Could the editors at the Los Angeles Times be any more useless? Their newspaper is going down in flames, with cash flow declines ranked worst among the deeply troubled Tribune Company newspapers. Their best hope for salvation is the Web, where the paper is desperately behind upstart competitors like Nikki Finke's …
The magazine industry is facing one of "its worst beatings in years" amid the economic downturn, circulation declines and general print media weakness. The smart, aspiring media mogul heads straight for the internet rather than try to recreate Spy or some other once-esteemed dead-trees publication, as he might have 20…
The National Enquirer is having an amazing week thanks to its coverage of John Edwards' philandering, but the supermarket tabloid is probably still going to die along with troubled parent company American Media Inc., the Times' David Carr reports for tomorrow's paper. It doesn't seem to matter that three of the best…
"A year ago, the conventional wisdom was, 'Yep, there are problems out there, but there’s still significant value.' Now, it’s 'Run away.'" [Times]
After bitter tabloid rivals the Post and Daily News both lost their bidding war for Newsday to bumbling Long Island cable concern Cablevision, discussion centered on which tab would be first to strike some kind of cost-cutting partnership with Cablevision. As it turns out, the Post and Daily News may just cut…
Someone started an aptly-named site called "One Person Trend Stories," which does a pretty fantastic job of skewering the thinly-sourced, heavily-caveated features familiar to readers (and writers!) of pretty much every major newspaper and newsmagazine out there. It's not clear if the anonymous author — J-school…
"The editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for example, likened AP President and Chief Executive Tom Curley to the secretary-general of the Politburo at a convention in April... While the AP's 1,500 member newspapers still own the organization... they account for only 27% of AP revenue, down from more than 50% in the…
It's lucky for Russia! magazine that former Gawker and new NYT Magazine covergirl Emily Gould has already split up with Russian-born novelist and n+1 editor Keith Gessen. Otherwise, they'd be in trouble! Out now in their new issue is Gould's profile of Russian-American writers—including Gessen.
"When [the protagonist] makes haste to a downtown sex club, it's no surprise that he spends an inordinate amount of time folding his clothes into neat piles and comparing the claustrophobic buddy booths to the fitting rooms at Bergdorf Goodman." [WWD] (Photo via PhilipGalanes.com)
When News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch decided to sit down for a rare, on-camera interview, it was of course with two reporters from his own media empire, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal. In this clip from the Journal's D conference in Carlsbad, California, Murdoch explains how he thinks the …
Doree Shafrir has a bone to pick with Newsweek. The former Gawker editor recently scored a book deal from her blog of mom emails, and now Newsweek is asking whether she or any other blogger can even write books, much less sell them. "Many bloggers just repackage what they've already done," the magazine said, citing …
Times editors are apparently tired of people saying mean things about Emily Gould and about their own decision to publish her meditation on blogging, because they've shut down the comments section attached to Gould's magazine piece. Some 727 responses flooded in before the shutdown, even though the article won't be…
Tech blogger Robert Scoble, formerly of Microsoft and now with Fast Company, spent some time hanging out in the Times' research and development division, which exists (really?), and filmed some of their wacky publishing experiments. One innovation, set to go online today, is a browsable interface to the Times'…
Meet Markus Dohle, the new CEO of Random House. His previous job was retooling Bertelsmann AG's printing plants to repair mobile phones, generate billing statements and warehouse pills. In case that's not unglamorous enough on its own, note that Dohle is following in the footsteps of Peter Olson, who while considered…
Ruthless press baron Rupert Murdoch has concocted two diabolical schemes to ruin the lives of New York tabloid readers and owners forever. First scheme: Murdoch will raise the price of his New York Post — NO! — to fifty cents, with the extra quarter going directly into a special fund for the eradication of all…
Here are two Good Reads, officially crowned as such tonight at the National Magazine Awards: Top feature story "You Have Thousands Of Angels Around You," from Atlanta magazine, is about "how one young woman lost her family, survived a war, escaped two continents, and through the kindness of strangers found a lifelong…
Wired editor Chris Anderson tonight came face-to-face with the "Long Tail," his oft-cited metaphor for low-grade internet fame, via an encounter after the National Magazine Awards with fameball Julia Allison. Star Editor-At-Large Allison worked Anderson hard, no doubt as part of her relentless effort to take the…
Gawker's Hamilton Nolan is at the National Magazine Awards, and notifies us via his Sidekick that Anderson Cooper is there! Someone else emailed us a photo of the adorable silver-haired CNN anchor (left) earlier tonight, looking pretty casual. Oh, also, on a less important note, some awards were given out to various…
"Cablevision is preparing a $650 million offer for Newsday, $70 million more than bids by Rupert Murdoch and Mortimer B. Zuckerman... Executives... interested in Newsday said they learned over the last month that printing, trucking and subscription operations were more troubled and inefficient than they knew.…
The newest reports on Marcus Brauchli's departure from the Wall Street Journal offer a fresh list of slights inflicted on the outgoing managing editor by Rupert Murdoch and his lieutenants, beyond that time the News Corp. chairman forgot to call on Brauchli during an introductory speech to Journal staff. Murdoch and…
