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23 Nov 2009 20:26

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Biz: Lawsuit: The Washington Times get $40 million a year from Moonies

  • That’s more than half the paper’s operating budget. Ever wonder if a bunch of really weird #&(& was going on at The Washington Post’s more conservative, religion-backed adversary? Based on a lawsuit that editorial page editor Richard Miniter is filing, it sounds like a fun place to work. Among other things, he says that the paper forced him to take part in religious ceremonies he was uncomfortable with. Hmm. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Nov 2009 20:53

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U.S.: Washington Blade dead: Gay-advocacy journalism suffers a huge blow

For 40 years, the Washington Blade was one of the strongest beacons for gay rights. Today it, and a bunch of other papers, abruptly closed. A damn shame. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Oct 2009 10:23

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Biz: Everyone sucks in newspapers except the Wall Street Journal

The Awl recently put together a graph showing how crappy the newspaper industry was doing. It wasn’t pretty. Not at all. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Oct 2009 22:46

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Biz: The New York Times, the nation’s biggest newsroom, is shrinking

  • 1,250 people work in the New York Times newsroom, including a reporter with a number for her middle name
  • 100 fewer workers will be there by the end of the year, mostly through buyouts, or scary layoffs source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Oct 2009 10:40

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Biz, Tech: Blog or news source? The inconsistent ways of Google News

  • Dividing content along these lines is like classifying brownies based on whether they were baked in aluminum or glass pans. There’s no difference, and it obscures what you really want know: if they contain chocolate chips.
  • Neiman Journalism Lab blogger Zachary M. Seward • Making a strong, interesting point about Google News’ new, and very inconsistent, labeling policies of blogs. Here’s one example: Talking Points Memo recently switched back to being a news source from being a blog. Here’s another (weirder) one: Gizmodo is a news source, and Deadspin is a blog, despite the fact that both are owned by Gawker Media. And the process of getting added to Google News, anyway, seems completely arbitrary. By the way, we love how Seward worded this. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Sep 2009 09:57

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Biz, Tech: More innovative ways to get your news from big newspapers

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Sep 2009 09:13

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Biz: Newspapers try to find the advertising balance on Twitter

  • Unfollowed @statesman. Best of luck w/ the Twitter ads, but if I can avoid them, I will.
  • Twitter user @LukeMorris • On his decision to stop following the Austin American-Statesman’s Twitter feed because the feed runs occasional ads. The Statesman is taking the lead with Tweet-based advertising, something which is a sore subject with users. Although, really, should it be? Twitter’s already the most useful marketing tool ever. You’re getting advertised to more than you think on the service. It might be a perception thing. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

13 Sep 2009 12:20

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Biz: Let’s not pretend that newspapers aren’t dying. Let’s talk about it.

  • It’s a bold approach to take. Newspapers across the U.S. have felt the devastating effects of the economy on their business, and the San Jose Mercury News is a microcosm for the whole mess. Caught in the center of more than one major storm – the merging of Knight Ridder with McClatchy (which destabilized the entire industry), its purchase by MediaNews, and the ensuing cuts – the paper went from crown jewel to shell of its former self in a few short years. Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy asks for help from readers in today’s paper – it’s frank, it’s honest and it hides nothing. Good for them. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Sep 2009 13:11

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Offbeat: Conspiracy theorist convinces newspaper The Onion’s story was real

  • We thought it was true so we printed it without checking. … We didn’t know the Onion was not a real news site.
  • The Daily Manab Zamin associate editor Hasanuzzuman Khan • Describing the thought process that led to his Bangladesh-based paper printing the false-on-its-face story “Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked,” which the Onion put online earlier this week. Total feather-in-cap situation for The Onion, we’re sure. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Aug 2009 10:38

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Biz: Sam Zell screwed up Tribune. Now creditors might kick him out.

  • No agreements have been reached to date. Sam, as well as the rest of the management team, remain actively engaged and committed to Tribune. The restructuring is still in progress and it is premature to speculate about the company’s final ownership structure.
  • A statement from a Tribune Company spokesman • In response to reports that Sam Zell, who orchestrated a leveraged buyout of the company only to see the investment go bankrupt, would be ousted from the company. He’s under a lot of pressure from creditors, who are owed $8.6 billion in debt. And beyond that, he screwed an entire chain of newspapers in less than two years, causing thousands of people not in Chicago to lose their jobs because he bought the company with money he didn’t have. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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