Editor & Publisher: Many Won’t Run Next Two ‘Opus’ Strips With Sex Joke, Islam Reference. At least 25 of the 200 or so “Opus” client newspapers might not run the Sunday-only comic’s next two episodes, which feature Islamic references and a sex joke. Puritan prudishness and political cowardice: Now there’s a combination that’s just certain […]
Posts under ‘News Business’
Digital Journalism Jobs Replacing (at least some) Traditional Ones
Mark Glaser (PBS MediaShift): Traditional Journalism Job Cuts Countered by Digital Additions. If you follow the world of traditional journalism, you can’t help but notice the seemingly constant stream of layoffs and buyouts at news organizations. But media observers don’t often emphasize the flip side: As newspapers and broadcasters slice their senior-level workforce, they are […]
Put the Depositions Online
AP: YouTube Seeks to Depose Jon Stewart. YouTube wants to question Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as part of its defense against claims the online video-sharing site illegally shows snippets of sports and entertainment videos. YouTube (Google) should post the depositions — with the permission of Stewart and Colbert — on YouTube. That would make […]
Opaque Behavior from Chicago Tribune
Michael Miner (Chicago Reader): Terms of Concealment: How transparent can a news shop be when it sends off former employees with hush money? True transparency, then, is not only too much to hope for but probably more than we’re entitled to. Let sinners come clean to their priests. Newspapers are entitled to their quirky little […]
Eco-Blog Bought for Big Money
CNET: TreeHugger acquisition confirmed. A representative for eco-blog TreeHugger has confirmed that the site has been acquired by Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, Animal Planet, and several other properties. A report of the deal initially surfaced in the New York Post today. A press release from Discovery and TreeHugger […]
The Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal
NY TImes: Murdoch Seen to Win Control of Dow Jones. Rupert Murdoch appeared today to have gained enough support from the deeply divided Bancroft family to buy Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, for $5 billion. A sad day for journalism, but not surprising.
A Positive Financial Signal for Citizen Journalism
Globe and Mail (Toronto): NowPublic nixes takeover bids, lands financing. NowPublic.com, a leading “citizen journalism” site based in Vancouver announced today that it has closed a $10.6-million (U.S.) round of financing from venture capital groups in the U.S. and Canada, after turning down several offers to acquire the company outright Yes, there have been setbacks […]
Dow Jones Controlling Shareholders 'Bizarre' Antics
NY Times: Family Shifts Add to Doubt at Dow Jones. The deliberations of the Bancroft family over whether to sell the publisher of The Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation took several bizarre turns yesterday as family members switched sides, sniped at one another and even sought to change the terms of the […]
Times Public Editor Off To Fast Start
Clark Hoyt, the New York Times’ new public editor (ombudsman), is off to a fast start. Today, in “Tiptoeing Around the Family Business,” he asks the paper to cover the story of the NY Times Company’s failings as a business: Amid all this turmoil, aggressively reported and analyzed in The Times, there has been a […]
Citizen Black: A Criminal
NY Times: Conrad Black’s Downfall Shaped by Many Battles. Another striking aspect of Mr. Black’s downfall is the degree to which his own bullheadedness has worked against him. Mr. Black, a military history buff who would compare his business strategies to great battles, made several aggressive moves after being removed from his company that resulted […]