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disasters
journalismism
Harold Evans Forgives Rupert Murdoch
Bitter personal rivalries usually aren't forgotten in journalism, much less laid aside in the interest of craft. (Just you wait till we all answer to Julia Allison). So it's pretty big indeed of Sir Harold Evans, author of the five-volume newspaper aesthetics bible Editing and Design, to dispense kind words about his archnemesis Rupert Murdoch. The sage old husband of Tina Brown tells The Independent, "The Wall Street Journal has, in the last two or three months since Murdoch took it over, been dramatically improved. They've got rid of the Cheltenham mountainous face, that is still in The [New York] Times...They've made the mistake of still continuing the upper capitalisation but the whole Journal is well-designed – a major improvement in my opinion." What oceans of hostility lie beneath this happy talk of typeface. More »
apocalypse
Ron Paul Doesn't Look So "Crazy" Now, Does He, New Yorkers?
Look, it's Ron Paul! But what is he doing in New York, the fancy magazine for elites, alongside establishment finance types like a former Morgan Stanley economist and a famous investor? Isn't he sort of "kooky?" Everyone (who didn't live in a basement or wasn't a furry) laughed at Paul's quest for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, especially since Paul wanted to get rid of the Federal Reserve and take America back to the gold standard, in which money is backed by something other than the worthless promises of filthy bankers and shiftless bureaucrats. But now it looks like the Fed's board of governors may be leading us into depression, and even that capitalist bible the Wall Street Journal ran an article this weekend speculating that the thinking behind the gold standard, if not the standard itself, "will have its day again." So Paul's stock is rising! Let's hear what terrible things he has to say about our future: More »
newspapers
Wall Street Journal Tarting Up And Slimming Down
The Wall Street Journal's new managing editor Robert Thomson took another step toward remaking the paper in the image of his former employer the Financial Times, hiking the cover price 50 cents to match the FT at $2 per copy. But another directive, reported by Jeff Bercovici at Portfolio, seems to have been borrowed from the Journal's News Corp. sister, the Post: More »
journalismism
Story On Perils Of Rumors Filled With Rumors
How many named sources do you think the Wall Street Journal used in its story on the SEC's crackdown on stock market rumormongering? One: the SEC. And how many anonymous sources? Twelve or more, it looks like, including "a senior official" at the SEC, "people close to the firm" Lehman Brothers, a "person familiar with the matter" and several sets of "people familiar with the matter." Of course, it's impossible to know how many of these citations are the same person appearing multiple times, so the actual number of anonymous sources could be lower. And, to be sure (*cough*), the SEC is ostensibly cracking down only on people who knowingly spreading false rumors for financial gain, which the Journal isn't doing. Further, most reporters consider their anonymously-sourced journalism a step or two above rumors. But if the SEC is going to investigate how some companies profit from derogatory rumors, shouldn't it also look into profit from positive gossip? Stuff like this, from the Journal: More »
losers
Carly Fiorina Continues Falling Up
Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (née Sneed) (thanks Wikipedia!) used to be the most powerful woman in business, back when she was running HP. She ran HP into the ground, btw, forcing a deadly merger with Compaq, laying off 7,000 people, losing market share to Dell and IBM, and finally being forced out by the board. She received a ridiculous $21 million cash severance payment (breaking the company's own severance cap) and she also somehow received a reputation as someone to be taken seriously in matters of business. Now her job is to convince people that John McCain is business-friendly and knowledgeable about money in general. America! Lloyd Grove interviewed her for Portfolio. This is our favorite quote: More »
jobs
Worldly Marcus Brauchli To Edit The Washington Post
The Washington Post tonight named former Wall Street Journal editor Marcus Brauchli its new executive editor, replacing Leonard Downie Jr. after 17 years. The transition comes thanks to a new publisher, Katherine Weymouth, who wants to put her own stamp on the paper. With Brauchli, it will be hard to avoid doing just that. While the Post has remade itself over the past decade as a local paper with a focus on national politics, Brauchli is basically a foreign news reporter who, prior to a replacing Paul Steiger atop the Journal masthead, edited global and national news. Then again, we hear Brauchli is prepared to sacrifice much of what he has accumulated at the Journal to take the Post gig — and not just the wealth of his experience. More »
the riches
Subprime Crisis Hits Those Who Created It
While the merely superrich have been unable to sell or buy homes in the Hamptons for some time now, the mega-rich have continued purchasing giant estates for absurd prices. But as Vanity Fair explains, no more! Now there is precisely one man rich enough to buy a Southhampton property for an insanely inflated price, and he is the man who predicted and bet on the subprime crisis taking the toll it has. Now former Bear Stearns employees are worried about their mortgages, JUST LIKE REAL POOR PEOPLE, and it's all very, very, very sad. Listen to just how sad it is! More »
finance
Is CNBC To Blame For Bear Sterns' Implosion?
CNBC's rumor-mongering on March 10 about Bear Stearns' liquidity crisis may have ultimate brought down the investment firm. Or so writes Bryan Burrough in the August issue of Vanity Fair, adding that the day was as bad for the integrity of financial journalism as it was for Eliot Spitzer and people with mortgages: "Publicly speculating on a firm's liquidity is akin to shouting 'Fire!!!' in a crowded theater; in catastrophic cases it can trigger panic selling. It risks, in other words, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy." More »
kids today
Family Blogger Struggles With Privacy Concerns, Posts Family Photos to Internet
Yes it's fine to post a photo of your adorable child on Flickr, why not? The dangers are: a) perverts will get off on these photos, b) predators will, who knows, decide to kidnap your adorable child because she is soooo cute on the internet, or c) your child will be targeted for online abuse by bloggers somewhere, for some reason. The first two are bullshit. Perverts will masturbate to everything, who cares. You are more likely to abuse your child than a stranger. And finally, as we've tried to explain, all this online abuse of innocent kids is actually directed at their over-sharing parents. So rest easy, Wall Street Journal mommyblogger! Or, like, make the pictures friends-only, as your friends have suggested. Either one. Christ. [WSJ]
newspapers
Why The Journal Won't Fall Apart
From the New York Observer's accounting of the "diaspora" from the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, one would think the business newspaper was melting down under its new régime. The Observer's Koblin lists 24 departures and the exodus tallies with the word reaching anyone with friends at the paper: morale is so low that anonymous leaking provides one of the few sources of entertainment for the more sullen veterans. But Murdoch lieutenant Robert Thomson can take his time on newsroom surgery at the Journal; the patient isn't going anywhere. Let's put aside the fact that most of the departed reporters and editors have been pushed out, or left under the old guard, as an exasperated commenter notes. But, more importantly, even if the Journal's talents were inclined to leave, there's nowhere in today's faltering business media for them to go. More »
journalismism
The world may be in the midst of an awful news drought, but does the once-august Times of London let that keep it from publishing a lively website? No! It is a Rupert Murdoch-owned news source, after all, so up with book burning, red-baiting and medical experiments! If there is no news, make it. I'm looking at you, WSJ.com. [Times of London via Something Changed]
How To Manufacture News
The world may be in the midst of an awful news drought, but does the once-august Times of London let that keep it from publishing a lively website? No! It is a Rupert Murdoch-owned news source, after all, so up with book burning, red-baiting and medical experiments! If there is no news, make it. I'm looking at you, WSJ.com. [Times of London via Something Changed]
journalismism
Reporters Are Not World Class Athletes
The Wall Street Journal has a piece today in which it attempts to scientifically determine the best overall male athlete in the world, by submitting a long list of famous athletes to a panel of exercise physiologists who rank them on this and that. This is the newspaper equivalent of Rolling Stone's "100 greatest albums" list—pointless, and meant to generate argument. But they do settle the issue of who is not the world's greatest male athlete: WSJ reporter Reed Albergotti, who goes up against a top decathlete to prove that reporters are, as suspected, goofy, unathletic white guys. God, what a 'Nilla. Video of Albergotti's good-natured crusade of unathleticism is below. More »
Breaking
Wall Street Journal: Major Editorial Shuffle
More moves at the top at the Wall Street Journal. In two memos to the staff, editor Robert Thomson announces that Deputy Managing Editor Laurie Hays is leaving the paper. He then announces the creation of a "central news desk" helmed by three new Deputy Managing Editors: Matt Murray, Mike Williams, and Nikhil Deogun. In a face-saving move, ethics editor Alix Freedman "will have expanded authority as a defender of the paper's ethical and journalistic standards," rather than being axed. Left up the air: the future of DC bureau chief John Bussey, who had been rumored to under consideration for a promotion. Full memos after the jump. More »
gotcha journalismism
The good news for the Wall Street Journal's editors is that the above story was not moved in violation of its embargo — it ran just after midnight, as apparently required by the originating source. As the Silicon Alley Insider notes,that signals the Journal's adherence to a choreographed style of journalism recently-departed managing editor Marcus Brauchli opposed. The bad news: The fact that the story starts with "EMBARGOED!" signals that the Journal's copy editors are stretched quite thin this summer weekend (the LA Times feels your pain, WSJ). [Silicon Alley Insider]
WSJ Short On Copy Editors, Too
The good news for the Wall Street Journal's editors is that the above story was not moved in violation of its embargo — it ran just after midnight, as apparently required by the originating source. As the Silicon Alley Insider notes,that signals the Journal's adherence to a choreographed style of journalism recently-departed managing editor Marcus Brauchli opposed. The bad news: The fact that the story starts with "EMBARGOED!" signals that the Journal's copy editors are stretched quite thin this summer weekend (the LA Times feels your pain, WSJ). [Silicon Alley Insider]
media
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Dumps CEO
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, the domestic queen's massive publishing and television conglomerate, has just announced that its CEO, Susan Lyne, has (ahem) "stepped down." Replacing Lyne will be two co-CEOs—an equivocation that often signals that a company was not well prepared for an executive transition. Lyne came on as head of the company when Martha Stewart went to jail in 2004, and has presided over a big drop in MSLO's stock price. But while her departure may have been inevitable, it's not necessarily a productive move. The magazine industry is in an irreversible decline, and no number of firings will change that fact. Sorry! More »
rumormonger
Claim: Wall Street Journal Page One Staff Dissolved
A tipster is telling us that the Wall Street Journal's fabled Page One staff will be dissolved into the news desk. Page One editor Mike Williams would become a "roving features editor," which sounds much less powerful. The Page One desk is responsible, among other things, for the often breezy but always well-researched A-Hed feature, which has been increasingly marginalized as the Journal's front page gets newsier. Its disbanding would mark only the latest move by new editor Robert Thomson to remake the Journal in the image of the Financial Times, Thomson's former employer and a favorite of ultimate Journal overlord Rupert Murdoch. In fact, the paper's old guard is said by our insider to be grumbling that recent FT-like stories, like the front page article on alleged flaws in the Libor benchmark lending rate, are shoving aside "stories that appeal beyond the circle of Murdoch's friends in the global elite." But not all veteran editors are suffering under a cluster of changes said to be coming down in the coming days. More »
scandal
