• Rupert Murdoch is still willing to pour money into the New York newspaper wars, "decline of the newspaper industry" be damned. He will not rest until he can claim superiority over the NYT as a general interest paper in the NYC market. Or he will die trying, literally!
• People most likely to be angry about this: The WSJ's Boston bureau, which was recently closed.
• People who should be most worried about this: New York Post staffers. Every dollar Rupert puts into the WSJ is a dollar that he's not putting into the Post. Which already has very good local coverage, in a vile tabloidy way.
• People who may view this news with keen interest: The 100 New York Times newsroom staffers who have to be gone by the end of the year. "Hiring," you say?

The Wall Street Journal, bless its nilla heart, breaks this story and undermines it in the course of two paragraphs:

"Do you think that hip-hop would be an appropriate area for NEA to fund?" I inquired.

"Absolutely. And mural painting and graffiti are art. There are popular aspects of all the arts that I think shouldn't be ignored."

Funding hip-hop-the best of which is rhythmically poetic, but commonly punctuated by profanity, violence and/or misogynistic sexuality-could put the previously embattled agency back in the crosshairs of the decency police.

Sure, rappers have rhythm. Many can dance! But, you know...bitches and hoes. Guns and malt liquor. Pussy and weed. Glocks and rocks. The WSJ thinks you know what it means. The things those people talk about. [Pic: Rob Gale]

Bucking the current media trend of "Everybody's broke," Vice is throwing a nice $250,000 Halloween party in Williamsburg to celebrate its 15th anniversary, complete with "two floors of chaotic nostalgia, scary punk bands, full-on rave DJs, a skate ramp, glow sticks, grunge, big pants, gangsta rap, marijuana-scented flannel, and serious slacker vibes." Our costume is "Terrified old Polish lady who wonders what the hell happened to her neighborhood."


This is a nice thing: The Columbia Journalism Review is giving fellowships to four laid-off journalists, "that will provide downsized professionals with a writing position as well as support to help them choose how best to use their experience in the years ahead." Hopefully a living wage is include? We support this! Why should the lucky employed people get all the cushy academic awards?


Since magazines started dying 438 years ago, people have been talking about developing a successful "Netflix for magazines" thing (we're not counting the unsuccessful attempt, already made). Hey, what does the founder of Netflix think?

When asked if magazines should try a model similar to his, Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, said, "It's certainly worth a shot."
But does Hastings subscribe to magazines? "No, I read them online," he said.

Magazines: fucked.


The Wall Street Journal has reportedly won the "coveted" Newspaper Circulation title, besting USA Today. Rupert Murdoch will celebrate by only staying at a Holiday Inns from now on, and never reading anything longer than 400 words ever again.

Is this the end of Sam Zell, failed newspaperman? The NYP says the gnomish, mean rich man is "on the verge of giving up his claims to buy a huge stake in the company and, according to a source familiar with the matter, is ready to walk away from the company." Tribune Co. employees—whose money Zell used to buy the bankrupt company—will be happy to see him go. But not as sad as they were to see him come.


A federal judge ruled that former WSJ assistant managing editor Carolyn Phillips can pursue her lawsuit alleging that Dow Jones fired her in 2002 because she was black. The WSJ's former editors deny it all. And Rupert Murdoch is just cold sitting back being like "I didn't even own the paper back then, suckas." Then he fires a black person somewhere, just for fun.


Former NYT Hollywood reporter Sharon Waxman didn't like the NYT's (pretty awesome I thought!) profile of Harvey Weinstein last weekend—for one thing it was by a reporter Waxman referred to as "David Segal (um, who?)." Turns out she worked with him at the Washington Post and even shared a byline with him. Our editor Gabriel Snyder knows Hollywood and would probably have something insightful to say here, but unfortunately I have no idea who Gabriel Snyder is.
[New insta-joke: "UM WHO?" Haha!]


"Huffington Post + Facebook = the Future of Journalism." No.

This is interesting mostly just for being a candid look into how your news stories get made: McClatchy DC's online managing editor Mark Seibel accidentally forwarded this email chain to a marketing list, woops. It's a convo between Seibel and Jay Price, a reporter at The News & Observer in North Carolina, about how to approach a story about a lawsuit alleging that Blackwater's founder was responsible for murders in Iraq. This is what journalists do! Let's not get all wing-nutty about these things. (We know that some right-wing bloggers are getting wing-nutty about this right now). Jay Price seems like a very balanced man, we must say.

On Aug 5, 2009, at 11:15 AM, Seibel, Mark wrote:
> You guys doing anything on the murder alegations?

From: Jay Price
To: Seibel, Mark
Sent: Wed Aug 05 11:30:32 2009
Subject: Re: Blackwater?

dunno, sent the material to joe yesterday but we havent talked. I'm on night cops rotation all this week since we no longer can afford night cops reporters.

I would be careful about how seriously I took this stuff.....The allegations are anonymous and part of a lawsuit that frankly is pretty shaky with some wilder stuff re: child prostitution etc.
Norfolk wrote it because its in their yard, but their story was pretty lukewarm. This is not the same as someone publically saying this stuff happened.
They are prone to threats but its been essentially junior HS boy cheft puffing, no sense they would ever do this or that the talk of christian crusades... they shot a lot in iraq but if there were lots of intentional killings we'd know about it.

On Aug 5, 2009, at 11:39 AM, Seibel, Mark wrote:
> I don't know about that last part. I think there were many intentional killings. Let me know if you guys decide to do something.

From: Jay Price
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 12:24 PM
To: Seibel, Mark
Subject: Re: Blackwater?

will do. I mean intentional in the sense described in lawsuit, where they are alleged to have gone over on a christian crusade to kill iraqis.
The allegations of killing potential whistleblowers is another red flag on this. victim(s ) are unnamed and it's not as if there are a ton of potential candidates. BW didnt lose but a handful there and most are known issues — fallujah and chopper shoot downs/crashes.
So we have unnamed accusers, no names or circumstances for alleged victims etc. , lawyers who have been really pushing the limits of credibility and Jeremy Scahill who has made a career out of sensationalizing.... worth digging at, but there isn't even a small piece of solid evidence to support this stuff. Eric is Catholic and surely religious but the guys he put in the field were no more interested in religion than anyone else, and prob less so.

On Aug 5, 2009, at 12:26 PM, Seibel, Mark wrote:
> i imagine that's true — that the contractors themselves weren't driven by religion. they were driven by money

From: Jay Price
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 1:18 PM
To: Seibel, Mark
Subject: Re: Blackwater?

Joe's hacking through the two guys' statements to see if there is somewhere further to push it. He and I are both aware of threats to folks inside the company not to talk but his take is this new stuff is not huge ..... will let you know if he starts to pursue.

Crime site looks good, wish we had a vast promotional budget for stuff like that.... it could take off with enough spotlight.

From: Seibel, Mark
Date: Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Subject: FW: Blackwater?
To: Wash Buro Web Marketing

let's be watching for this.

That last "To" address was the mistake!


Terrible terrible media news roundup: CNBC's lost almost 30% of its audience in the past year. Roll Call is canning executives. Some smart people think BusinessWeek will fold. And Newhouse Newspapers "is planning to remove its long-standing 'no-layoffs' pledge." It will be replaced with a "layoffs" pledge.


The WSJ reportedly has a new policy of refusing embargoes on stories, unless they're exclusives, or "unless the story is considered big enough." So this mostly applies to you, publicist with the "EMBARGOED: BunnyCollector.com Issuing Brand New Plush Bunny Figurine In New Color: Orange" press release. You are totally screwed.


Pay attention, Jack Shafer has a very serious statement to make about Dana Milbank's proclivities for japes 'n jibes: "I'm not really a fan of Milbank and Cillizza's brand of humor. But to put a finer point on it, I'm actually not a fan of any kind of humor. The very essence of humor is aggression. The point of most jokes is to inflict psychological suffering and pain-to transgress and make someone the butt." Ha, he said "the butt."

Rupert Murdoch's son James personally authorized a $1.1 million our-of-court settlement payment to Gordon Taylor, the CEO of the Professional Footballers' Association, after Taylor found out last year his phone had been illegally hacked by the Murdoch tabloid News of the World. Rupert Murdoch himself has said he had no idea this whole phone-tapping business, or the associated payoffs, were going on. Hmm. That seems to appear ever less likely.

The latest volley in the gentlemanly WSJ vs. NYT newspaper wars:

New York Times bonds, like many these days, are signaling substantial risk. The March 2015 notes are yielding 11%, or more than four times as much as "risk-free" bonds issued by the U.S. government. Anyone confident the Times can avoid bankruptcy within the next six years can simply borrow against their home at around 5.5%, invest the money at 11% and make themselves rich.
I wish them luck.

Oh yea? Well watch how you eat your words, WSJ, when...somebody else tries this. Anybody?

Everybody was worried that NBC's show "The Wanted," a laughable version of "To Catch a Predator" focused on catching terrorists or some shit, would irrevocably blur the lines of journalistic ethics and hurt NBC's "credibility," etc. Well, its premiere last night "was the least watched program on broadcast TV," so it's a moot point.

Here's an amusing little thing: Incisive Media boss Bill Pollak has a blog. The bureau chief from GlobeSt.com got called to active military duty in Afghanistan, so Pollak interviewed him, for the blog. His finest question: "I also couldn't help asking if he had anything to report about commercial real estate in Kabul for the benefit of his GlobeSt colleagues." Uhh. The response: "Well, I guess you could say that the occupancy could use some growth. It's at about 0%." Heh.

Last night, media mogul Steven Brill sent us—unsolicited—his thoughts on the possibility of the New York Times charging for its website, which we wrote about yesterday. We will reproduce his thoughts in full, because how often do you get free, unsolicited musings from a media mogul on the area of his expertise (his new gig, Journalism Online, is all about this), even after you have derided him as usually wrong? Brill writes:

1. We have found in creating models like this for our newspaper and magazine affiliates that one of the other key advantages for them is that charging for online will actually enhance their PRINT revenues and circulation. There are two reasons: First, it allows the paper to "bundle" a discount offer for both, so that a would-be print subscriber or renewer can be offered a discount on his online subscription if he or she takes the print edition. (As in "Save 50% off the online subscription if you renew your print subscription.") You can't do that if you're not putting any value on, and not charging for, the online version. Second, if you keep giving one version (online) away for free, then you increasingly undercut sales of the other (print) version, not to mention your ability to raise the price on the newsstand, something most newspapers and magazines are trying to do. The long and short of it is that where papers have charged online in Europe and the U.S. they have enhanced their PRINT revenues. Indeed, the list of newspapers in the U.S. that have not suffered losses in print circulation lately looks like a list of those that are charging for their online versions.

2. In the models we are developing with affiliates, we show that you really needn't give up much if any online ad revenues when you charge online, because you really don't reduce your traffic much. That's because you can use a variety of methods to maintain most of your current (free) page views, such as: only charging readers who visit online more than, say, five time a month; only charging readers who visit frequently and who are outside your geographic base (locally-based online advertisers aren't paying to reach them anyway; or allowing readers to sample the first two paragraphs of a story before asking them to pay. We have created about 15 such varieties of free visits/sampling/charging methods. All of them contradict the notion of some kind of magic "pay wall" suddenly coming down and charging everyone for everything.

Rebecca Dana, reporter for the WSJ's Speakeasy blog and subject of the august paper's sultriest headcut ever, is leaving to take a job with the Daily Beast—her "dream job," she says. "I'm going to write about culture for them, with a focus on fashion. Will also do some editing and some general entertainment/media stuff," Dana tells us. She adds, "You won't have this stipple-portrait to kick around any more!" Oh?

The Claremont, NH Eagle Times folds, leaving the town without a newspaper. The Washington City Paper brushed off criticisms from witless Marion Barry fans who could not recognize the unadulterated brilliance of their latest cover. And other papers continue to try to fashion some sort of overarching editorial philosophy for the Huffington Post. Hint: It doesn't exist.

Do not expect Bill Keller to laugh and chuckle the next time a satirical cable news show comes calling! He says about his Daily Show experience: "Well, that's the last time I try to be a good sport. Even my wife told me that I looked faintly ridiculous, and she was trying to make me feel better. Among the people who would miss us most would be the wise-guy pundits and scriptwriters for satirical TV shows, because they riff on the news we produce." Bill Keller will punch Jason Jones right in the snoot, on sight.

Danger: Paste Magazine is reportedly in trouble—this blog says staffers are taking a 20% pay cut, and the magazine is "trying to scrounge up enough money to put out the next issue." If you are a fan of Paste Magazine, now is the time to buy 100 subscriptions. Update: Paste editor Josh Jackson has confirmed reports of the publication's troubled finances in a letter to contributors apologizing for late payments and an announcement of a fundraising campaign to save the music magazine.


But here's a god damn inspirational thing: 76 year-old trade mag Industrial Equipment News was folded by its publisher in March. But a group of former employees is going to resurrect it in September! This is the most heartwarming industrial trade magazine news of the week.

Seems that the newspapers in Thailand have their own cultural "way" of selling papers: By making the front pages a "Gallery of gore," with photos such as "a meth dealer splayed dead beside a toilet, a married couple shot dead and slumped in their pick-up truck." So this is different from the New York Post how?


FishbowlNY hires Amanda Ernst as its new editor.

Important conservative Thinker, Jonah Goldberg of the National Review, wrote a whiny post about a post about him on Wonkette which was obviously the best possible thing that Wonkette's editors could have hoped for, because Jonah Goldberg is quite clearly revealing himself to be terribly sensitive to what is written about him on his drug-fueled enemy site, Wonkette. This is the problem with today's Republican Party.


As predicted, the WSJ is warning staffers about the perils of Twitter and Facebook and other online doodads that can be exploited by the hyenas of the internet such as ourselves. Basically as long as they never say or do anything that could be construed as "interesting," they'll be okay.

Warren Buffett: "For most newspapers in the United states, we would not buy them at any price... They have the possibility of going to just unending losses." America's greatest investor, ladies and gentlemen.


According to a tipster, Wenner Media's Men's Journal laid off five people on Friday, and they were all women. COINCIDENCE? If you have any details, confirmations, or denials on this, email us.


The New York Times is expected to raise its price as early as this week: up to $2 on weekdays and Saturdays, and $6 on Sundays. The paper is working hard to drive off its uncommitted readers and get down to its "core audience" of a few thousand very rich people on the Upper East Side. Then you build from there, see.

Veteran WSJ reporter John Wilke died last Friday at the age of 54. In his obit, the paper says:

He mentored many younger reporters. At his desk, he often juggled two calls at once, and he furtively guarded his stories — until he believed them ready for publication — from the prying eyes of editors.

He wrote and rewrote the leads of his articles, sometimes dozens of times, until he was happy with the tone and content,and he nursed story ideas for weeks or months, cultivating a slight air of mystery, while gathering threads.

All things that, at today's WSJ, would probably get him canned.


Former Portfolio publisher William Li has landed a new job as associate publisher of Conde Nast Traveler. Good for him. In other interesting contractual news: Us Weekly editor Janice Min's two-year contract—estimated to be worth well over $2 million—is up this summer. Interesting to see how much less she gets this time around if she re-ups. Times are tough.

Run out and scoop up as many copies of this week's Newsweek as possible, because it's the last one in its old format before the redesign comes along later this month. Also Anna Quindlen is giving up her column there. I will notify my mom, the only person I can think of who still reads Newsweek.

Dear Ryan [Tate],

Your piece on the WSJ editor's leaked memo was interesting (as were the comments that followed). The memo by WSJ's Robert Thomson,
however, contained some strange analysis.

He says the Wall Street Journal was one of the only newspapers to show growth. This statement misses a major point:

The increase (0.6%) was driven by a 31,000 increase in Electronic circulation and a 102,000-copy (+21%) increase in deeply-discounted subscriptions — in some cases selling print subscriptions as a $10. "add-on" to an $89. wsj.com subscription. In reality, the Wall Street Journal lost 6% of its full-price subscriptions.

While the WSJ was up overall in copies sold, it was down 1.1% in print.

In these latest circulation figures, as filed with Audit Bureau of Circulations, subject to audit, The New York Times performed significantly better than the industry, showing modest declines (-3.5% daily, -1.7% on Sunday) in total circulation, but demonstrating strength in our National circulation as well as newsstand copies, results that were boosted by the incredible excitement during and following the election cycle.

Two years ago The New York Times changed its circulation strategy to pursue more highly-profitable, high-retention circulation, with less emphasis on things such as outbound telemarketing or special promotions that were expensive and resulted in high churn rates. Instead we are focusing on building our core of loyal readers. For example we have more than 830,000 subscribers who have been with us for two years or more, up from 650,000 in 2000. Our focus is on attracting a high-quality audience of individually-paid subscribers.

The NYT remains the largest 7-day newspaper in the U.S. and has won 101 Pulitzer Prizes and citations— including the five Pulitzers it was awarded last week — more than any other news organization.

Diane

Diane McNulty
Executive Director of Community Affairs and Media Relations
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Boston Globe: Still angry about this whole "Give up all your money or be shut down" thing. Union members are upset, defiant, and vowing to fight. Good luck to them, but in the end they'll have to give in, along with their bosses, along with everyone else at the NYT Co., and everyone else in journalism anywhere.


Media company stocks have been doing slightly better recently, but don't worry: forecasters are sure that things will "turn ugly again" soon.

....Although you can always go the LA Times route and put a fake advertorial on your front page, or do one better, as the UCLA student paper did: wrap their entire paper with a full, mock front page advertorial, which was designed and written by a marketing department. The paper's editors ran a pissy editorial about how much they hated it but ultimately ran it anyhow, because they needed the money. This would have been a great thing for us to get all judgey about, a year ago.


WSJ.com, the only major newspaper website that successfully got people to pay for it, now has a plan to expand its paywall and make even more people pay for it. Those guys are the absolute vanguard of money. No joke.

How dainty is Politico? It's quite dainty indeed! The site wrote a story about Arlen Specter appearing on Howard Stern's show, and pulled info from a site called MarksFriggin.com. This was written up on Politico.com as: "So, here are some of the exchanges, via MarksFr—--en.com, a site run by a guy who live-blogs Howard's every on-air utterance." Haha, they can't say "Friggin." Would you like a tea cozy to go with your milquetoast that you eat with your pet chihuahua in a pink sweater on the veranda while wearing a tutu made of lemon drops? Ha. Politico.

The Ann Arbor (Michigan) News is going the Seattle P-I route, folding its print paper and going online-only, with a skeleton staff. Expect to see a lot of failing papers try this in the coming year—it's a relatively cheap gamble, and it it actually works, you retain the paper's valuable brand at a fraction of the price. But who knows if it will actually work! Also worth noting that this paper is owned by Advance, which just announced mandatory furloughs and cutbacks at its other papers. Advance also owns Conde Nast, and this may or may not be an indicator of larger financial issues there.

Two new magazines are starting up, now! They're parenting magazines in Long Island. Line up, J-school grads.

News from my home state: In Ocala, FL (childhood home of John Edwards' mistress!) the editor of "an award-winning local lifestyle magazine" plagiarized national news outlets at least 20 times, including one story that was lifted verbatim and published as a column on said editor's upcoming wedding. The lady's excuse: "Producing 17 issues a year is a huge responsibility." Mmm hmm. In her defense, that excuse is not as far-fetched as the notion that Ocala, FL has "an award-winning local lifestyle magazine."

The weekly paper in Carbondale, Colorado folded, so the citizens there just pulled together and put out a paper themselves, volunteer-style! Would this work in LA?

WSJ editor Robert Thomson is the bearer of good news! All his staff's mandatory hard work is paying off. This memo went out today:

Dear All,

Amidst the bleak, almost apocalyptic prognostications for the
newspaper industry, it is worth focusing for a moment on the increase
in the Journal's audience over the past year. We are the only large
paper in the country seeing a significant increase in core circulation
(papers for which people actually pay). The website, depending on the
month, has virtually doubled in size since the News Corp acquisition,
the WSJ mobile reader (stats attached) is a phenomenon, and the new
sports page has cult status.

The first slide in this immodest set is from our latest
reader-tracking study which long predates the News Corp purchase. It
is fair to say that the researchers have never seen such positive
returns during a survey period. Former subscribers are now twice as
likely to resubscribe. There is no doubt that revenue remains
"challenged", but there is a large and growing audience for our
content,

Robert.

Yesterday it was reported that WCBS anchor Steve Bartelstein had abruptly quit his job for unclear reasons. Now we know why, straight from Steve Bartelstein: "I'm leaving because I've been promoted several times, and yet, no raises, despite anchoring more hours then our noon and 6pm anchors. I'm leaving mainly because I'm waiting for a paycheck that this week is now a WEEK late." He's not sure if he's taking a break or out of the TV biz forever, but either way, he should still get his last check, yes?


A Singapore court has fined a WSJ editor $6,500 for "unwarranted attacks" on the Singapore Judiciary in editorials in the paper. Man, does the Singapore Judiciary suck a big donkey dick or what? USA.


Fantastico, US atty. general Eric "Marijuana is my middle name" Holder says that he is in fact open to the idea of jiggering with antitrust laws to help the dying newspaper industry, an idea championed by Nancy Pelosi as well as every newspaper owner in America. "I think that we need to have a healthy, vibrant newspaper industry, and I don't mean just online," Holder said, right after he said he loves to read the news "on my computer and iPhone and all that." Eric Holder is the problem and the solution.


One report puts the price that a private equity firm paid for the San Diego Union-Tribune as just "a little more" than $15 million. That's damn near nothing! Probably the reason that the CEO of the Washington Post is selling off millions of dollars worth of his stock in the company. But maybe all the rich people at Microsoft would like to buy the New York Times? "No,'' said Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer, outside the McGraw-Hill Building in Manhattan this morning. "Not ‘no comment.' No." Hey man, you could have said that in a nicer way.

Dear All,

There is no doubt that co-operation between Newswires and Journal
journalists has improved markedly over the past year, but true
fraternity remains more nascent than mature. Our structure must
complement the needs of all Dow Jones readers and reflect the
contemporary value of what is crudely called "content". A breaking
corporate, economic or political news story is of crucial value to our
Newswires subscribers, who are being relentlessly wooed by less worthy
competitors. Even a headstart of a few seconds is priceless for a
commodities trader or a bond dealer – that same story can be
repurposed for a range of different audiences, but its value
diminishes with the passing of time.

Given that revenue reality, henceforth all Journal reporters will
be judged, in significant part, by whether they break news for the
Newswires. This is a fundamental shift in orientation which will also
require a fundamental change in the inaptly named Speedy system.

The Speedy was designed with a simple objective: the urgent
dissemination of breaking news unearthed by WSJ reporters. Apart from
being an important facet of the Newswires service, the system was
intended to enhance the newspaper's reputation as the world's leading
source of financial, business and general news. In the age of
digitally compressed content, the Speedy should have been a defining
advantage for Dow Jones – but, alas, too many of these items were
written in a way which neither made sense to Newswires users nor
maximized the value of the news they sought to convey.

The system is in need of revolution, not reform. We must all think
of ourselves as Dow Jones journalists and, at the least, have some
comprehension of the life-cycle of a news story and its relative worth
to our readers around the world. Not all content demands to be free
and our content, in particular, has a value that is sometimes better
recognised by our readers than our journalists. That we have multiple
opportunities to generate income from this content is in stark
contrast to many other revenue-challenged news organizations, which
have not sold their soul – they have merely given it away.

With these objectives in mind, we are sending Speedy to the
knackery and saddling up a successor, the URGENT. New nomenclature
alone will not generate news, so there must also be basic changes of
principle and practice at the Journal. A guide to the new system will
be published next week and we are aiming to launch on April 15. In
coming days, please raise any relevant issues with your bureau chief
or editor. There is much angst-ridden, vacuous debate about the fate
of American journalism – this is an important practical measure to
secure the long-term future of journalists at Dow Jones.

Robert.

Keep in mind—both stories relied on anonymous sources, but logic would dictate that the WSJ spoke directly to Rupert Murdoch (their boss), while the NYT probably spoke to Peter Chernin.

NYT:

After deciding over the weekend to leave the company after 20 years, Mr. Chernin attended the Academy Awards Sunday night, where "Slumdog Millionaire," a film released by a unit of the News Corporation that he oversees, won best picture.

WSJ:

The company has been planning for Mr. Chernin's departure... Mr. Chernin's departure was finalized over the weekend while both he and Mr. Murdoch were in Los Angeles, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Chernin attended the Academy Awards, where "Slumdog Millionaire," a film from News Corp.'s Fox Searchlight Pictures, won the award for best picture of the year.

NYT:

The company said that when Mr. Chernin leaves upon the expiration of his contract on June 30, those Los Angeles-based units of the company will report to Mr. Murdoch.

WSJ:

News Corp. plans to streamline the management structure, and Mr. Chernin's exit is expected to give more responsibility to well-regarded entertainment executives, including James Gianopulos, Tom Rothman and Peter Rice. Mr. Murdoch is also expected to spend more time in Los Angeles, though he is already involved in the entertainment businesses and keeps an office down the hall from Mr. Chernin's on the Fox studio lot. ... Mr. Chernin tended to be the public face of key businesses, including News Corp.'s entertainment and digital-media businesses, and analysts had fretted about the effects of his possible departure. Mr. Murdoch said in his statement that News Corp. is "fortunate to have such a strong and seasoned group of leaders at our Fox companies, and we are confident that our success will continue.

NYT:

Mr. Chernin, who has been the News Corporation's president and chief operating officer since 1996, mainly oversaw the company's Los Angeles-based businesses, like the 20th Century Fox film studio and the Fox broadcast network. Mr. Chernin joined the company in 1989 as president of entertainment at the Fox Broadcasting Company, overseeing the production of shows like "The Simpsons" and "Beverly Hills 90210." In 1992, he moved to the film side and became chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment; the studio released "Titanic" under his watch. ... In Hollywood, Mr. Chernin has generally been regarded as one of a very small handful of executives - Robert A. Iger of the Walt Disney Company and Barry Meyer of Warner Brothers are two others - who excelled at both the internal dynamics and the rapidly changing economic prospects of the entertainment industry.

WSJ:

Mr. Chernin joined News Corp. in 1989 as president of entertainment at Fox Broadcasting and in 1992 became president and CEO of the Fox movie studio, a post he held until his promotion to his current position in 1996.

See, when you talk to the paper, your side gets better coverage, which is the only reason anyone ever talks to the paper about anything. [Reporters involved care to object? Email us]

Kids these days—what are they doing? Well if they're unusually young to be smoking a tobacco pipe, then they're probably smoking a tobacco pipe!

Joanna Murakami, a statistics graduate student at University of California at Riverside, took up pipe smoking at 19 because "it looked like the coolest thing ever." The 24-year-old lights up about once a week.

Her reaction to onlookers, surprised at the sight of a young woman with a pipe? "I don't care," she says.

Thanks for enjoying today's Trend Story: Kids With Pipes. Coming up next week, we have, (rummaging in grab bag)... Old People Who Love Candy, and, (grab bag).... Babies With Onions on Their Belts.

Crack is Wack! [WSJ; Pic (of a random smoker) via]