NYT editor Bill Keller told Clark Hoyt that the paper is "within weeks of a decision" on the long-discussed question of whether, and how, to charge for its online news.

So here is what their decision will be: You will have to pay for their online news. One way or another! Maybe you will pay a $5 per month subscription fee, or maybe you will pay micropayments for every story, or maybe they will roll out tiered membership packages with fancy extras designed to get hardcore fans to pay more in exchange for more access. Probably a certain level of news will be free, and a better level of news will not be free. Or maybe someone there has actually come up with an elegant solution to this mess! Though we doubt it.

But somehow we will all have to pay something, because if we don't, the New York Times is totally going to go broke, bit by bit, by giving its product away for free. Which is something that it and every other newspaper have now come to realize. A more interesting question: Will any of the NYT's star columnists flee the paper if they're shoved behind a pay wall, like Newsday's Saul Friedman just did?

They might! These same NYT columnists sat through the Times Select fiasco and watched their readership drop precipitously. Things are different now though! Because somebody like, say, Thomas Friedman, or David Pogue, or Maureen Dowd, could legitimately decide that their own BRAND would gain more by going off on their own than by sitting behind a paywall at the NYT. Thanks for the help with everything, Times, but we're off to be A Brand Called Me-s! Fewer readers could hurt their speaking fees. Can't have that.

This result would bring in some much-needed fresh blood and get rid of Thomas Fucking Friedman, so let's all pray it goes down exactly like that. We have our (employer's) credit card ready, Bill Keller.

Sure, you could just read any of the many other superior sites covering New York metro news, national news, political news, sports news, and/ or business news. But yo: Do you really want to miss stories like these, all in one place, with the option of a "quick read?" Sign up today.

CityFile has taken down the offending item as part of the settlement, but it is cached here. The story claimed that Dolan, whose company owns Radio City Music Hall, was "contemplating a final curtain call for the legendary Rockettes" and considering either doing away with the venue's annual Christmas Spectacular entirely or replacing the Rockettes with Cirque du Soleil. Cablevision vigorously denied the story at the time, calling it "fundamentally false, completely irresponsible and preposterous on its face." We picked up the CityFile item when it appeared, and included Cablevision's response.

Here's what CityFile published today:

Editor's Note: On July 24, 2009, Cityfile published an article entitled "Jim Dolan To Kill Christmas In July?" which contained speculation on the fate of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Radio City Rockettes. On July 27, 2009, Cablevision, Madison Square Garden, and Cablevision chief executive James Dolan filed a defamation lawsuit against Cityfile in New York State Supreme Court. We now realize that we could have done more to ensure that all relevant facts were included in the article. We have retracted the article and removed it from our website, and regret any negative and/or mistaken impressions that resulted from its publication. Cityfile and Madison Square Garden have since resolved all legal claims. And like all New Yorkers we're extremely pleased to hear that the legendary show will remain an institution in this city for many years to come.

The original CityFile item was written by Teri Buhl. It may be true, and it may not. Buhl, who called Cablevision subsidiary Rainbow Media for comment on the story but never heard back, stood by it after Cablevision denied it (and after CityFile updated the post with Cablevision's denial). Whatever the truth of the matter, the item was highly speculative: It reported that the Rockette's "may be" facing extinction, that Dolan was "contemplating" getting rid of the show, that he was "prepared to" do so, and that he was "explor[ing] the possibility" of doing so. It also claimed, based on a quote from a former Rockette, that advance ticket sales for this year's Christmas Spectacular had "fallen flat."

Three days after the item appeared, Dolan filed its suit against CityFile, its proprietor Remy Stern, and Buhl, which you can read here, claiming that the story "defames and disparages the Radio City Christmas Spectacular...by...falsely alleging that Plaintiffs plan to 'kill Christmas' for millions of fans by discontinuing the Christmas Spectacular."

We have to admit that we're not without bias when it comes to blogs getting sued. But Buhl's original item, even if it was inaccurate, was the sort of routine speculative business reporting that all manner of blogs and newspapers engage in every day, for better or for worse. Why, here's Newsday's web site distributing just such a story today, claiming in the face of Comcast's denial that the cable giant is exploring a purchase of some or all of NBC Universal. It strains credulity to imagine that claims that Dolan was considering a business move constituted defamation, and "impugned" Cablevision's "reputation as responsible stewards of the Rockettes," as the complaint put it. But CityFile caved and removed the reporting, presumably because the independent site couldn't afford the hassle of proving in court the obviously true fact that the item, even if it was in error, was nowhere near defamatory. Dolan has swatted a fly with a hammer, and sent a chilling warning to any other flies hovering around that he is willing to waste his company's time and money prosecuting vengeful lawsuits if they write things he doesn't like.

Dolan's loathing for reporters, propensity for feuds, and general belligerence are legendary. He engaged in a years-long feud with the Tennis Channel over carriage on Cablevision's system, and he prevented Newsday from running a Tennis Channel ad complaining about Cablevision's tactics. He declined to talk to Newsday reporters who were covering his purchase of the paper. He implemented an overbearing and controlling media policy that turned the Knicks beat into "a gulag," sending minders to eavesdrop on interviews and e-mail transcripts to their superiors and threatening to shut off access to reporters who criticized the team. A 2005 New York magazine profile described him thusly:

There are not many owners, however, who have also gotten mixed up in as many team-related spats as Jim. At practically every step, he has been feuding with somebody. The company has battled the Yankees and Mets, arguably costing Cablevision opportunities to be partners in the teams' new regional sports channels. He also dumped the Garden's signature voice, Marv Albert, opening the door for the Nets to scoop up the legendary play-by-play man. (When they move to Brooklyn, having Marv onboard will be an enormous aid in competing for New York fans.) And he is once again warring with Time Warner Cable, which has resulted in Knicks telecasts being unavailable in much of the New York market.

And now, because he has money, he has gotten a blogger he doesn't like to pull down a story he doesn't like. We called Cablevision to ask how reporting that Dolan was "considering" doing away with the Rockette's constituted defamation, and were referred to Barry Watkins, a spokesman for Madison Square Garden. He said he was barred from discussing the settlement, and referred us to a statement issued when Dolan filed the suit which said, "the lawsuit speaks for itself." As for the accuracy of the original report, we asked Watkins if he had any information on how ticket sales were going this year for the Christmas Spectacular. "Not at this time," he said. Will there be a Spectacular, with the Rockettes, next year? "I will not commit to that." In 2011? "I'm not saying yes or no. I have a statement that will answer those questions." That statement says, "The Radio City Christmas Spectacular will go on this year and every year for the foreseeable future." We asked Watkins via e-mail if next year and 2011 are in "the foreseeable future." He hasn't gotten back to us. (UPDATE: He says they are.)

CityFile's Stern declined to comment on the record.

The new LAtimes.com rolled out today, and it's not so bad at first glance—lots more black-and-white than their old site, mimicking NYTimes.com. One difference, though: At NYTimes.com, you can scroll down the page and find listings for World, US, NY/Region, Politics—"news" things! Scroll down from the top of page at the new LAT site and you find: Health, Food, Education, Technology, Sports, Blogs, Columns, Opinion, Photos & Video, Summer Hot List, and "Your Scene, Your Comments." Did you miss the, say, 'International news' section? It is way up at the top in tiny tiny type. Below the top fifth or so of the page, there is no "hard news" at all. They had to make room for the Summer Hot List somehow!

Then there is this thing:

The new Newsday.com does have its own Facebook-like status report on top (cute!!!) but does not, apparently, have "news." Do pictures count as news?

This (and a bunch of layoffs) is what you get for $680 million.

New York Post
The headline is classic Post, but the photo doesn't look so scary.

Daily News
What? "How Dumb Was This!" is an e-mail subject line, not a tabloid headline. Also, it needs a question mark at the end. Like the Post pic, the photo doesn't really evoke the 9/11.

Newsday
Groanworthy pun, but Oh my God that plane is flying into that building!

The New York Times, New York Post, Daily News, Newsday and radio station 1010 WINS are the remaining news orgs to keep bureaus on the second floor of One Police Plaza, which helps when you're trying to cover the police department.

But the NYPD is building a new Joint Operations Center, and the space currently occupied by the media will have to be cleared by July, according to a memo from NYPD chief Ray Kelly:

But it's OK—there will be new space available for the media in 2013! Until then, reporters will have to make do from their newsrooms, until their newspapers go out of business, which will happen before 2013 anyway.

They've already lost hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a year. Executives at the cable-TV conglomerate announced the plan even as they said they were writing down Newsday's $650 million purchase price by $402 million. "We plan to end the distribution of free Web content," said Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge in a call with analysts.

What that really means: Newsday plans to end its distribution on the Web.

Employers are willing to foot the bill for subscription at work to papers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. But its inconceivable that consumers will pay for a rather ordinary product like Newsday.com, especially in a media market served by four large dailies, none of whom have announced plans to charge for their websites.

Newsday's Web traffic will surely plummet. Except for some local Long Island news, there's little Newsday readers won't find elsewhere. No doubt some enterprising local bloggers, or startups like Patch, will pick up the slack.

No wonder that a bunch of cable executives came up with this plan. With their local TV monopolies relatively undisturbed, and only limp competition from the nation's telecom oligopoly, they just can't conceive of a competitive market. If Newsday were, on its own merits, an outstanding publication, they might have a shot at charging for it. But it's not. So the cable guys are stuck doing the one thing they know how to do: Hike prices.

The inauguration and near-socialization of finance was already stoking Washington, D.C.'s ascent. Then came the squabbling over Kennedy's exit.

The feud, lasting a few intense hours, started with the New York Post's scoop about Kennedy withdrawing her name from Gov. David Paterson's consideration. The tabloid offer no details initially, but the Times soon confirmed with its own source, as did Newsday, along with the Associated Press's Albany bureau.

The New York media had home field advantage, since the story ran through Paterson's office. But the Capitol Hill press wasn't about to be upstaged on its own senate by a bunch of grubby Albany reporters. They picked up their cell phones, called Ted Kennedy's people — we're assuming, since that's where a DC reporter would go for the Kennedy scoop — and began publishing breathless denials.

The Washington Post lead its story by stating that while "New York media" was reporting Caroline Kennedy had withdrawn her name, there were "Kennedy family confidants angrily dismissing those reports." It later clarified the confidantes had said the reports were "smears aimed at undermining her chances."

David Gregory, of NBC's Washington-based Meet The Press, appeared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show and led with word from "a source in the Kennedy family... that Caroline Kennedy has not — not — withdrawn from consideration." Here's the video, which, in fairness, includes some sober caveats from Gregory:

AP was embarrassingly fast to disclaim its own story, reversing itself entirely:

After wavering briefly, Caroline Kennedy renewed her determination Wednesday to win appointment to the U.S. Senate seat once held by her slain uncle, Bobby Kennedy, a person close to the decision said.

...The AP initially reported Kennedy had withdrawn from the race but corrected the story about an hour later after the person who gave that information said it was an error.

Presumably this correction then had to be corrected when it turned out the original story got it right.

But the New York press embarrassed itself too!

Specifically, the Post's Frederic Dicker face-planted badly, reporting just this past Monday that Paterson was "certain" to pick Caroline Kennedy for Hillary Clinton's old senate seat, according to "several unhappy contenders for the job." Drudge Report ran the story under the headline "It's Caroline!"

Dicker is the dean of state political reporting, if only because he's the only member of the press corps who can stomach Albany. His competitor at the Times, young Nick Confessore won't move upstaet. And yet Confessore scooped Dicker on the purported reason for Kennedy's departure, concern over the health of her ailing uncle, who has a malignant brain tumor and suffered a seizure at Barack Obama's inauguration.

Dicker's response? To blatantly contradict his report of two just two days earlier. Instead of Paterson having his heart set on Kennedy, the guv was now telling her she didn't have a shot. At least rival Confessore's version, in which Kennedy made the decision to leave, left the Post's earlier story looking more plausible.

Dickers' saving grace is that he and the Post scooped everyone on the news that Caroline Kennedy was out. There's a good lesson there: If you're wrong, be the first one to point it out.

(Because the Post had broken the story, the Daily News joined the Washington press in quoting Kennedy family sources denying Kennedy was out (mentioned in this Newsday story). The rival tabloids must always piss on one another's work, even if it means an alliance with DC.)

Postal rates are going up. Rather inconvenient for magazines, since their revenues aren't.

Portland's mayor, Sam Adams, may have hired local newspaper reporter Amy Ruiz for a job she was unqualified for, all to stop her from reporting on his relationship with an 18-year-old man. (Most gay guys we know would brag about dating an 18-year-old, but whatever.)

Newsday editor John Mancini disappeared for almost a week after the Cablevision-owned newspaper published a story about a sexual-harrassment lawsuit against Eddy Curry, a player for the Cablevision-owned Knicks. Now he's back on the job.

The Los Angeles Times, having cut 310 editorial jobs since July, is planning more layoffs. Wait — wasn't the editor bragging about how he could pay his reporters on online revenues alone? We're confused.

Radio talk jocks at Clear Channel are losing their jobs, too.

Yesterday Keith Kelly reported, perhaps a bit sensationally (in the Post? I know!) that "Chaos reigns at Newsday" because its top three editors were nowhere to be found, and everyone assumed they'd been fired:

A rumor making the rounds had the (Cablevision bosses/ Newsday owners) Dolans furious over Newsday's coverage of a sexual-harassment suit filed against Knick center Eddy Curry by his former chauffeur. Cablevision, which owns the Knicks, the Rangers and Madison Square Garden, bought Newsday from the Tribune Company last July for $650 million.

So Newsday follows up today with its own piece on these wild rumors, and they somewhat hilariously get totally stiffed by all the PR people and executives representing their own paper. Luckily they have inside sources!

But newsroom sources told Newsday that (editor) Henley was involved in the coverage Thursday of the US Airways plane downed in the Hudson River, and another source said (editor) Krenek was in New York City for scheduled meetings.

Voice mails for the three editors were back on yesterday after a wider outage had been corrected. Their names also continued to appear on the masthead.

But of course, Newsday's piece conspicuously does not say that the editors weren't fired, so it's a pretty good bet that they were, and Cablevision just fucked up the announcement of it, as they usually do (fuck things up). Answers are sure to come out soon, but if you know more, email us.

The problem with lists of billionaires' paper losses, like the one Henry Blodget's Business Sheet has assembled, is that they're frustratingly free of context. Did a particular CEO do anything to make his company's shares worthless, or was he just buffeted willy-nilly by the crashing stock market? Is Rupert Murdoch $3.5 billion poorer because he's a bad manager, or just unlucky? Instead, we're left knowing that they own many millions of shares in their companies and those shares are, ohmigod, totally worth less now than they were last January! That's about as much fun as reading companies' annual proxy statements.

What this list needs is a dose of schadenfreude. Here's an edited version, including only those people we really are happer to see poorer:

• Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, -$3.3 million: Totally deserved, for installing Randy Falco, a useless broadcast-network flunky, as CEO of AOL, thereby destroying whatever remaining value the Internet portal had.
• Roger Ailes, head of Fox's local TV stations and Fox News Channel, -$3.5 million: This News Corp. executive deserves a net worth chop — not for the maddeningly popular Fox News, but for the laughably unwatched CNBC wannabe he championed, Fox Business Network.
• James Dolan, Cablevision scion, -$13.1 million: Bought Newsday, and then gave an interview to a company-owned cable network rather than to the newspaper, which, frankly, could use some help filling column-inches.
• Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., New York Times publisher, -$76.7 million: Almost let the Times run out of cash so his cousins could keep getting paid millions of dollars in dividends by the family-owned paper. Also, rumored to be in annoying relationship with Caroline Kennedy.
• Sam Zell, CEO, Tribune Co., -$315 million (maybe): Zell might lose his investment in the bankrupt Tribune — but he's not out nearly as much as his employees, whose stock-ownership plan was used to buy the newspaper-and-TV conglomerate.

Here's the whole list. Bravo if you can make it to the end — at which point you will learn that you never really cared about EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen, the richest media mogul you've never heard of and for good reason. Also, you'll wonder why media CEOs aren't more photogenic.

(Photos via the Business Sheet; clockwise from upper left: Bewkes, Sulzberger, Zell, Dolan, Ailes)

From a union email to staffers:

EDITORIAL UNIT NOTE
December 17, 2008

In a move that would make a Grinch green with envy, Newsday management has decided to shut down Local 406's toy and food drive for needy families by ordering the collection bins removed from the South Lobby entrance, making it harder for us to help poor kids on Long Island. A manager in Human Resources told a Local 406 officer today that the bins, which have been sitting in the South Lobby for several days, must be removed Friday because they're on Newsday property.

Sadly, it doesn't surprise us.

[Pic via]

Editor John Mancini said in a memo to staff that the job cuts would include three sports columnists, an undetermined number of photographers and a reporter/researcher in the Albany bureau. He also said some staffers would be required to take on different jobs...

[Publisher Timothy] Knight said most of the vacant jobs also would be eliminated. "We concluded that we need to take some significant steps in order to weather these difficult times and meet the changing dynamics of our industry so that we can continue to grow," he added.

[Newsday]

"Graffiti is very bad, dude," he says. "I'm angry about it, all the way to 100 degrees."

Is there more?

And this: "Make sure those two people don't escape. Try to get every graffiti person out of the entire universe. Can you please tell the policemen they did good work?"

Rocco Parascandola's take:

There are no police officers in Christopher's family, though Christopher would seem to be the perfect candidate. Should recruitment officers get back to him in 16 years? Maybe...

Christ.

[Newsday via Animal]

"They're the only owners who could make you wish for Murdoch."

"It seemed to show a lack of respect and a lack of desire to be helpful to your new property."

"People are so beaten down here there's not much of anything that could cause much of a reaction."

"Everything is different," said one. "The parking lot is half-empty, the cafeteria is half-empty. It's unbelievable. I remember when I couldn't get a space! You get to work after 10 a.m. or so, and the lines at the cafeteria used to be long. Now there's nothing. There's no one there."

Sounds like fun!

[NYO]

Cablevision makes a lot of money with its cable system. Madison Square Garden and the Knicks and the Rangers? Not quite managed as effectively. And now Cablevision owns a newspaper and no one knows why except maybe it's just the Dolans being insane or Jimmy trying to prove to dad that he knows how to run a company or something. Obviously owning a Long Island newspaper will present some synergistic benefits to a company that owns a cable tv system, but not necessarily $650 million worth. Plus the deal comes right after Cablevision inexplicably bought the Sundance channel for almost $500 million. That deal made even less sense, really, though at least the price wasn't as embarrassing as everyone worried it might be.

Some Wall Street types are pretty sure the crazy Dolans are just trying to mismanage the company to annoy all the shareholders who didn't let them go private last year. We suspect Jimmy just decided to buy a newspaper because he wishes he could be an awesome media baron like Rupert Murdoch.

Cablevisison Strikes Deal to Buy Newsday [NYT]