Gawker's Least Popular Posts of 2009
They weren't bad posts, just misunderstood. Nevertheless, we wrote them and you didn't want to read them. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the least popular Gawker posts of 2009.
The Boston Globe's Year in Giant-ass Pictures
Everyone loves the Boston Globe's ginormous, online-only "Big Picture" feature. Now they've launched the first installment of a three-part "2009 in Photos" series. Very cool, very big pictures; it's features like this that make journalism on the Internet work. [Globe]
• Time Inc. is expected to announce plans to slash $100 million in costs next week; naturally, lots of layoffs will be involved in making that happen. [NYT]
• The Wall Street Journal is closing its Boston bureau. Also in Beantown: The Boston Globe's publisher has announced he's stepping down. [BW, NYT]
• The war…
ALM Should Be Ashamed of Its Bathrooms
In your dangerous Tuesday media column: A media employee cries for help from the office bathroom, more details on yesterday's Glamour layoffs, a dangerous liberal media pumpkin, and a newspaper gets cheaper, on purpose.
NY Times Co. Keeping Globe; Staff "Ambivalent"
The New York Times Co. has found it in its corporate heart to keep the Boston Globe. Why? Because the company's union-busting cutbacks totally worked.
New York Times Co. Doesn't 'Need' to Sell Boston Globe. But Will Anyhow.
Oh, the Boston Globe? The paper projected to cost our already-flailing company $85 million this year? Where the employees hate management because of emotional union contract battles? Yea, we could sell it. Or not. Whatever. Why, you wanna buy it?
The Cronkite Memorial, Another Times Kidnapping
• A long list of media luminaries and politicians, including President Obama and former president Clinton, turned out for this afternoon for a memorial service at Avery Fisher Hall in honor of Walter Cronkite. [WP, NYT, LAT]
• Stephen Farrell, a New York Times reporter taken hostage by militants in Afghanistan, was…
Good Morning America's Future; Time's Latest Victim
• Who's going to replace Diane Sawyer now that she's leaving GMA? No one knows, really, but expect the changes to the show to be significant. [NYT]
• Time is shutting down its fashion-centric spin-off, Time Style & Design. Editor Kate Betts will remain with Time; six other staffers have been let go. [WWD]
• Magazine…
Not Charging Much, Hopefully
The Boston Globe will start charging for its website. The good news doesn't stop!
The Sale of The Globe, Olbermann's Worst Week Ever
• The New York Times Co. is now publicly shopping the Boston Globe. Meanwhile, the list of potential acquirers is getting longer: The firm that bought the San Diego Union-Tribune is now a possible buyer. [AP, NYT]
• Related: The Globe is going to start charging to access its Web site. [E&P]
• News Corp. and GE were…
Financial Predators Finally Interested in Boston Globe
Breaking: The New York Times Co. would maybe like to sell the tanking Boston Globe, the company revealed yesterday after everybody already knew it for months. More surprisingly, somebody might actually want to buy the paper!
A Peace Pact For Cable News, The Bidders in Boston
• Détente? The feuding between Fox News and MSNBC has grown so fierce that News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and GE's Jeff Immelt met up recently "to figure out how to defuse tensions between the two channels." [LAT]
• The Boston Globe reports that two groups of investors have submitted preliminary bids to buy the newspaper…
How Much For The Boston Globe?
Two brazen Boston bidders have actually put in bids for the teetering Boston Globe! If our quick math is right, the bids should be in the area of... negative $96 million.
New York Times Kidnapping Conundrum
In your finally Friday media column: The NYT looks ethically inconsistent and its management is mush-mouthed, Bruce Wasserstein contemplates buying BusinessWeek, and Fleet Street dies, unnoticed.
'Times' Earnings, The Tabloids & Twitter
• BusinessWeek's Jon Fine reports that New York owner Bruce Wasserstein may be in the running to break out a dollar bill and buy BusinessWeek. [BW]
• ESPN banned New York Post employees from appearing on the network yesterday after the paper ran (blurry) pics of a nude Erin Andrews. [AP]
• Will will happen with…
Janice Min Leaves Us Weekly, The Trouble at Conde
• Janice Min isn't renewing her contract as editor-in-chief of Jann Wenner's Us Weekly. Her No. 2, Michael Steele, will become acting editor in chief. [NYT]
• Condé Nast announced yesterday that it had retained the management consulting firm McKinsey to "develop new perspectives." They sure have their work cut out for…
NY Times Now Free to Sell Boston Globe to Some Glorious Sucker
After weeks of wrangling that nearly resulted in the shutdown of the Boston Globe, members of the Boston Newspaper Guild approved a new labor agreement with the New York Times Company by a 366-to-179 vote. [New York Times]
CNN: #1 on Opposite Day
In your early Friday media column: Laurel Touby is officially chillin like a villain, the Boston Globe gets another contract vote, Nikki Finke is mysterious, and CNN's creative accounting of what it means to be "number one."
All Jackson, All the Time
• Both NBC and ABC plan to pre-empt regular programming this evening to air specials devoted to coverage of the Jackson story. E!, MTV, and CNN (among others) have specials airing over the next few days, too. [NYT, THR]
• Time is publishing a special Jackson "commemorative edition" on Monday. For its part, Rolling…
New Trial For Anna Politkovskaya's Accused Killers
In your breakthrough Thursday media column: a new trial for a Russian journalist's murder, a mini-Jayson Blair at a college paper, Steven Brill's optimistic projections, and Boston Globe staffers are unhappy with their lot in life.
