AOL Lays Off Hundreds in Corporate Synergy Massacre
In your painful Thursday media column: major layoffs at AOL, reporters in peril in Libya, the latest Katie Couric career rumors, anonymous commenting debated, and Newsday is new, somehow.
[]HuffPo Will Regret The Day it Started 'Firing' Unpaid Bloggers
In your yet-another-synonym-for-"snowy" Wednesday media column: HuffPo no longer cool, The Daily's latest launch date, Demand Media's distressingly popular, Michael Cohen leaves the Village Voice, Newsday hires people, and Brian Lehrer's a reasonable guy.
[Photo ]Newsday Hiring a Ton of Reporters
Are you an aspiring journalist desperately seeking employment to validate your perilous career choice? Good news: Newsday is hiring 34 reporters. Real jobs for real journalists! Working on Long Island is a small price to pay. [Romenesko]
Give Eliot Spitzer a Break, CNN Hypocrites
In your hateful Thursday media column: CNN staffers hate Eliot Spitzer, Newsweek hates China, a former Newsday editor moves to NY1, the NYT gets itself a fancy "Tumblr," and whites spotted on the teevee.
Dennis the Menace and Mr. Wilson Go Public with Their Affair
Here is a Dennis the Menace cartoon that ran in Newsday today. Poo-poo us for seeing the sex-pervert worst in everything, but it's kind of amazing that someone didn't speak up and stop this from getting run.
Crazy Man Wants to Buy Failing Newspaper From Bad Company
In your finally Friday media column: wacko wants to buy newspaper from some other wackos who are too wack to sell, Christiane Amanpour has a new job, a WSJ wage freeze, and Jon Friedman is a literary Tiger.
[Pic: ]• It's the end of the line for Miramax. The studio that Harvey and Bob Weinstein founded in 1979, sold to Disney in 1993, and departed in 2005, was officially shuttered today, and 80 people were let go. [Wrap, NYT, Guardian]
• Jay Leno went on Oprah today to try and redeem himself. He acted like a cry-baby and…
Newsday: We Don't Care About Paid Online Subscribers, Duh
Here, Newsday's counterpoint to the embarrassing report earlier this week about their dismal online subscriber numbers. That is not even part of their strategy, jerks.
• How many people have signed up for Newsday.com since the newspaper put up a pay wall three months ago? A grand total of 35, believe it or not. [NYO]
• Following in Oprah's footsteps, Martha Stewart announced she's moving her syndicated TV show to cable (the Hallmark Channel) next fall. [Reuters, WSJ]
• NBC honcho…
Newsday.com Paywall Just as Successful as One Would Think
While the New York Times is taking a full year to get its online paywall right, Newsday—an immeasurably crappier paper—just went ahead and did that shit. How's that working out for them?
• Prepare to enter the third dimension. ESPN plans to launch a 3D channel in June. And Discovery, Imax and Sony are teaming up on a 3D channel, too.
• Has Kathy Griffin been banned from CNN following her risqué performance alongside Anderson Cooper on New Year's Eve? Maybe yes, maybe no.
• Newsday is cutting pay and…
Newsday Employees Win 'Horrible' Contract
Cablevision, an unskilled owner of newspapers, is asking for more work hours and cuts in pay and vacation time from employees at fucked-several-different-ways newspaper Newsday. The union says the "horrible" contract was the best it could get. Probably true, sadly.
• The New York Times is gearing up to cut another two dozen positions at the newspaper, but that's fewer than NYT execs were anticipating. [NYP]
• Cancellations: MTV has pulled the plug on Alexa Chung's daytime show; and HBO's Flight of the Conchords is finished after two seasons. [THR, Variety]
• Diane Sawyer and …
The Great Newspaper Firewall Is Coming. And?
Newsday is going to start charging for its awful website. One columnist there quit over it. The New York Times says it will make a decision on charging for its (good) website "within weeks." Then what happens?
• Tom McGeveran took over as editor of the Observer after Peter Kaplan made his exit this spring, but now he's headed out the door as well. [NYO]
• Layoffs: The cuts at Condé Nast continue though they should end soon; the layoffs at Forbes this week were deep ones: 1 in 4 editorial staffers were let go.
• Newsday's…
• The New York Times Co. reported a $35.6 million loss for the third quarter as ad revenue plunged 30 percent. But it was better than what Wall Street analysts were predicting, so the stock shot up 22 percent today. [NYT]
• New York magazine's chief says there are no plans to sell the magazine following last week's…
Long Island News a Bargain at Any Price
While the best newspapers in America fret over whether to charge to read their websites, the other end of the newspaper spectrum is charging ahead: Starting next week, it will cost you $5 a week to read Newsday.com. Hahahaha. Ha.
Cablevision's Jim Dolan Successfully Sues Blogger Into Submission
CityFile just published a groveling retraction of an item it published in July in the face of a defamation suit from Jim Dolan, the truculent chairman of Cablevision, which owns Newsday.
Twitter's Big Deal, Fox News' Win/Loss
• Twitter is close to raising $100 million in new funding. And despite the fact it makes no money, the deal will value the company at $1 billion. [WSJ, CNN]
• A new survey finds that 86% of the public thinks the news media tries to influence public opinion. One reason to discount the data: Fox News came in as the…
Knight Out
Newsday publisher Timothy P. Knight has resigned "to let others move our business forward."
