Twitter’s favourite stories. Sharewars, a neat little side-project of Microsoft’s Andrew Hunter, Ninemsn editor-in-chief Hal Crawford and Mi9 Studios’ Domagoj Filipovic, recently tweaked its Likable engine, which measures Australian social media shares. Crikey talked them into giving us their May results, and they make for interesting reading.

The most-shared story in May was a Ninemsn yarn about a cat saving a boy from a dog attack, which was shared a whopping 87,250 times on Facebook and Twitter. The top 10 features plenty of politics (university fees, Peppa Pig and that video The Sydney Morning Herald dug up of a young Joe Hockey), but also a fair few commentary pieces. On a site breakdown, three of the top 10 most-shared pieces came from The Sydney Morning Herald, another two from news.com.au, two from the ABC, and one apiece from Ninemsn and SBS. Today’s Nielsen rankings show smh.com.au has become Australia’s most-visited news site — clearly social media shares played a big part in that, suggesting Fairfax’s controversial click-bait strategies are paying off.

But this might not mean what you think it does — as Hunter told Crikey, stories about celebrities don’t get shared much even if they are well read, while stories about issues, including politics, often go viral. “Readers want to present an idealised version of themselves to their networks,” he said.

Sadly, tweets about articles from BuzzFeed, Daily Mail Australia and Guardian Australia don’t show up in the Sharewars tally, as the developers haven’t yet found a way to differentiate between the international and Australian stories shared by these websites. It’d be fascinating to know how these foreign entrants are doing, as all two of them (Guardian Australia and BuzzFeed) have built much of their strategy around creating shareable content. — Myriam Robin

Extra! Extra! Our editor’s a cunt. The Australian‘s media editor, Sharri Markson, can take some heat. For the second week in a row, Markson is insulted within the pages she edits. In today’s edition, a former Daily Mail Australia journalist (and the youngest winner of Millionaire Hot Seat!) who asked for his old job at News Corp back reveals that Daily Mail Australia editor Luke McIlveen once called Markson a cunt. It comes after last week’s revelation, in an official comment from Daily Mail spokesman Sean Walsh, that Markson had argued she should edit the Daily Mail.

It seems Markson has few friends at the upstart tabloid, but is it really necessary to print all the Mail‘s demeaning commentary about her? At least one can’t accuse the Oz of lacking transparency over the issue. — Myriam Robin

Cheesy memoirs from a former Fairfax insider. Former AFR Melbourne bureau chief and industrial relations reporter Mark Skulley took a redundancy from Fairfax in late 2013 and has since started a blog. It’s worth reading for an insider’s account of how things went wrong at Fairfax, and one entry from earlier this month is particularly illuminating.

“One constant at Fairfax have been expensive visitations by management consultants. Firstly from McKinsey — Hilmer’s old employer — and now Bain & Co. These consultants know the cost of things, but not their value. They’ve always objected to sub-editors, arguing that such “double handling” of copy was simply a waste. But anyone who has done a high school essay knows how easy it is to miss a literal or mistake in their own writing — partly because YOU know what you meant. If you miss it once, you can miss it twice …

“The Fairfax publications are now lean as greyhounds — you can see their ribs sticking out. Although I’ve left, I want them to succeed and I often marvel at how much my former colleagues produce — in both digital and print. The quality is still mostly high but it is a treadmill.”

As Fairfax considers yet another management report recommending sweeping cuts, it makes for sombre reading. — Myriam Robin

Other news from elsewhere. It’s a good day for media beasts, as The Conversation launches two new series focusing on the media. The first looks at native advertising, and how it’ll make it impossible for readers to tell what is and isn’t an ad. The second looks at how Australia’s youth are portrayed – and how that affects their treatment.

Front page of the day. Prince George is the best PR money can buy …