We have lives outside media/tech/first-amendment/privacy coverage. We hope these staff picks provide some proof of that.

A lot of times, media stories we find funny, touching, or just plain interesting don't make it onto the show. Instead, they end up on our twitter feed. We're collecting some of our favorite stories every sunday in a blog post we call "Our Week in Tweets." To read the stories, just click on the links that appear within the tweets. Feel free to comment below, and follow us on Twitter to see all the stories we've been talking about!

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE BELOW

If you went on the New York Times' site Friday morning to read about news of the Empire State building shooting, you might have seen this haunting photo of one of the victims of the shooting, Steve Ercolino. Mr. Ercolino, who was apparently the boss of the alleged shooter, Jeffrey Johnson, reportedly fired Mr. Johnson a year ago.

Here's a hyper-linked version of those note card recommendations at little independent bookstores. You know the ones.

In January, two Reuters reporters, Andy Sullivan and Greg Roumeliotis published a piece about Bain’s takeover and subsequent management of GS Technologies – a steel mill in Kansas City. The piece is a long, nuanced piece of business journalism. The plant failed under Bain’s stewardship, but the piece points out that, overall, Bain has an excellent track record and that larger economic forces were at work in the plant's failure. It also points out that despite that failure, which was probably caused at least in part by the debt Bain loaded unto the company, Bain made $12 million on their $8 million dollar investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees.

Interest in Romney’s time at Bain made the piece notable when it was published (it was cited by Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry) but it didn’t really start making its way in the world until Priorities USA Action (a SuperPac closely, really closely, aligned with President Obama) made it the backbone of a series of ads against Romney.

A lot of times, media stories we find funny, touching, or just plain interesting don't make it onto the show. Instead, they end up on our twitter feed. We're collecting some of our favorite stories every sunday in a blog post we call "Our Week in Tweets." To read the stories, just click on the links that appear within the tweets. Feel free to comment below, and follow us on Twitter to see all the stories we've been talking about!

Old and new media cultures clashed this week when a New York Times editor decided not to print the name of a blog referred to in this story about the app UnBaby.me.  The site in question is STFU, Parents, a popular source for tongue-in-cheek mockery of parents who are over-enthusiastic about sharing pictures of their children online.

Here are some of our favorites things. (For this week, at least).

This week, I did a piece assessing the risk of "cyberwar," and the concern about so-called “kinetic” cyber attacks - cyber attacks that would cause real-world damage. One of the people I talked to was Eireann Leverett, a security researcher at IO Active. He told me that in spite of the danger it posed, he found more than 12,000 industrial control systems, the kind of systems that control critical infrastructure, connected to the public internet. But how, exactly, did he do it?

Last week, Bob spoke with former Onion headline writer Joe Garden about the phenomenon of real headlines that sound like Onion headlines. In the interview, Bob asked you all to send us some you find in the media wild. We've gotten some great entries. Entries like these:

London 2012: China has no interest in it and that gives us a chance - (via Cameron McKay)

On Tuesday, Tech President’s Micah L. Sifry observed that in the lead-up to the 2008 picks for vice presidential nominees, the best predictor wasn’t a pundit or a poll, but the number of recent edits on that contender’s Wikipedia page.

Yesterday and today, OTM's very own Brooke Gladstone filled in for WNYC's Brian Lehrer, the mid-morning talk show heard on WNYC and around the country on Sirius radio. Take a listen to the two full shows, or just check out her conversation with Micah Sifry of Tech President. He and Brooke talked about how the Obama and Romney campaigns are using data to both identify key voters, and precisely target them. Take a listen below, and read some background material on Big Data here.

The staff of OTM choose a few of our favorite things.  Please, please leave us comments below and enjoy.

In the fun house mirror of pop culture, public access television’s image has warped from high-minded community journalism to Wayne’s World-style parody. But in the 1970s, it was the social media of its time, empowering a generation of citizen reporters.

George Stoney was a major figure in those early days of public access. A documentary filmmaker, he is often credited as the father of the public access television movement, and envisioned public access to the airwaves as one small step towards public action in society. Stoney died July 12 at 96.

London 2012 Olympics’ new sponsorship protection rules are some of the strictest yet, but they’re also a bit complicated.  It’s no surprise that there’s been more than a little confusion as monitors, enforcers, businesses and fans try to decipher what will and won’t be allowed.

The staff of OTM choose a few of our favorite things.  Please, please leave us comments below and enjoy.

Journalism outsourcing company Journatic uses outsourced labor–often from overseas–to provide "hyperlocal" content to newspapers.  The Chicago-based company launched in 2006.  By 2012, the company provided research or written content to several big newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Sun-Times.

The staff of On the Media choose a few of our favorite things. Please, please leave us comments below and enjoy.

A lot of times, media stories we find funny, touching, or just plain interesting don't make it onto the show. Instead, they end up on our twitter feed. We're collecting some of our favorite stories every sunday in a blog post we call "Our Week in Tweets." To read the stories, just click on the links that appear within the tweets. Feel free to comment below, and follow us on Twitter to see all the stories we've been talking about!