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Mixed Media

Mixed Media

by Jeff Bercovici

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Apr 23 09 5:59pm EDT

Late Breaks: Twitter and the 'Times,' more

-Some guy thinks The New York Times Co., which doesn't make enough money, can save its bacon by buying Twitter, which makes no money. I think some guy needs to go back to math school. [HBR] -New York Observer editor Peter Kaplan, who's leaving the paper after 15 years, may land in the No. 2 job at Condé Nast Traveler. [WWD] -People now spend more time on Facebook than the do using web-based email. [The Deal]. □


Apr 23 09 4:10pm EDT

CNN Partner's Polling Finds CNN Fair, Balanced

A lot of people think Fox News is too critical of President Obama. As headlines go, that bit of information -- the chief takeaway from this week's News Index Survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press -- is right up there with dog bites man. More interesting, perhaps, is who's doing the asking. Pew's survey of 1,000 American adults was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, a polling firm that works closely with Fox's main competitor, CNN. According to its website, "ORC is proud to be an official partner of CNN on the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll, conducting national, speech reaction, state and flash/overnight polls for the world's most trusted name in news." And "the world's most trusted name in news" came out pretty well in this week's survey, wouldn't you know ... Continue


Apr 23 09 3:19pm EDT

'Scientific American' Editor Out in Reorg

The recession has finally come to Scientific American. Editor in chief John Rennie and half a dozen or so of his underlings are leaving amid a major reorganization as the 164-year-old magazine gets absorbed into Macmillan's Nature Publishing Group. More than 20 employees have been let go overall, including president Steven Yee ... Continue


Apr 23 09 8:20am EDT

Idle Chatter: MySpace, Nerve, 'Millionaire,' more

-As expected, Chris DeWolfe is out as CEO of MySpace. His co-founder, Tom Anderson, is expected to leave the social-networking site but hang around at News Corp. in some capacity. [LAT] -Nerve.com's CEO, formerly of The Onion, is planning an advertiser-friendly remake for the highbrow sex site. [Fine on Media] -Viacom is launching a new cable channel, a sister to BET, aimed at older African-American viewers. [NYT] -Barry Diller's IAC is trying to sell Very Short List, the email newsletter about cultural must-haves started by Kurt Andersen. [NYP] -ABC is bringing back Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Regis Philbin and all, for a 10th-anniversary run in primetime this summer. [AP]. □


Apr 22 09 4:15pm EDT

Late Breaks: 'Observer' Editor Resigns, more

-Peter Kaplan is stepping down after 15 years as editor of the New York Observer. He says he wants to spend more time with his family -- really! -- and maybe find a job where he helps figure out how to save journalism. [NYO] -There were newsroom layoffs at the Chicago Tribune today, although not as many as had been rumored were coming -- 53 vs. 100. [ChiTrib] -A man from Papua New Guinea who was the protagonist of a story by anthropologist Jared Diamond in The New Yorker is suing, saying Diamond presented as facts all kinds of anecdotes that never really happened and the magazine didn't bother to fact-check him. [Stinky Journalism]. □


Apr 22 09 2:31pm EDT

One Marriage, One Memoir, Two Opinions

Can the longest-running power marriage in publishing survive a literary self-appraisal? Legendary non-fiction author Gay Talese recently told The New York Times that he's working on a book about his 50-year union to noted editor Nan, of Random House's Nan A. Talese/Doubleday imprint. Both were present at a cocktail party Newsweek held last night to celebrate editor Jon Meacham's Pulitzer Prize in biography for his book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. I asked them -- separately -- whether Nan will read Gay's writing while it's in progress. Gay: "I hope not. She has a tough hand -- a very tough editor. She has a blue pencil stuck in her thumb." Nan: "Yes. I read every page as he finishes it, aloud, to him. And I'll learn a lot as I read aloud, as I have in the past." ... Continue


Apr 22 09 11:12am EDT

Is Chris DeWolfe Still Feeling 'Blessed'?

Probably not. TechCrunch reports the MySpace CEO is out of a job. The ouster, not yet confirmed, comes shortly after News Corp. hired AOL veteran Jonathan Miller as its new head of digital media, and eighteen months after DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, his fellow MySpace co-founder, renewed their contracts (a development first reported here) ... Continue


Apr 22 09 9:51am EDT

Number Crunch: Valuing Huffpo vs. 'WaPo'

"At some point the value of the Huffington Post will no doubt pass the value of the Washington Post," writes Mark Penn in The Wall Street Journal. Maybe we shouldn't trust the prognostications of a guy who's mostly famous for managing Hillary Clinton to defeat in the 2008 Democratic primaries -- and whose calculations about the number of Americans blogging for a living are highly suspect. But this is kind of a fun game to play. When will the Huffington Post be worth more than the Washington Post? ... Continue


Apr 22 09 8:58am EDT

Idle Chatter: Hollywood Hatefest, Carol Bartz, more

-You thought the New York media world was a snake pit? The journalists covering Hollywood -- trade reporters, newspaper writers and, especially, bloggers -- all despise each other and don't mind saying so. [NYO] -Another bad quarter, another 5 percent workforce reduction at Yahoo. Also, new CEO Carol Bartz lived up to her reputation for sailor talk on the earnings call. [CNET, MediaFile] -The New York Times Co. won't accede to a demand by the Boston Globe's union that all their negotiations be public. [Globe] -A study suggesting that heavy Facebook use by students results in lower grade should be viewed with skepticism. [WSJ] -Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich won't be appearing on a reality TV series anytime soon, says a judge. [Sun-Times]. □


Apr 21 09 4:44pm EDT

Late Breaks: Web-Only 'P-I' Flounders, more

-So much for the faint hope that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer might be able to maintain its web traffic with no print edition and a fraction of the staff. Seattlepi.com was down 23 percent year-over-year in unique visitors in March. [E&P] -John Koten has stepped down from his job as CEO of Fast Company and Inc. Some think a couple of obnoxious memos he wrote not long ago had something to do with it. [Crain's] -Washingtonian magazine used a shirtless photo of Barack Obama on its current cover, and it digitally changed the color of his swim trunks from black to red, possibly to suggest he's a Communist. [Huffpo]. □


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