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08 Oct 2010 14:04

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Biz: Depressing: Tribune Corp. apparently run by overgrown teenagers

  • Here was this guy, who was responsible for all these people, getting drunk in front of senior people and saying this to a waitress who many of us knew. I have never seen anything like it.
  • An anonymity-hidden former Tribune executive • Describing a scene where a top Tribune Corp. exec offered a waitress $100 to show him her breasts. If that doesn’t underline the frat-boy atmosphere of the company, we don’t know else would. The company, currently comprised of a bunch of former radio execs, was run into the ground thanks to Sam Zell, who leveraged relatively little of his own money to pay for the sale, but many of his employees’ pensions. Zell no longer has a day-to-day role in the company, which has somehow managed to wear its lack of respect for journalism as a badge of honor, one that shows itself with every layoff, with every questionable advertising decision (looking at you, L.A. Times) and with every disgusting detail of this New York Times story that we’re linking to right here. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Sep 2010 17:39

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Biz: Wall Street Journal as “WSJ”: You can see it from miles away

  • We blame Rupert Murdoch. One of the great icons of traditional American journalism has decided to take a design cue straight out of a 5,000-circulation weekly, taking a once-simple nameplate and making it REALLY REALLY BIG for their new weekend editions. Our buddy Charles Apple had the right thought on this whole thing, referring to the change with the headline “‘WSJ’? WTF”. It’s probably one of the worst design decisions by a major newspaper in a long, long time. It’s harsh, but honest. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 11:28

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Biz: The Washington Times, the victim of a family disagreement?

  • one day, the money stopped flowing. The Washington Times, the once-prominent conservative newspaper funded by the Unification Church, lost a key money flow one week in July 2009, leading to massive layoffs and a precipitous decline of the paper. It turns out that it was caught in the middle of a huge family struggle between its owners, the Moonies. Some numbers:
  • $2billion lost by the Moonie-run paper since it was founded
  • 87,000 the newspaper’s already-declining circulation two years ago
  • 40,000 the newspaper’s circulation now; it’s had major cutbacks of late
  • » The family strife: The Washington Times is at the center of a power struggle between the family of Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who’s 89 years old and isn’t long for this world. Other Moon-run businesses aren’t doing so hot either. Moon’s son, Preston, who isn’t as doggedly conservative as his dad was (he was, for example, against the Iraq War), apparently steered the paper in a direction one of his brothers didn’t like, causing the church’s money to stop flowing to the paper. They couldn’t pay key bills, including those for internet access and staffer health insurance. Now the paper may return to into the senior Moon’s hands in a $1-plus-debt buyback, but the final result isn’t so clear. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Aug 2010 18:00

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Biz: Web reinvention at USA Today means lots of layoffs

  • 9% of the paper’s jobs (out of 1,500) will go away source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Aug 2010 12:30

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Culture: Could Michael Eisner bring some Disney magic to Tribune Corp.?

  • Why he’s a good choiceRemember, this is the company owned by Sam Zell, who immediately ran it into bankruptcy after buying it and came up with a series of terrible business decisions – dramatic redesigns followed by dramatic layoffs. Hard to be much worse than that.

    Why he’s a terrible choiceThis. Is. The. Guy. Who. Nearly. Rebuffed. Pixar. When. They. Were. Disney’s. Biggest. Cash. Cow. That’s probably worse than that. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Aug 2010 12:03

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Culture: Conrad Black on prison: Prison really sucks and it’s unfair

  • It had been an interesting experience, from which I developed a much greater practical knowledge than I had ever had before of those who had drawn a short straw from the system; of the realities of street level American race relations; of the pathology of incorrigible criminals; and of the wasted opportunities for the reintegration of many of these people into society.
  • Formerly jailed newspaper magnate Conrad Black • In an article for the National Post discussing his time in prison. Short version: Prison isn’t a lot of fun and he learned a lot about what prisoners go through on the other side of the situation. He noted the nature of some of the injustices, specifically the disparity of cocaine versus crack-cocaine sentencing. He described prisoners as  “an ostracized, voiceless legion of the walking dead; they are no one’s constituency.” As it is, though, he learned a lot in his 28 months and 18 days. Is there a chance he’ll return? It’s possible; he’s only out on bail. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Jul 2010 16:15

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Politics: Thanks SEO: Gene Weingarten laments the lost art of headlines

  • Newspapers still have headlines, of course, but they don’t seem to strive for greatness or to risk flopping anymore, because editors know that when the stories arrive on the Web, even the best headlines will be changed to something dull but utilitarian.
  • Washington Post supercolumnist Gene Weingarten • Explaining how newspapers have had to suck the life out of their headlines in pursuit of eyeballs. “Putting well-known names in headlines is considered shrewd, even if creativity suffers,” he writes. Personally, we write our headlines with some focus on SEO, but we’re totally willing to get out of the way of a good joke. One paper that does a good job of mixing SEO and classic headline art is The New York Times, probably because they can afford to. And SEO doesn’t mean you can’t be clever. See the headline Weingarten put on his story: “Gene Weingarten column mentions Lady Gaga.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

25 May 2010 10:13

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Biz: The paywall hits: The Times and Sunday Times now cost money

  • £1 the cost for an online copy of the paper each day
  • £2 the cost for a weekly subscription
    for the titles source
  • » The first two months are free: If nothing else, Rupert Murdoch’s charges for the Times and the Sunday times won’t hit users right away. This mirrors our experience with Newsday to some degree. The major difference? It costs around half as much. It’s $2.88 versus $5 per week.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Apr 2010 10:10

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Politics: The professional god-like newspaper critic: A dying art form?

  • We’re all critics. If I were starting Entertainment Weekly today, it wouldn’t be a magazine, and it likely wouldn’t hire critics.
  • Entertainment Weekly founder (and iPad hatah) Jeff Jarvis • Regarding the state of criticdom. With a much wider variety of voices and the decline of the newspaper industry, the importance of movie, music, food and book critics is quickly declining, and some wonder if the nuance of the art will go away. “If Roger Ebert says it, does it carry value? Yes,” Jarvis notes. “But how many Roger Eberts are out there, and how many do we need?” Personally, we like Roger, but Metacritic gives a wider range. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

09 Apr 2010 15:32

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Tech: Want to print your own newspaper? In the U.K., you totally can.

By taking advantage of large newspaper presses’ offtime, The Newspaper Club has been able to turn out small print runs for anyone, cheap. (Hat tip @10000words) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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