how do you report in such a closed media landscape? Chris Buckley explains. 

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Sky News, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media empire, admitted on Thursday it had hacked into emails on two occasions but said the actions had been editorially justified and were in the public interest. Murdoch’s son James resigned as chairman of BSkyB on Tuesday to prevent a phone-hacking scandal at News Corp’s News of the World tabloid newspaper from harming BSkyB, a British pay-tv broadcaster of which News Corp owns 39 percent. Sky News, BSkyB’S news channel, said that on one occasion it authorized a journalist to access the emails of people suspected of criminal activity in the so-called “canoe man” case of a man who faked his own death by paddling out to sea. “We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest,” the head of Sky News, John Ryley, said in a statement. Sky did not say what the second hacking episode was, but media reports said the said journalist accessed the email accounts of a suspected pedophile and his wife in an investigation that did not lead to any material being published or broadcast. READ MORE: Sky News channel admits to email hacking
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Sky News, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp media empire, admitted on Thursday it had hacked into emails on two occasions but said the actions had been editorially justified and were in the public interest.

Murdoch’s son James resigned as chairman of BSkyB on Tuesday to prevent a phone-hacking scandal at News Corp’s News of the World tabloid newspaper from harming BSkyB, a British pay-tv broadcaster of which News Corp owns 39 percent.

Sky News, BSkyB’S news channel, said that on one occasion it authorized a journalist to access the emails of people suspected of criminal activity in the so-called “canoe man” case of a man who faked his own death by paddling out to sea.

“We stand by these actions as editorially justified and in the public interest,” the head of Sky News, John Ryley, said in a statement.

Sky did not say what the second hacking episode was, but media reports said the said journalist accessed the email accounts of a suspected pedophile and his wife in an investigation that did not lead to any material being published or broadcast.

READ MORE: Sky News channel admits to email hacking