If only we had news of an old white man in the media (THEME)... Hello, Lewis Lapham! The NYT checks in on him, just because, and finds him still wearing nice suits and putting out Lapham's Quarterly, which is still a going concern. Here is pretty much everything about Lewis Lapham in one single anecdote, in which, fresh out of Yale, he interviews for a job with the CIA:

The first question he was asked in the interview was, "When standing on the 13th tee at the National Golf Links in Southampton, which club does one take from the bag?"

"They wanted to make sure you were the right sort," Mr. Lapham recalled. He found the question off-putting and dropped his spy ambitions for journalistic ones (although he points out that he knew the right answer - a 7-iron).

What the hell is Lou Dobbs doing now? He is reportedly talking to CNBC, about maybe having a show there? Lou Dobbs and Sheriff Joe in 2012!


And speaking of old TV guys doing things: Charlie Rose is going to be writing a column for the new Bloomberg-ed BusinessWeek! Strange, since they canned Maria Bartiromo and all her famous cronies already. Anyhow Charlie's column will "offer insights into and takeaways from" things, which is how he hits you from two angles.


More college kids out of control, when it comes to journalism! The Arizona State J-School invited Sheriff Joe "Crazy Racist Xenophobic Joe" Arpaio to come talk, but he "was cut short Monday night when a group of protestors broke into song." Hopefully that song was Reggaeton.


And finally: National Geographic Adventure is for sale.

A tipster tells us that three assistant managing editors have been laid off at Fortune magazine, presumably as part of the ongoing companywide Time Inc. layoffs. Mediaite confirms that the company did do a round of layoffs today. If you have more details, email us.
UPDATE: We hear five staffers were laid off at SI.com: Two associate producers, a copy editor, a producer, and a production editor, according to our tipster.


Gary Weiss got a peek at a BusinessWeek corporate post-layoff memo, in which the people not fired are referred to as "Individuals ineligible or not selected for inclusion in the restructuring program." Well. How Bloombergian.


Dave Eggers continues to save print! This time by producing a $16, 300-page "newspaper" with content "ranging from Stephen King's reporting on the World Series to explanatory graphics on subjects as diverse as the conflict in eastern Congo and how to make the perfect bowl of ramen." The whole thing sounds great. Except, of course, this six-month long niche literary project has absolutely nothing to do with newspapers or with the continued viability of print, which is dying as a mass medium, naturally, due to its obvious limitations.


From Roy Greenslade: "Twelve journalists were among 46 people murdered yesterday in the Philippines in what is thought to be the greatest loss of life by news media in a single day. Several of the victims were beheaded or mutilated in the massacre carried out by a huge force of gunmen."

A "long-standing editorial feud" between a left-wing German paper and the right-wing paper Bild has culminated in the left-wing paper commissioning a huge artwork on the side of a building showing "Bild boss Kai Diekmann spreading his legs as his mighty manhood stretches across five storeys before the tip turns into a rearing cobra." If this isn't an idea that would suit Col Allan, we don't know what is. [Sexxxy pics]


A high school paper outside of Chicago wanted to publish some stories about students smokin and drinkin' and makin' babies, so the school spiked the issue, and now it's national news. The takeaway here is that the only thing dumber than school papers (I served on two!) is the reaction of school administrators to school papers.


Chris Roush has the latest updates on who's staying and who's going at BusinessWeek.


TVNewser says that Good Morning America staffers are wondering whether potential new GMA host George Stephanopoulos has the morning chops to pull of the big fluff interviews that would go along with job. Or will he be worried that it will undermine his fancy (alleged) "credibility" on his Sunday show? Let's be honest: With that hair, George Stephanopoulos was made for fluff. Also he is not a "journalist," so who cares?

When Bloomberg bought BW last month, expectations were grim—one preliminary report said that Bloomberg was planning to lay off the entire staff. Insiders told us at the time that was "nuts," (which it was), and made vague sounds about not being able to tell how many layoffs would be necessary.

Which was at least mildly hopeful! But the signs were pretty clear: BW's editor left immediately, Bloomberg started canning the magazine's celebrity columnists, and began the early stages of the layoffs on Monday. An internal memo at the time promised "a meeting (in person or by telephone) to learn next steps." Staffers got that yesterday. And 130 of them are gone, including many high-level writers, editors, and some of the mag's most visible columnists:

Most of the columnists were let go, including Inside Wall Street writer Gene Marcial, Media Centric columnist Jon Fine, tech columnist Steve Wildstrom, the longtime Business Outlook columnist Jim Cooper and tech writer Steve Baker, a 23-year veteran.

When you work for the media these days and your first instinct is that the future is dark, you're probably right.
[More on BW layoffs here]

We have two separate (unconfirmed) staff change rumors today, from tipsters. First, at SI:

At the ever-shrinking Sports Illustrated, the magazine's #2, exec ed. Mike Bevans, has privately announced that he'll be among the staffers taking a buyout. This marks the second Time Inc. purge in a row that M.E. Terry [McDonell]. has lost his aide de camp: last year it was David Bauer.

Second, we hear that the New York Post has replaced veteran police reporter Phil Messing with relative rookie Kirsten Fleming. Indeed, Messing's byline does not show up in a search since last month. Out tipster says, "The fear, of course, is that the writing is on the wall for Phil who is one of the more reliable and experienced police reporters in the city. He's old school. But the Post is rumored to be wanting to get rid of 10 to 15 reporters so everyone over there is worrying that their heads are on the chopping block." If you know more, email us.
UPDATE: Actually, another search for just Messing's last name turns up lots of recent bylines, so he's still hard at work, for now.


Oh Anthony Kennedy went on and on about how his office's demand to pre-approve his quotes in a school paper was misunderstood, but now the WSJ says he did the same thing once at GWU. Whatever. Just don't outlaw abortion.


There used to be a dozen analysts covering newspaper companies for Wall Street. How many are there now? Not so many! Now it's just Rick Edmonds, a dude who works for Poynter, trying to figure out how bad the newspaper apocalypse is. "My conservative estimate is that there is $1.6 billion newspapers used to spend annually on reporting and editing that they don't anymore." Journalism! Related: An incredible graph about magazines, and the money they are no longer making.


BusinessWeek media reporter Jon Fine (a good reporter!), currently on a months-long round-the-world vacation with his wealthy wife Laurel Touby, announces on Twitter that new BW owners Bloomberg have laid him off. One thing he can take solace in: His months-long, round-the-world vacation.

BW's new editor will be Josh Tyrangiel, the editor of Time.com. He replaces Steven Adler, who left BW last month after Bloomberg took over. One might reasonably speculate that Tyrangiel was a familiar name to Norm Pearlstine, the former Time editor who now runs Bloomberg's content. Funny Tyrangiel Wikipedia line: "In journalistic circles, Tyrangiel is postulated to be the successor to Richard Stengel, the current editor of TIME." Has inaccuracy been found on Wikipedia? From BW's own report:

In some media circles, Tyrangiel was considered a leading candidate to succeed Time managing editor Richard Stengel. According to sources, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was so impressed with Tyrangiel that he tried to recruit him to be come the editor of CNN.com, the online arm of the 24-hour cable news channel, but Time Inc.'s current editor-in-chief John Huey intervened and convinced Tyrangiel to stay at Time with the promise that he might one day succeed Stengel.

Separately, we hear (unconfirmed) rumors that the long-expected post-sale BW layoffs have now started. One tipster tells us: "No word yet on how deep, but seems like a lot... Sounds like edit and ad sales are tomorrow, all other business functions are today." UPDATE: "3 people in marketing and 2 in finance" have been let go, our tipster says.

And as for the effect of Tyrangiel's departure on Time, which is itself in the midst of cutbacks: A tipster tells us that the savings there from Tyrangiel's departing salary means fewer people will get laid off. Which is good news, because the tipster says that "the deadline for volunteers at TIME is tomorrow in new york. after that they'll move swiftly to lay people off in new york, london and hong kong."

We've contacted Bloomberg and we'll update when we learn more. Please forward all internal memos and tips on this here.

UPDATE: This is the memo that went out at BW yesterday—some believe the "meetings" it references will include layoff notifications.

November 16, 2009

To: BusinessWeek Employees

From: Norman Pearlstine and Chris Walters
Bloomberg/BusinessWeek Integration Report #3

We are pleased to provide a progress report as we enter the last two weeks of the integration process.

Since our previous update on November 5, we have met or spoken with hundreds of you at departmental roundtable discussions. Thank you for your candor, insight and thoughtfulness on ways to make BusinessWeek even better. We took away many new ideas and better clarity on each department's priorities, concerns and accomplishments. In turn, we hope you took away a sense of our respect and excitement for the future of BusinessWeek.

At the same time, a selection process has been underway in many areas. This week, BusinessWeek staff members (except in Europe and countries where local requirements govern the process) will be invited to a meeting (in person or by telephone) to learn next steps. During the first half of the week, meetings will be held with Marketing, Communications & Events; Circulation and Production; Finance; Technology, and Digital. The remainder of the week will be spent with Sales and Sales Development, and Editorial. You'll be notified of the time and place separately.

One-hour information sessions will be scheduled on Thursday and Friday for U.S.-based employees receiving offers from Bloomberg to learn about benefits, policies and programs. Additional new hire orientation and terminal training will be provided after December 1. Employees outside of the U.S. will also receive similar information in the near future.

If you are moving to a Bloomberg office on December 4, you will receive information on logistics, your new address and general telephone number, and moving boxes. BusinessWeek marketing will provide electronic "change of address" cards to notify clients of your new location. Your "businessweek.com" email address will remain in effect.

Along with McGraw-Hill, we are striving to make the process as smooth and respectful as possible. We are very mindful that this transition will be emotional for everyone, and ask for your continued patience and consideration.

Sincerely,

Norman Pearlstine
Chief Content Officer

Chris Walters
Integration Leader

[Tyrangiel pic via]

Bartiromo wrote a Q&A column called FaceTime, which consisted of her asking questions of some business guy each week. She's not a bulldog questioner, but she's not incompetent either. Her strongest point was access: Hank Greenberg, Tim Geithner, and Jeffrey Katzenberg have all sat for her in the past month.

Her downsides: She's perceived as friendly to CEOs, which is part of the reason she gets that access. And whatever they pay her for that column is certainly inflated by her own celebrity, which is hard to justify when Bloomberg's getting ready to lay off a bunch of BW staffers. They'll be able to get good access with a much cheaper columnist, anyhow; who else will CEOs rattle off talking points to, bloggers? LOL!

Don't feel bad, Maria. Gurl U no Wall St luvs U no matta wut. Gurl let Jamie Dimon buy U a drank.

Peter Kafka pulls out the actual sale price of BusinessWeek: $9.3 million, before taxes. That's more than earlier reports of $2-5 million, but less than what McGraw-Hill would have liked to get for the magazine ($999 million).


The entire newspaper industry did terribly in the latest circulation report, but who did the worst? Well, the SF Chronicle's circulation dropped 26%; the Miami Herald dropped 23%; and the Newark Star-Ledger dropped 22%. Coincidentally, those are the same three papers that lead the "Papers that are toast" list. [Oh and look at this!]


Gene Weingarten cracks jokes about his newspaper's stupid pundit contest. Most of you probably think you're "too cool" to admit that old Gene Weingarten, plain old newspaper "humor columnist," is a funny writer, don't you? Well you're not. Just admit it.


Conde Nast has hired Julie Raimondi as the new editor in chief of Brides.com, one of the few jobs that still exists over there, at Conde Nast.

There's been talk of insular Bloomberg gutting BusinessWeek and moving the financial information company's own staff; even if things don't go that far, it's hard to imagine the editor atop the financially troubled magazine finding much of a leadership for himself at Bloomberg.

(Pic: Adler, Getty Images.)

Who's happiest of all that one huge financial news outlet (Bloomberg) bought another huge financial news outlet (Businessweek)? Flacks. Via Media Decoder:

"I think that News Corp. has reduced their reporting of core financial markets at The Wall Street Journal. and they haven't had a lot of competition, but now they will, which is great for those of us who are working to help companies get their message across," said Paul Taaffe, chief executive of Hill & Knowlton. "This is a big deal for financial news the world over. It is a total game changer for companies trying to release information, because now there is competition, and competition elevates everybody's game."

Huh. What he's actually saying here is "Bloomberg combining with BW means there's less competition and fewer news outlets, which makes the job of PR people easier." Fixed.


Big Think interviewed the New Yorker's Calvin Trillin. What did he have to say? Well, he says that kids these days don't really know shit about journalism, not like they used to, at least; and then in the second clip he says kids these days don't know shit about real journalism, not like they used to, at least. And he's right!


And meanwhile: The New Yorker has hired somebody. That's crazy! Well. They hired Nick Trautwein away from Penguin Press to replace departed senior editor Emily Eakin, who left the mag for medical reasons, according to John Koblin. Still. Hire?? Crazy!


Conde Nast dumped much of the sales staff at Brides and replace them with ex-Cookie staffers. But that might not have been the brightest idea—Keith Kelly says that move has caused "the magazine to hemorrhage ad pages." Well that's a totally unexpected consequence of an otherwise savvy management move. NOT, haha. Zinger.


The Washington Post has hired Katherine Zaleski away from the Huffington Post. Who's she? A well-connected, wealthy young woman with her own El Dorado apartment. Uh, journalism pays!

Businessweek's Tom Lowry reports:

But knowledgeable sources say that Bloomberg's cash offer is in the $2 million to $5 million range and that it has agreed to assume liabilities, including potential severance payments. It remains to be seen how much of the magazine's 400-plus staff Bloomberg plans to cut, but reports of a planned scorched earth campaign are overblown, say sources.

Indeed, our own sources also shot down a report earlier this week that Bloomberg had plans to dump virtually the entire staff at BW. Which is not to say that the magazine's employees should feel safe; it's still early in the process, but Bloomberg is reportedly considering a range of options including merging its own website with Bloomberg's. All signs point to probably layoffs at BW out of necessity, but Bloomberg is almost certainly not going to be as ruthless in cutbacks as a more financially-strapped buyer would have been.

Several million for the magazine is not so bad, by today's standards. By the standards of, say, five years ago, it's awful.

WWD says so today:

Some describe the atmosphere inside of the magazine's offices as business as usual, while others are more resigned and have begun packing up their things. Bloomberg LP remains the front-runner, although the company is expected to only take on the BusinessWeek name and Web site, and none of its staff or bureaus.

Jesus, that's pretty harsh. WWD goes on to say that Bloomberg would essentially toss BW's magazine staff out and replace it with current Bloomberg employees, and the only real sticking point left is who'll pay the severance for all the BW layoffs.

But another informed source we spoke to called WWD's version "nuts." The bidders on Businessweek have only had a chance to do very preliminary assessments of the company's staff, and final decisions on layoffs would come only after a winner had been declared and allowed to do more exploration of the company's direction. But the winning bidder would have a commitment to keeping BW in operation as a print magazine (and a decent one), our source said—otherwise, why bid on the company at all? That would mean, at the very least, not coming in and gutting the company's editorial side immediately.

So, Businessweek employees: You should certainly be living in fear. But maybe not total fear. A Bloomberg purchase of BW would probably not result in immediate mass layoffs of most BW staffers, to be replaced by Bloomberg's own current employees. Although some of that could certainly happen! On the other hand, current BW staffers could then have a chance to jump over to Bloomberg—one of the few major media companies not currently mired in mass budget cuts.

Logic seems to dictate that there will be layoffs once Businessweek is sold. After all, the place isn't doing too well with its current staffing levels. The question is how many. A buyer like Bloomberg that could afford to spare a few resources would presumably be a bit better for the BW staff than a buyer intent on slashing right away—which could mean a drastic reduction in frequency for the magazine and a skeleton staff. We'll see!

But if you work at Businessweek and you get an outside job offer soon, you might wanna take it.

Mort Zuckerman and one private equity firm have dropped out of the bidding for Businessweek, leaving only Bloomberg and ZelnickMedia as the contenders. Bloomberg will probably win it. It's a dubious prize. But he can afford it.


What media company went bankrupt today? CanWest, the Canadian media conglomerate that owns The National Post. Tune in tomorrow for another edition of "What media company went bankrupt today?"


Look, recently departed Page Sixer Paula Froelich is now blogging for HuffPo. This one's about the funemployed life of the "professional novelist." It sounds a lot like being a "professional blogger" except with disposable income.

Time Inc., Hearst, Conde Nast, and other big publishers are totally serious about owning the digital space and all that. They're reportedly "just weeks" away from launching their own sort of E-reader, that will E-read magazines, but in a super special magazine way. I don't know why this really needs to exist but I do hope it succeeds, cause the mags could really use the money.

Here's a whole article by the LAT's media critic about how Meghan McCain is the next big media superstar. I mean look, she has the famous name, the Twitter, the opinions about issue things, the TV shows, the internet, the tattoo, the youth, the rebel, and the politics stuff. Downside, she's dumb.


Your daily BusinessWeek update, whether you like it or not: With Wasserstein out of the running, looks like Bloomberg's gonna get it. Stay tuned for more daily BusinessWeek updates!


Now that Glenn Beck has been eradicated from the face of television through ad boycotts, some other non-Republican people are organizing a boycott of Lou Dobbs. Good luck to you haters.


The Atlantic's launched a new site that ranks the top 50 political pundits, making it the Mediaite list of drab political punditry, and equally useful. In a review, David Carr says he "generally gets his fill of opinions from his cab drivers." Well so does Thomas Friedman, and he's #4 on The Atlantic's list, so this site is still useful.

Sharpen your knives, BusinessWeek staffers: The NYT says that 20% layoffs at the mag are "being pitched to investors as something of a done deal." Surprise! Look to your left. Look to your right. Then look at two more people. One of you will be laid off, on average. Statistics are fun. Also: Jon Fine reports that Bruce Wasserstein's dropped out of the bidding, so Bloomberg is looking strong, in terms of "Being the one to buy your magazine and then lay you off."


$4.64 per month. That's how much, on average, survey respondents said they would pay for online access to their newspaper's website. Although half the people said they wouldn't pay anything! So the actual average price point would be about $2.25. Good luck, Steven Brill.


Help A Reporter Out, the source-finding PR-journalist connection website founded by voluble flack Peter "Zzzzzt" Shankman, claims to be raking in more than a million bucks in ad revenue per year. Which seems crazy, but according to some quick math by informed people, is plausible! All this from, basically, an oversized, popular Facebook group. Lucky. This concludes our discussion of Peter Shankman, which only encourages him.


The publisher of the Washington Post thought that an upcoming magazine story was icky and gross, as well as depressing, so the mag spiked the story, which is a total coincidence and in no way a bid to please this lady, the one who signs everyone's paychecks.

Weymouth has been telling editors that there have been too many stories similar to the one last November about a 13-year-old dwarf undergoing surgery to lengthen her legs.

That is weird. Isn't that weird? It is.

This auction is allegedly ending early next week, so Bloomberg's late entry is presumably some sort of tactical move. Sez Keith Kelly:

Mayor Mike's company is now seen as the frontrunner, replacing Lazard boss Bruce Wasserstein, owner of New York Magazine and The Deal.

Jon Fine says that Bloomberg passed on BW already once before jumping back in now. There are at least four bidders in the hunt now. And, don't forget: Bloomberg is also a "potential candidate" to buy the Down Jones Indexes, when News Corp decides to sell them off. They're throwing money around like...frisbees!

[Keith Kelly broke this news, followed closely by Jon Fine. For the record!]

Danyel Smith, the editor of Vibe before it folded, is the new executive editor of The Root, Slate's black-focused site. So while the old editor of Vibe moves on to a thing partly founded by Henry Louis Gates, the new editor of Vibe comes from fat ass-featuring mag King. Not sure what that means, honestly.


A group of Chicago-area investors have offered $5 million in cash and the assumption of $20 mil in debt for the Chicago Sun-Times and the rest of the Sun-Times Media Group. The buyers say they'll "pump tens of millions of dollars into the company to try to shepherd it back to profitability," and eventually fail. Elsewhere in funky media ownership news, Businessweek reportedly has 93 potential buyers. Ninety of whom are just doing it to get a free look at the binder? We're guessing? Are there even 93 humans left on earth who really want to own a magazine? No, there are not. Even Tyra Banks is online only.


Cheers to the young thinkers of the student government at the University of Texas at Arlington, who are trying to pass a measure to make the college paper go online-only. Here's how to decide: Does the print version turn a profit? If not, kill it. See also: this.


DC media elites are uniting as one in a power wedding of convenience (and love???)! Jeff DuFour, a gossip columnist for the Washington Examiner, got married to Jayne Sandman, the associate publisher of Capitol File magazine. Huh. Well we didn't say it was super-ultra elite or scandalous or anything.

Keith Kelly says that New York mag owner Bruce Wasserstein is "emerging as a frontrunner" in the, uh, race(?) to buy BusinessWeek. He's up against Joe Mansueto and a bunch of financial firms. Pump those resumes hard, BW staffers.


Sports columnists at the New York Times are retiring and old and the paper's not replacing them! Instead, they tell John Koblin, the paper's going to make its sports beat writers Twitter and Twitter and blog and blog until they have shared just as much totally useless opinion as a full-time professional sports columnist would.


Oh ho, the SF Chronicle could have had Hunter Thompson cover the OJ Simpson trial for it, but it was too cheap to supply him with basic journalism tools: "Hunter wanted satellite dishes, an unlimited expense account and a suite or two at the Chateau Marmont." Whatever! The CNN people probably got that shit and they aren't even gonzo at all.


"Who at Gawker is cashing in on the McSteamy sex video?" All the masturbators!

Every year, Veronis Suhlers Stevenson issues a big report which basically tells you everything that will happen in the media industry in the near future. This year's is coming out soon! VSS says overall ad spending will fall almost 8% this year, and won't tick back up until 2011. Also interesting: "[In 2008] for the first time, consumers spent more time with media they paid for, like books or cable television, than with primarily ad-supported media, like newspapers and magazines." What are you people made out of money?!?


Iran has been "detaining" a journalist by the name of Maziar Bahari since the protests there in June. Now Newsweek is going all out in calling for his release, which is probably the most useful thing Newsweek's done this week. Cause there's really no "news" to be found, trust us.


Jon Fine reports that Joe Mansueto, owner of Inc. and Fast Company, "has expressed interest in pursuing a deal for BusinessWeek." Others interested include Bruce Wasserstein and several PE firms. You can afford this magazine, people! Let's get some competition here.


Dan Rather's hobby, in retirement, is tending to his little $70 million lawsuit against CBS, like lesser retirees tend to gardens. Now he's filed a new lawsuit trying to get CBS execs Les Moonves and Andrew Heyward personally attached to the suit, so he can legally claim their testicles as part of the settlement. Old age is treating Dan Rather well.