Some media stories of note for Wednesday, Feb. 13:

Cory Bergman, the general manager of Breaking News, has a five-point brief at Poynter today to accompany a live chat in which he asserts mobile will disrupt journalism in the same way the Internet did. He argues a mobile-first, not a mobile-too approach is necessary. In short, his points: responsive design is not a strategy; mobile will surpass, even erode, the desktop; desktop declines will hurt news revenues;  news needs to solve problems; technology companies are getting the mobile-first idea.

Matthew Ingram, writing in GigaOm, reports on the social network and hyperlocal site Nextdoor and its efforts to build an exclusive, verified service for specific neighbourhoods. He identifies the differences between Nextdoor and some other, more open hyperlocal services, and cites the closed nature of Nextdoor as one of the keys to its possible success.

Time Warner appears to be ready to sell portions of Time Inc., according to Fortune. A meeting today will pursue the matter. It is possible that such titles as People, Real Simple and InStyle would be rolled into a new firm and sold, leaving Time Warner with Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune. The publishing division is substantial, with $3.4 billion in revenue.

Jonah Lehrer, the author and literary journalist who was caught up in a plagiarism scandal last year, resurfaced publicly Tuesday to speak to the Knight Foundation (his speaking fee was $20,000). He apologized, but Andrew Beaujon of the Poynter Institute suggests Lehrer mainly stirred up more negative than positive response in a craft not quite ready to forgive and forget.

Media stories for Tuesday:

The Washington Post is attempting real-time fact-checking with the launch of TruthTeller, underwritten by the Knight Foundation as a journalism tool to extract content from political video and apply an algorithmic test to the veracity of the script. Essentially, it links what was said with what was earlier fact-checked. The Post acknowledges there is work to be done on the application and is encouraging users to help fine-tune it. 

Martin Belam, writing for GigaOm, challenges the notion that adopting the Facebook plug-in (or abandoning it) is the determinant of a civil, worthwhile online comment environment. Some news organizations have recently pulled away from the Facebook authentication of identity. Belam writes:  "There’s no doubt that software design and features do influence community behaviors, but not as much as decent community management and personal engagement from journalists does."

Lewis DVorkin writes for Forbes.com on the emerging personal brands of journalists and how that is changing the role of financial reporting. He particularly notes the value of participation in social media and the importance of audience engagement.

An interesting skirmish broke out this weekend on the issue of whether anonymous comments online are good or bad for the platform.

Their defender was interesting: Matthew Ingram of GigaOm, recently the communities editor of The Globe and Mail. He was largely fending off attacks from Howard Owens of The Batavian, the former digital chief for the Gatehouse Media group, and others.

Ingram's view, shared by some in the comments, is that permitting anonymity opens the discussion to people who would otherwise not feel free to be frank. Overall he feels that it encourages a better debate.

Owens thinks that people need to stand and be counted and too bad if they don't feel like doing so. He thinks people online have a right to know who is saying what about them.

Of course, that's a simplification of their amplification.

Mostly the craft sides with Owens. It believes the public needs to know who is saying what, that the value of transparency often means some comments do not get published, and that there is an abiding interest in ensuring all criticism is attributed to permit the accused to know who are the accusers.

But anyone can tell you these days that the hard-earned privilege of comment has been discounted online as organizations permit people to create pseudonyms to wage their arguments. News companies often feature two sets of standards for their newspapers and Web sites and are in a quandary on how to contend with the thousands of comments penned without a sense of who said what.

The principles of transparency, accountability, fairness, accuracy and minimizing harm always seemed to me the most important elements of the craft. Not one of them is helped by anonymity, except in an unusual circumstance --- the whistleblower, or the person who justifiably fears retribution for challenging someone or an institution.

Unquestionably journalism has to be open to that person, but the privilege should be conferred and not inferred. Even in permitting the challenge, journalism need not furnish a pedestal for anonymous criticism --- and certainly need not give everyone else that permission when they have less significant matters to discuss.

It is interesting to me that, in an era of rampant sharing of information and less privacy than ever, we'd be arguing for the right to shout loudly while wearing a mask.