Gawker
-
newspapers
Guns Drawn In AP Civil War
As recently as the mid-1980s, the newspapers that ostensibly own the Associated Press constituted 50 percent of its revenue. Over the past decade, with the explosion of syndicated news on wesbites and the proliferation of cable news channel, cashflows have come increasingly from new media customers, who tend to favor more soft news coverage on topics like entertainment and lifestyle. Smell like a recipe for disastrous internal strife? Funny, because that's exactly how it's turning out! It was one thing when the editor of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette likened AP's CEO to a Soviet apparatchik this past April. But now even the insane revolutionaries at Sam Zell's Tribune Company are staging a mutiny, moving to cancel the wire and saying AP is charging higher prices for less hard-news (think state and local) content: More » -
journalismism
Bloomberg's Latest Error Nukes United Airlines
As errors continue to mount at Bloomberg News, the question isn't just whose heads will roll, but from how high up on the org chart. The financial newswire avoided cratering Apple Inc stock with its premature Steve Jobs obituary last month because markets had been closed for half an hour by the time the false item was published. Bloomberg's incorrect report stating Sarah Palin had been arrested for drunk driving 22 years ago garnered little notice before it was corrected. But now Bloomberg has done some real damage. It incorrectly flashed a headline to terminals Monday stating United Airlines had filed for a second bankruptcy, sending shares to $3 from $12 and wiping out close to $1 billion in stock market valuation. After a halt in trading, the stock recovered to $11 by the end of the day. But the damage to both investors and to Bloomberg's reputation has been done. It hardly helps that the incorrect news bubbled up through a bizarre series of events: More » -
ha ha your medium is dying
Bloggers Scolded Against Using "Pissed Off"
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 Deadline Hollywood and the Huffington Post. Just last year the paper installed new publishing software that couldn't even handle hyperlinks. And yet newsroom "leaders" just spent 18 months in a fucking (ahem) committee debating what swears LATimes.com bloggers should be allowed to use, and when. The byzantine machinations involved some sort of appeal to a "ruling" of a special committee about some formal guidelines, and of course resulted in a tedious and useless memo that should make anyone who ever cared about the once-great newspaper want to slit his wrists. Its insufferable, self-indulgent stupidity lies after the jump. Oh, and it basically says no one can use "pissed off" because it's crude and might tarnish the LA Times's sterling image in the remaining months before the paper's now-all-but-inevitable collapse. More » -
pic of the day
In Denver When You're Dead
There are supposed to be 15,000 journalists covering the Democratic Convention in Denver, a good proportion at newspapers. But the time-pressed and laptop-lugging reporters have largely abandoned their own medium, print: the New York Observer's John Koblin snapped this neglected pile of newspapers yesterday afternoon at the stand of Sam Zell's beleaguered Tribune Company.
-
synergy
'amNY' Asks: Is This Show Too Awesome?
Look! Those Gossip Girl ads the whole world is talking about (or at least the part of the world that lives in New York and probably "curates" a "linklog" or something) made the front page of am New York, a free tabloid daily owned by Tribune Co. You know what's funny? Gossip Girl airs on the CW, the network most people still mistake for the one that failed after canceling Homeboys in Outer Space. Also the CW has something called a "ten-year affiliation agreement" with—wait for it!—Tribune Co! Which also owns the CW affiliate WPIX, right here in (am) New York. SYNERGY. [Maura] (Related: watch Mad Men! It's a show about men in suits who smoke or something.) -
evil corporations in action
McDonald's Buying Off Local Newscasts
To pimp its sugary, 200-calorie iced coffees, fast food giant McDonald's offered to pay some local TV newscasts for product placement. And of course the newscasts went for it, since local TV journalism is where ethical standards go to die. Meredith Corporation is putting the drinks in front of anchors at the Fox affiliate in Las Vegas (pictured) and at two CBS affiliates elsewhere. Tribune Company has the coffee at its Fox affiliate in Seattle. Even national Fox News is playing ball, placing McDonald's product at the News Corporation-owned station in Chicago. Station operators offered the Times any number of excuses, but the best has to be from the news director at the Las Vegas affiliate: He argues the placement is ethically OK because it is restricted to the "lighter, news-and-lifestyle" portion of his morning news show. Sounds like the portion of the program that might normally be given over to, say, segments on weight loss, fitness or preventing kids from becoming obese. But these days, if the station wants to do any reports that might upset McDonald's, it is supposed to yank the lucrative cups: More » -
-
Tribune Co. Overhaul Includes Blog Summaries
"Orlando is a proving ground for Sam Zell's effort to reinvent
floundering Tribune Co., owner of a string of television stations and
newspapers, including the Sentinel, the Chicago Tribune and
the Los Angeles Times." [WSJ]
-
newspapers
The Art Of The Tasteful Sell Out
There was much consternation in the media world earlier this week when it emerged that Tribune's Los Angeles Times would take its Sunday magazine out of the hands of trained journalists and hand control over to the newspaper's sales staff. Editor Russ Stanton even insisted that the magazine's name be changed so readers didn't get the idea that it still had, you know, integrity. But journalists are as much to blame as the business side for the fact that their work increasingly sounds like catalog copy. Here's ink-stained wretch Rob Walker in his most recent "Consumed" column for New York Times Magazine:
More » -
journalismism
Sam Zell Cleaning House
"Scott C. Smith is stepping down as publisher of The Chicago Tribune and president of Tribune Publishing as part of changes being made by Samuel Zell." [Times] -
journalismism
Sam Zell To Chainsaw Tribune Papers
Tribune CEO Sam Zell famously cursed one of his journalists earlier this year when asked whether refocusing the company would undermine serious journalism. He called such thinking "classic... journalistic arrogance." But now Zell is struggling to service $12.8 billion in debt amid a weak economy, and he's planning what sounds like mass layoffs and newsprint reductions to meet the challenge. The cuts would fall hardest on the journalists who produce the least output — just the sort of emphasis on quantity over quality once-supportive reporters and editors at the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel are likely to abhor: More »
tribune company
New York, 10:06 PM
Thu Dec 4
44 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
tips@gawker.com
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Managing Editor:
Gabriel Snyder | Email
Day Editor:
Alex Pareene | Email
Night Editor:
Ryan Tate | Email
Writers:
Sheila McClear | Email
Hamilton Nolan | Email
Richard Lawson | Email
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley | Email
- LifehackerScreenshot Tour
- GawkerAmerican Apparel
- DeadspinJimmy patsos
- Jalopnikcustom cars
- ConsumeristWalmart
- KotakuMidway
- io9December books
- Valleywagmeltdowns
- GizmodoTech Culture
- JezebelBritney Spears
- DefamerPop Culture Doomsday
