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RECENT INDUSTRY NEWS Zell to bankruptcy court: If lower creditors get money back, I want mine Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell is demanding his share of repayment in the media company's bankruptcy if lower-priority creditors, emboldened by a recently released examiner's report, get anything. News Corp. plans national newspaper for tablet computers and cellphones It's the latest bid by a major media company to build readership using new devices such as the iPad. The new publication would offer short, snappy stories and operate under the auspices of the New York Post. Point Reyes shines 'Light' on L3C ownership For the past couple of years there's been a lot of buzz about the so-called L3C ownership model, which theoretically would let papers continue to operate as if they were for-profits, but also allow them to accepted tax-deductible donations and foundation money. Theoretically, because no newspaper has actually tried organizing that way -- until now. The write stuff: A Yahoo stylebook If you strolled by a copy editor's desk at any metro newsroom thirty years ago, you would have likely seen, sandwiched between the pica pole and the Carter's Rubber Cement, a well-worn, dog-eared version of the Associated Press Stylebook. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism considers $5,000 annual fee "I am writing to seek your advice and suggestions as we contemplate an annual fee for future students at the Graduate School of Journalism" -- Dean Neil Henry. Newsday to hire 34 journalists, add news/opinion pages "In a big step forward on boosting our local coverage, during the next six months we will hire 34 new journalists for our newsroom and digital teams" -- Debby Krenek. Zell not responsible for paying Tribune Co. returement fund losses, says judge A judge has ruled that Sam Zell can't be made to pay for his company's retirement fund losses -- a blow to workers who claim the Tribune Co. CEO caused the company's employee stock ownership plan to lose value, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. Canceling Que, Plastic Logic works on next-gen e-reader Plastic Logic has revised its product strategy, canceling introduction of its original Que e-reader in favor of development of a next-generation ProReader. The company had planned to ship the thin, lightweight, large-screen Que this summer. New journalism ventures in the works In a city filled with unemployed reporters, creative talent, and entrepreneurial spirit, journalism experiments abound. Among the new efforts brewing in Seattle are 10 projects that came out of the "Journalism That Matters" conference at the University of Washington in January.
Chronicle's David Perlman wins lifetime award Chronicle Science Editor David Perlman has been honored with a lifetime achievement award for a journalism career that spans seven decades. Perlman took his first job at The Chronicle in 1940 and, except for some time off to serve in World War II and a stint at the International Herald Tribune, he has been spitting out newspaper stories at the San Francisco paper ever since. TBD: First takes on the launch For a multimedia site, TBD showed some media savvy, lining up a media briefing today, complete with visuals, numerous staffers and a sampling of local bloggers who've joined the TBD Community Network. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newsroom staffers stage symbolic walkout In what was described as a symbolic action on Aug. 9, 38 editors and reporters walked out of the downtown Pittsburgh Post-Gazette building, ABC television station WTAE. Washington Post Co. stock tumbles on for-profit education warning The Washington Post Co. (WPO) stock was hammered in midday trading Friday, and was off 10.5% at the noon hour. Earlier in the day, WPO set a new 52-week low of $363.71 -- a little more than four months after hitting a 52-week high of $547.18 a share. E.W. Scripps reports Q2 results The E.W. Scripps Company on Monday said total segment expenses for its newspapers were down 3.8% from the prior-year period to $93.4 million. Second-quarter segment profit in the newspaper division was $14.6 million, down 5.6% from $15.4 million in Q2 2009. Billionaire philanthropy Bingo: How 'bout 1% for News? You see A15, I say A1. Found in the print New York Times, page 15, but a big story for the country, and one that could be a big one for the next generation of news media. Murdoch: iPad is 'game changer' that will get youth reading newspapers News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has been leading the charge among media executives to get customers to pay for things they are used to getting for free online, like news stories. New journalism is hungry for new business models. Beyond millions in foundation start-up support, what will sustain these enterprises? Forget the content flow, Watch the money flow Some things never change, like people trying to get between us and our wallets. Or in this case, the long-struggling electronic wallets that have never quite caught on in the U S of A, as they have in Japan and South Korea (broadband penetration: 95% and counting). Morningstar: New York Times Co. stock still overvalued Shares of The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT), which led the newspaper sectors with a 6.7% increase Monday on a 58 cents gain to $9.32, have also followed the sector by sliding significantly in value since hitting a 52-week high of $14.87 back on Jan. 11. N.Y. Times Co. to license technology for mobile platform apps The New York Times Co. announced it is launching Press Engine, a business that later this year will license technology to help other publishers put their content on mobile platforms. Wash. Post Co. inks deal to sell Newsweek Sidney Harman, the 91-year-old founder of audio equipment maker Harman International Industries, has agreed to buy Newsweek, ending a nearly half-century chapter for the magazine as part of The Washington Post Co. McClatchy 2Q earnings plunge but ad slump eases McClatchy Co.'s second-quarter earnings plunged as the newspaper publisher shouldered higher costs on its debt to buy more time to recover from a bedeviling ad slump. Thomson Reuters Q2 profit slips 8% News and information provider Thomson Reuters Corp. said Thursday its second-quarter net income fell 8% on weakness in its legal and markets divisions. The company is still recovering from last year's economic downturn, which put a crimp in budgets at many of the law firms and financial institutions that it counts as customers. Study: Newspapers sink below internet and TV as information sources Newspapers continue to be seen as less important at their primary job -- being sources of information -- according to the latest edition of the nine-year-old Digital Future Project from the USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism. How WikiLeaks is changing the news power structure WikiLeaks' Julian Assange has figured out that on the Internet, being homeless means you don't have to play by anybody's rules. Stockton Record says paywall a success so far The Record figured it would lose half its viewership online and unique users, but has lost just between 30 and 35% of its page views and only a quarter of its unique users. Zell's not the bad guy In Tribune Co.'s collapse The exhaustive report of the independent examiner in Tribune Co.'s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case doesn't name names when it charges the 2007 going-private deal may very well have been a "fraudulent conveyance," that is, so overloaded with debt that the Chicago media giant was insolvent from day one. News flash! Circulation up 1042%! Wow. If the multi-platform strategy -- newspapers, online editions, replica e-editions, iPad editions, smartphone editions, holographic ones to come -- works, we'll see circulation reports unlike those ever reported. That's because ABC, the industry's Audit Bureau of Circulations, has loosened its counting standards yet again. Circ accounts for nearly 30% of total revenue at Dallas Morning News parent A.H. Belo Circ is really pulling its weight at A.H. Belo Corp. In a conference call with analysts Monday afternoon, Belo executives said revenue from circulation now accounts for 29.2% of total revenue, principally a result of higher subscription prices at its flagship Dallas Morning News. Judge to Conrad Black: No Canada for you A federal judge ordered Conrad Black to surrender his passport Friday, meaning the former media mogul can't return to his home in Canada now that he's free on $2 million bond. On Gannett's plans to create five centralized design centers After Gannett recently announced plans to create five centralized centers to handle most of the design demands at its community newspapers, the Society for News Design responded with an open letter on the value of design. I never had a personal investment in that space between the words, but as part of my job, it was my duty to point out that it should exist. It was a job that suited my tendency to worry about details, but one that also forced me to engage in unexpectedly absurd conversations. New York Times Co. Q2 profit doubles as revenue turns positive The New York Times Co. became the first big newspaper publisher to report top-line growth in its second-quarter results, with total revenue increasing 1.2% from a year ago. In suprise, FCC defends loosened newspaper cross-ownership rules -- but Copps vows tighter ban In a surprise move, the Democrat-controlled Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Wednesday defended changes to media cross-ownership rules adopted in the George W. Bush administration that loosened somewhat the ban on same-market common ownership of a newspaper and broadcast station. Conrad Black released from prison on $2 million bond Conrad Black walked out of a federal prison in Coleman, Fla., Wednesday afternoon after 28 months of incarceration. Earlier in the day, a federal judge set bond at $2 million, ruling that the former media mogul can't leave the continental United States and must return to a Chicago courtroom to receive further conditions of his release. KQED expands local news, integrates media KQED Public Media will increase its local news content and integrate radio and online formats starting today when 10 newscasts are added to 88.5 FM and made instantly available in audio on kqednews.org. Help-wanted classified revenue actually turns positive as Lee Enterprises swings to Q3 profit Lee Enterprises Inc. reported a profit for its third fiscal quarter ended June 27 on ad revenue that remained stubbornly on the decline even as it improved from the year-ago quarter. Judge OKs settlement to change Charleston newspaper JOA A federal judge granted final approval to changes to the Charleston, W.Va., joint operating agreement (JOA) that is intended to bolster the Charleston Daily Mail. First Amendment defenders 'must sometimes share their foxhole with scoundrels' The Newspaper Guild-CWA is among 22 media groups that have signed onto a "friend of the court" brief supporting the Westboro Baptist Church's right to picket service members' funerals, offensive picket signs and vituperative outbursts notwithstanding. Guild, CWA, NABET argue against relaxing of media ownership rules The Newspaper Guild, CWA and NABET formally entered the debate over media concentration this week with a joint submission to the Federal Communications Commission, which is conducting a quadrennial review of its media ownership rules. It's important to remember that the era of digital journalism is still in its very early stages. It's going to evolve dramatically over the years. That means that many of the truths about online news that we hold to be self-evident aren't written in stone, etched in granite or ready to be taken to the bank. Gannett's whimper & bang show strategies plainly in flux Gannett's second quarter announcements: A whimper and a bang. The whimper comes from its tepid revenue data. The bang from its coincident statement that it is joining its newspaper colleagues in the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium.
The Newsonomics of the dead cat bounce The season's upon us, as newspaper and media companies announce their second-quarter earnings. At least some of the companies will announce: fewer than used to a couple of years ago, as Tribune has gone private (and banko), metros like Philly and Minneapolis have moved to private hands, MediaNews releases less information than it used to, and Dow Jones' results are less decipherable, aggregated within News Corp. news division results.
From jail, Conrad Black fights $71 million tax bill Imprisoned former media baron Conrad M. Black is fighting a $71 million bill from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, which says from 1998 to 2003 he filed no tax returns and paid absolutely nothing on $120 million in taxable income. Gannett 2Q expected to show less print ad erosion The prolonged slump has helped make the year-to-year comparisons progressively easier. Although Gannett executives haven't made any promises, there's a growing sense that it might not be much longer before newspaper advertising begins to increase again. BBC unveils original U.S. news site At a time when many newsrooms are contracting or consolidating, the BBC is growing its editorial operations with an original news site aimed at the American audience. Gannett rolls out CCI NewsGate, creates page-production hubs Gannett Blog posted on July 13 a note to staff from The Cincinnati Enquirer's executive editor, Tom Callinan, confirming that Gannett will implement a national page-production network using five hubs for the work. Weigel and Nasr 'Sins' Put the Church of High Integrity on Trial I've always been a faithful disciple, worshipping at the altar of Church and State. (And of the Reverend Al Green, but that's another story.) I've resisted commercial pressures and been party to painful terminations when staffers violated rules bringing the newspaper's integrity or credibility into question. Journalism Online's Press+ paywall: easy to defeat After my skeptical post yesterday about Journalism Online's new Press+ paywall at the Lancaster (Pa.) Online site, a source let me know how easy it was to beat the meter. Yahoo and Google in high-tech news war Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are redefining the online news experience, but in diverging ways that underscore the evolving identities of the search giants. |
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