In your ominous Tuesday media column: the first big scandal book deal of many sure to come, Peter Chernin lives, Gannett rips off Groupon, Tim Hetherington's final pictures released, and corporate infighting at Thomson Reuters.
The AP, even with its recession-inspired cutbacks, is a great news service—but a pricey one, by newspaper standards. So Thomson Reuters is starting a competing U.S. news service. Like AP, but crappier cheaper.
More rumors have emerged about potential buyers for Newsweek, which The Washington Post Co. put on the market a week ago today.
• The Condé Nast job cuts have made their way to Anna's domain on the 12th floor of 4 Times Square: Vogue laid off six staffers today. [AllThingsD]
• More bad news for Condé: some advertisers are reportedly "jumping ship" after the recent shake-up at Brides. On the plus side, The New Yorker appears to be hiring, so…
Huzzah: A president at newswire operator Thomson Reuters says traditional journalism is not actually being strangled by Google, blogs and the rest of the internet. And that anyone who thinks so — *cough* AP *cough* — should get a grip.
• The Harry Potter frenzy kicked off last night when the latest installment debuted at midnight last night and raked in $22.2 million in the process. [THR]
• Jared Kushner's struggling Observer is still hunting for a new editor. [DF]
• Time Inc. has "assembled a high-level SWAT team" to revamp Fortune. [NYP]
• The…
• Boston Globe staffers are still reacting to the news that the New York Times Co. may shutter the paper in 30 days if certain pay concessions aren't met. The paper announced it plans to raise newsstand prices, and a small group of staffers staged a rally last night in support of the paper. [E&P, WCVB]
• Peter Bart is…
• Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has landed a six-figure advance to write a book about "his rise and fall, and the dark side of politics." [LAT]
• CBS chief Les Moonves says he no longer has any plans to merge the company's news operations with Time Warner's CNN. [B&C]
• Martha Stewart Living is "broadening…
CARLSBAD, CA — I'll be unabashed about it: Part of the fun of a conference like D6 are the casual mogul sightings. Look! Barry Diller in a schlumpy brown sweater! Say, isn't that Jeff Bezos chatting up a Googler? But my favorite happenstances are the reunions of frenemies. Take, for example, this chance encounter…
CARLSBAD, CA — D, the Wall Street Journal schmoozefest which opened today with a round of golf at the Four Seasons Aviara Resort, is not the conference for the rest of us. It attracts a host of tech and media CEOs who agree to be harangued onstage by Walt Mossberg, the sexagenarian of sexy gadgets, and Kara Swisher,…
Canadian smartphone maker Research in Motion (RIM) announced a new $150 million Blackberry Partners Fund which includes private Canadian investors, RBC and Thomson Reuters. The fund will focus on companies building technology that works with RIM's popular BlackBerry mobile devices. And it raises the question: Why…
Most venture capitalists are adept followers of the herd. As such, their investments are best seen as trailing indicators — the financial detritus of events past, rather than predictors of what to come. Is there a bubble in Web startups? The numbers themselves are as confused as investors. Dow Jones says the first…
Thomson Reuters is expected to plaster its logo all over New York, London and Toronto subway stations today, along with the New York Stock Exchange building and Times Square. Why? Because the company, formerly Thomson, is very excited that it just completed its takeover of Reuters and wants the whole world to care.…
