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Big, big week last week. Let's get into it. (As always, an explanation of what I'm doing is here.) — There's no doubt about the biggest journalism-related news this week: It's the impending death of Editor & Publisher, the magazine that's been covering the newspaper industry since 1884. E&P's owner, Nielsen Business Media, announced on Thursday that it had sold the magazine's sister publications and would be shutting down E&P. (Editor Greg Mitchell offers some more details.) Yup, it was pretty easy to see this as symbolic of the death of the entire newspaper industry itself, and that's where many left it. A few went deeper, though, on what E&P stood for and what killed it. Longtime E&P columnist Steve Outing reflected on the newspaper industry's resistance to change, adding that "I let the newspaper industry down, as did E&P." The Philadelphia Daily News' Will Bunch praised E&P and Mitchell in particular for their criticism of the media's coverage of the runup to the Iraq war. The two main explanations for E&P's demise being passed around are 1) the drying up of advertising dollars, especially classifieds; and, 2) as articulated by former Rocky Mountain News publisher John Temple and agreed with by Outing, the rise of online media-news aggregators like Romenesko. Steve Yelvington gave us a little of both in his explanation. I think Yelvington's analysis probably hits closest to the bullseye. E&P was a publication largely operating in a traditional, dying medium (magazines) covering another traditional, dying medium (newspapers). In other words, we probably shouldn't be all that surprised at its death. I suspect that what killed E&P was not so much Romenesko as it was sites like JournalismJobs.com, as the Internet eroded the magazine's classified base. That said, E&P did solid work covering both the everyday and big-picture issues in the newspaper industry right up until the end. Judging from his byline counts and takeout pieces, Joe Strupp was a force of nature there.  But news media coverage is still in fairly good hands; sites like the Nieman Journalism Lab and PBS' MediaShift have taken on the task of providing regular reporting on journalism in transition, and I've been fairly impressed with the work they've done (particularly the Nieman Lab). E&P will be missed, but it isn't a mortal wound for journalism. — Google made big media news twice this week: First, it announced that it's adding real-time search from sites like Twitter and Facebook to its traditional search results. This is the beginning of the implementation of all the deals we heard about in October, and it's big news. Google assured us its real-time search won't kill journalism (duh) and will find a way to make sure the cream rises to the top. Daniel Honigman gives a quick look at how the change will affect the PR world. — Second, Google introduced a new partnership with The New York Times and Washington Post called Living Stories, a smart, personalized version of the Wikipedia-style explainers that Matt Thompson has advocated. (The New York Times has more of the nitty-gritty details.) The announcement created a lot of buzz early in the week, with Online Journalism Blog's Paul Bradshaw calling it a "jaw-dropping online journalism form" and others wondering if it would "give newspapers new life." Elsewhere, Thompson and Danny Sullivan are less enthusiastic: Thompson likes that news orgs are trying to tie stories together for readers, but says Living Stories is more of a starting point than a finished product. Sullivan has some  qualms with its usability. I'm with Thompson on this one: Living Stories may be getting a lot of hype because Google's behind it, but this type of re-envisioning of the way a news story should look is not new, and Google's manifestation of it is not exactly the pinnacle of the form. But, most importantly, it's a good start, and it's miles ahead of the Post's and Times' concept of topic pages. Like Thompson, I sense that the pinnacle of this "explainer" form is a long way off, but it's encouraging to see news orgs and the brilliant minds at Google diving into the pool. — Some Google miscellany: Google also expanded its search personalization to include everyone. Danny Sullivan tells you how it works and what it means. Also, Rupert Murdoch responded to Google CEO Eric Schmidt's Wall Street Journal op-ed with his own. His two main points: Media companies need to give people the news they want, and quality content is not free. Oh, and his third: The FCC needs to let me own everything. — NYU professor Jay Rosen's been talking for a while about his idea for a site built around the concept, "What is your question? Journalists are standing by." This weekend, he gave us a mockup for that idea at explainthis.org. I love the journalists-as-question-answerers idea — the Wilmington (N.C.) Star-News has been quite successful with it at MyReporter.com, and my paper, the Grand Island (Neb.) Independent, began trying out the concept a few weeks ago. (Jeff Sonderman has a good roundup of similar projects.) Matt Mireles raises a good question about the project: Why use journalists at all? Why not let the experts answer and cut out the middle man? It's a valid point, but I think journalists still have a role in answering a lot of these questions. "Sources go direct" is wonderful and all, but what if the question is about corruption or incompetence somewhere? Do we really want the "experts" answering those questions for us? Take even Rosen's sample question: "Why is corn still subsidized?" I wouldn't expect an entirely honest answer from the American Corn Growers Association, even though they're certainly experts on the issue. Answering questions like these is a key part of the craft of  journalism, and I expect projects like these to start popping up soon at local news orgs around the country. — Top tech blogs TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb are both lamenting the coming rise of organizations like Demand Media that offer cheap, mostly useless, ad-driven content. TechCrunch's Michael Arrington calls it "fast food content," and RWW's Richard MacManus calls them "content farms." Both fascinating reads on the assault on quality in some corners of the Web. — Three for the road: 1) Steve Buttry has a comprehensive (read: long) followup spelling out the details of his earlier proposal of a mobile-first news strategy; 2) Conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart talks to Mediaite about his plans to develop the right's Huffington Post; 3) and CUNY prof C.W. Anderson has a great roundup of the news industry's current battles and the ones you'll be seeing flare up soon. It's a short but sweet primer on the state of the journalism.

  Posts

August 28th, 2014

This Week in Review: Twitter and press intimidation in Ferguson, and a journalist’s brutal execution

August 21st, 2014

This Week in Review: Ferguson and press freedom, and BuzzFeed’s $50 million boost

August 14th, 2014

This Week in Review: Covering war in real time, and evaluating a pair of plagiarism cases

July 31st, 2014

This Week in Review: The Fox/Time Warner dance begins, and clickbait and its discontents

July 17th, 2014

This Week in Review: Facebook and online control, and educating stronger data journalists

July 10th, 2014

This Week in Review: Questions on Facebook’s experiment, and a knockout blow to Aereo

July 2nd, 2014

This Week in Review: Time Inc. tries to survive on its own, and the global shift to mobile news

June 12th, 2014

This Week in Review: A setback for reporter privilege, and a new New York Times opinion app

June 9th, 2014

Making sense of research: Has campaign journalism changed on Twitter?

June 5th, 2014

This Week in Review: Kinsley vs. Greenwald on NSA secrets, and new data on mobile’s rise