Post Not the Only Paper Selling Access

Co-founder is one of 4 staffers let go

(NEWSER) - Slate co-founder Jack Shafer, who has been with the online magazine since before its official launch in 1996, is being laid off, it was announced yesterday. The media critic is one of four staff members being let go; Timothy Noah , June Thomas , and Juliet Lapidos are the others, reports the Washington Post . (The Washington Post Co. bought Slate in 2004 from Microsoft.) Some reactions:

• "If you weren't reading [Jack, Tim, June, and Juliet's] stuff, you're in luck—it'll be online 'til the Internet dies," writes Slate colleague David Weigel. "If you write, you should study it, because these people think and write circles around most everyone in the job-formerly-known-as-the-Life-of-Kings."

'Ideological' competitors aim to spread blame

(NEWSER) - Those at the Wall Street Journal—and "thousands of other journalists"—don’t deserve to be implicated in a mess caused by a single British tabloid, write the editors of the Journal , whose own publisher, Les Hinton, recently stepped down amid the phone hacking scandal . In a lengthy defense of their paper they begin with Hinton, arguing that he brought the Journal back to profitability in tough economic times, displayed sound ethical judgment, and invested in journalists. More»

Sari Horwitz 'lifted sections' of Arizona Republic stories on Jared Lee Loughner

(NEWSER) - A long-time investigative reporter at the Washington Post has been suspended for lifting "substantial" portions of articles from an Arizona newspaper for her stories on accused Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner. Pultizer Prize-winner Sari Horwitz was suspended for three months for plagiarizing sections of stories from the Arizona Republic, reports the Washington Post . More»

But some papers avoided highlighting leering photo

(NEWSER) - Suspected gunman Jared Lee Loughner looks pretty crazy in his mug shot, and media across the nation tended to play that big. Instead of the benumbed, glazed-over look of the typical cop shop portrait, Loughner's leering face stunned reporters. "Face of Evil" was the headline accompanying the front-page New York Daily News shot, with the New York Post screaming: "Mad Eyes of a Killer." Both papers altered the shot, turning the background black to highlight the face. "We felt his leering grin and wild eyes revealed something of his mental state," Post editor Col Allen told the Washington Post . "The image conveyed a sense of madness." More»

'We are free to do whatever we want:' editor

(NEWSER) - From the turnabout-is-fair-play department: A Norwegian newspaper has snagged unauthorized access to WikiLeaks’ entire stash of government records—making it the only news source to hold all the material, ABC News reports. Aftenposten wouldn’t say how it managed to acquire the documents, but the feat could suck the wind out of WikiLeaks’ burgeoning influence. More»