Noted / Week of August 25-31

• Repeat after me: Stories in the Onion are satire. A host of journalists seemed to miss that warning when the Onion jumped on the twerking news bandwagon by hijacking the name and profile picture of CNN managing editor Meredith Artley and publishing a “commentary” piece entitled “Let Me Explain Why Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance Was Our Top Story This Morning.” Media blogger Jim Romenesko followed the conversation on Twitter and reported that Artley didn’t seem inclined to sic CNN’s lawyers on the Onion. CNN was more than happy, however, to cash in on its video of Mylie Cyrus twerking at the Video Music Awards with a 30-second pre-roll ad. (The Onion) (jimromenesko.com) (CNN) UPDATE: Meredith Artley is maintaining her sense of humor, especially with people peppering her with questions about the Onion story on Twitter. Matt Wilstein does a nice job of aggregating those Tweets in a piece for Mediaite. Meanwhile, Andrew Wallenstein, the editor-in-chief/digital for Variety, explains why celebrity news belongs on a site like CNN. His arguments will seem familiar to anybody old enough to remember what Life magazine — revered for its long-form documentary photojournalism — actually looked like in order to attract a big enough audience to pay the bills. (Mediaite) (Variety)
• Universities are being told they can’t experiment with or teach drone photography outdoors. (Columbia Missourian) 
• It was a good moment for institutional memory as Chicago Tribune Tribune photographer Phil Velasquez sat down to discuss sports photography and what it takes to grab the right picture with Tribune photo editor Erin Mystkowski. (Chicago Tribune)
• Visa pour l’Image is to documentary photography as the Sundance Festival is to documentary film making. The Visa director insists photojournalism is NOT dead. “My fight is to remind everybody that we need real journalists, not only photographers, but real journalists who are witnessing and who I can trust,” says organizer Jean-François Leroy. (Yahoo news)
• Slate technology columnist Farhad Manjoo has a contrarian take on the proliferation of multimedia-laden features like “Snow Fall” and “The Jockey.” In a piece entitled “A Whole Lot of Bells, Way Too Many Whistles,” he writes that they “are bad for the Web and bad for readers.” New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan read the Manjoo piece and had this reaction. “My take: I like the innovation — it is nothing short of necessary. And the projects are beautifully executed.” (Slate) (NYT)