Link: BBC Journalist Freed in Gaza After 16 Weeks

New York Times:

GAZA, July 4 — Alan Johnston, the BBC Gaza correspondent who was kidnapped March 12, was freed early this morning and is now in Israel, preparing to fly home to Britain.

Hiatus

Will return on or around July 3.

Link: Interns Lose Slots at Gannett Paper

Richard Prince:

The Gannett Co. newspaper in Montgomery, Ala., was forced to make quick and drastic budget cuts last week, editor Wanda Lloyd told Journal-isms on Monday, leaving three interns suddenly without summer jobs. Similar cuts could be coming at other Gannett properties. The displaced interns were instantly picked up by Schurz Communications, a South Bend, Ind., media company that owns 15 dailies and five weeklies.

Link: Drafting a Blueprint for the Newsroom of the Future

Poynter Online:

What if you could build a next-generation newsroom from scratch, without any of the limits of your current operation? One experiment is trying to do just that.

Link: MyJo Mojo at MTV: Youth Citizen Journalism

Poynter Online:

We'll be launching a national competition to recruit 51 mobile youth journalists ("MyJos") -- one in each state and Washington, D.C. They will cover issues that are important to young people. These stories covered may or may not be covered at all by the main press, but we'll offer the youth perspective.

Link: Good news for newspaper Web sites

Mindy McAdams:

Double growth rates -- according to a Nielsen//NetRatings study, "the audience for newspaper Web sites is growing at nearly twice the rate of the overall online audience." The study was described in a press release from the Newspaper Association of America.

Link: Watergate’s 35th Anniversary: Would That Story Have Been Broken Today?

Free Press:

If Watergate had broken today, chances are someone would have posted a news story with inaccurate information too early, or the in-depth reporting needed might have been neglected in favor of quicker, more immediate, and more broad-interest scoops. That is not to say that the Post, still among the best daily papers and Web sites in the industry, would not have been on top of the story. But there is no doubt that online and immediacy demands of today could have impacted the careful, slow-building and meticulous coverage.