Culled from CJR’s frequently updated “Must-reads from around the Web,” our staff recommendations for the best pieces of journalism (and other miscellany) on the Internet, here are your can’t-miss must-reads of the past week:
The new and improved leading man — “The modern male movie star needs to be fluent in the ways of Hollywood–but as a second language, the first being his own passions and convictions and interest in his craft”
Content economics, part 1: advertising — Felix Salmon on the irrelevance of online ads
Abyss of uncertainty — Germany’s homemade nuclear waste disaster
Firewoods splits Norwegians — “One thing that really divides Norway is bark”
Royal bodies — Hilary Mantel on how the press and public gape at monarchy
‘Friends of Hamas’: My role in the birth of a rumor — A Daily News reporter explains how he inadvertently created the myth that Chuck Hagel spoke to a non-existent group
Any two pages on the Web are connected by 19 clicks or less — Search engines, indexes, and aggregators are the Kevin Bacons of the Internet
China’s army seen as tied to hacking against US — The United States finds itself in something of an asymmetrical digital war with China
FBI has destroyed its file on Arthur Ochs Sulzberger — The late New York Times publisher defied the federal government and published the Pentagon Papers
Perhaps the most important op-ed of the year, any year — The promise of hyperlocal fulfilled
The Editors are the staffers of the Columbia Journalism Review.