Whiny WashPost Reporter Makes His Point: Respect the Genuine Article

Aggregator websites that cherry-pick the best quotes from newspaper articles and then sell ads on the back of this minimal effort have enraged a reporter, Ian Shapira. But this only happened after his initial rush of ego fuelled by an extra 9000 clicks online through a Gawker link. His post about having his story on business angst counselling ripped off by the Gawker snarkmeisters garnered 254 comments on the WashPo website. Is it linking or larceny? asks Time mag. Rachel Sklar, a media analyst, acknowledges that it was a ripoff."Generational Consultant Holds America's Fakest Job" is an attention-grabbing headline, so hats off to Gawker.

Breaking News, Breaking Down

Sometimes the news reporters can become the focus, without a whiff of self indulgence. A new doco explores what happens when the reporters get caught up in events. Click here.

Horror Story- the Future of Journalism

To read some sensible assessments about the End of Fortress Journalism, the Death of the Story, and other dismal trends in the field of reporting, it's worth downloading this sober report from the BBC.
Just click here .

Extra, extra - old media keeps reporter on for 49 consecutive years

Hard-boiled reporters still exist. There's another legendary newspaper hack named Pyle, not Ernie but Richard, who was a mainstay of the Associated Press and is due to retire at age 75 before the ultimate deadline. Half a century of service, minus a year and four days! It's worth reading Dana Kennedy's Q/A with this veteran reporter, over on the blog-heavy Huffington Post. Irascible, gruff newsmen like him are getting scarce. The guy doesn't tweet, apparently

Good night and good luck! "And that's the way it is."

Legendary news broadcaster and anchorman Walter Cronkite passed away at age 92. The iconic journalist, who touched the lives of millions through his nightly national news roundups on the network before retirement in 1981 is mourned.

Tongue Thai'd Foreign Hacks may be jailed for releasing 'anti-King' dvd in Bangkok

Internal politics in Thailand can be rather baffling, with its shirts of different hues and passionate protestors with the polysyllabic names. The latest twist, after a big Red Shirt rally in support of the ousted populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra, lashes out at foreign correspondents. A broad reading of the lese majeste law, which bans criticism of the monarchy, may put thirteen board members of the press club (FCCT) in jail after they released a dvd with a rousing speech given on the club's premises two years ago. A disgruntled translator on the tape reportedly took it to the police station at Lumpini, initiating the complaint. Amnesty International has come out against the Thai judiciary's decision to hold a similar trial behind closed doors after charges were pressed again Daranee Charn-cherngsilpakul for a speech in the park. See Nirmal Gosh's recent piece. Now it's time for Reporters Without Borders to back up the volunteer club officers.

Under threat are Jonathan Head, of the BBC, plus a dozen other foreign correspondents from high profile news outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. They ciould spend fifteen years in jail. Head got in trouble last year for moderating a panel on "Coup, Capital and Crown", but the case was dropped. This looks almost like double jeopardy, reviving the accusations in different guise.
Hat tip to Richard Ehrlich for this post.

Whacko Obit watch - I'll be there!

USA Today's front page looked like a poster for the now-cancelled Jacko comeback concerts in London. Comedian Rob Corddry, the former Daily Show correspondent, joked: "I wish it had been Michael Jackson that broke the story of TMZ dying." So did alot of hacks. The AOL-owned TMZ claims a Demerol overdose caused the singer's heart to fail, quoting his family.
Despite the twitterati fest, it took the LA Times to do the "heavy lifting" and get a confirmation of details of the death, followed by the Associated Press, before many people believed it. "The last piece of Michael Jackson has expired!" the Onion headlined; Meanwhile, meanspirited blogger Perez Hilton, known for the premature announcement of Fidel Castro's demise, initially labelled the 911 call a "dubious stunt" and had to pull his snarky blogpost (of which a screen-capture is posted here. Magazines are "crashing" commemorative issues of the weird and tragic life of the otherwordly pop star, with images and tributes from celeb friends.

Jackson was 50, and had been in the public eye for four decades, ever since the Jackson 5 released their first hit I Want You Back. USA Today said

Jackson died after going into cardiac arrest at his rented home in Los Angeles, where he was preparing for 50 sold-out concerts at London's O2 Arena. When paramedics arrived at his home, Jackson's personal physician was performing CPR. They treated him for almost 45 minutes at his house but was in a coma when he arrived at the UCLA Medical Center. He was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m. The Los Angeles Police Department said it would launch an investigation into the death, but cautioned that this is simply standard procedure for someone who was so famous and they have no reason to believe any foul play was involved.

Slate noted:

so many people turned to the Internet to confirm rumors of his death that Google's computers interpreted all the simultaneous searches for "Michael Jackson" as an automated attack. In a story inside, the LAT notes that the first to report the star's death was the gossip site TMZ, which announced it at 2:44 p.m. But it became clear that many outlets around the world weren't comfortable taking the site's word for such an important piece of news and, instead, credited the LAT, which bannered the death at 2:51 p.m. Interestingly enough, even though TMZ and CNN are both owned by Time Warner, the news channel didn't confirm the death until almost two hours later.

Jackson's death overshadows the passing of 70s icon, Farrah Fawcett. The LAT is alone in fronting the news that the Charlie's Angels star died yesterday of anal cancer, which she had been fighting since 2006. She was 62.