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"I do think that the quality which makes a man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and is masochistic. Like one of those guys who has a compulsion to take his thing out and show it on the street." - James Jones
EWA reports, "The National Education Writers Association has ventured into new territory with the hiring of former Washington Post reporter Linda Perlstein as its newly created Public Editor."
The New York Times reports, "In just the last few weeks, The San Diego Union-Tribune eliminated more than 100 jobs, one-tenth of its work force. The Chicago Sun-Times began a major round of newsroom layoffs, then put itself up for sale, and publishers in Minneapolis and Philadelphia warned that tough economics could force cuts there. Some major newpapers have several times as many readers online as in print, but grim financial reports have forced the papers to downsize.
Not long ago, news like that would have drawn much commentary and hand-wringing in the newspaper business, but in the last few months, reductions have become so routine that they barely make a ripple outside each paper's hometown. Since mid-2007, major downsizing -- often coupled with grim financial reports -- has been imposed at The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The San Jose Mercury News, USA Today and many others."
MergersUnleashed.com reports, "Randy Michaels, who late last year was tapped to be the Tribune Co.'s Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of broadcasting and interactive properties, will be elevated to CEO of the entire company, according to a source familiar with the Chicago-based media conglomerate."
The Pew Weekly News Interest Index shows, "Public interest in economic news remained high last week as 40% of Americans followed news about the condition of the U.S. economy very closely. The economy has also become the dominant issue in the presidential campaign – when asked to name the one issue they have heard the most about from the candidates recently, 29% name the economy. While public interest in economic news is growing, the media remains mainly on the campaign."
Chicago Tribune reports, "The streamlining of Tribune Co. corporate operations that billionaire Sam Zell promised when he assumed control in December has begun with a string of layoffs this week. Around a dozen employees in the Chicago-based media concern's human resources department were informed their positions at Tribune Tower are being eliminated, according to sources."
Mixed Media reports, "The New York Times's op-ed section has been catching a lot of flak of late over everything from the hiring of intellectually-threadbare neoconservative Bill Kristol to Maureen Dowd's dateline sleight-of-hand to Roger Cohen's general suckiness. So I figured it was time to say something nice for a change. Fortunately, there's Gail Collins."
Is Philip Seib, a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, a Politico advertiser? In the Baltimore Sun, Seib said "his focus this election year has shifted to Web sites like Politico.com. 'I am spending more and more time with my computer," Seib says. "It is hard to find anything on TV that can compare with the kind of analysis of vote totals offered at Politico.com.'"
E&P reports, "The clear focus on editorial pages is the promotion of ideas and views and, of course, opinion. Some want newspapers to quit backing candidates, but these choices are among the most valid of those opinions and, for many readers, instructive or even nececessary."
Financial Times gets James Woods'take on living in DC.
An NBC release announced, "According to Nielsen Media Research
data, 'Meet the Press with Tim Russert' was the most-watched Sunday morning public affairs program, winning the week ending Sunday, February 3, 2008. On Sunday, the Russert-moderated program was No. 1, averaging 4.231 million total viewers"
TVNewser reports, "Romney Out: FNC is First, With The Source"
A release announced, "American Women in Radio & Television (AWRT) is pleased to announce that the recipient of the 2008 AWRT International Outreach Award is international journalist and author Mariane Pearl."
AJC.com reports, "Super Tuesday? Try the nightly combat between CNN, the Fox News Channel and MSNBC. A month ago, CNN finally whupped long-time cable news leader Fox News Channel, edging out its arch rivals in the New Hampshire primary coverage."
An ABC release announced, "During February 5th's Super Tuesday presidential primaries and caucuses, web and mobile users turned to ABC News' digital platforms for up-to-the-minute news and analysis. On Super Tuesday, ABC News Digital garnered all-time highs in traffic across all platforms continuing its record-breaking growth in January."
The Washington Blogger Meetup February Meetup is scheduled for Wednesday, February 20 at 7:00PM. Mark those calendars!
VentureBeat.com reports, "Search engine Ask.com has launched a new area of their site called Ask BigNews which combines news aggregation with elements of social news site Digg. Ask Big News describes itself as 'a search and browse service that helps you find and track the most important and most talked about stories in the news.'"
AP reports, "AOL had its slowest quarter of advertising growth since beginning its ambitious transformation into an ad-focused Internet business, increasing uncertainty about AOL's future especially as Microsoft Corp. boosts its ambitions in the same arena."
Dow Jones reports, "Chief Executive Barry Diller said Wednesday he doubted he would be interested in buying Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX) AOL Internet portal unless it was reduced to a 'ridiculous' price."
Wired reports, "Last year, there were a couple of articles about a back channel love-fest between senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and Matt Drudge. But it seems that Drudge still isn't beyond posting mean-spirited items online about the senator, and now in multi-media dimensions. Yesterday, Drudge posted this footage of Clinton on YouTube suffering from a coughing fit, and it quickly became the most viewed item, garnering more than 300,000 views overnight."
Google News reports, "Something you already know about Google News is that we crawl thousands of sources from around the world. This means you get as many different perspectives on a story from many perspectives. A while back, we started thinking about how to bring this same diversity of sources to local news, so that "local" doesn't necessarily mean 'limited'. Today we're releasing a new feature to find your local news by simply typing in a city name or zip code. While we're not the first news site to aggregate local news, we’re doing it a bit differently -- we're able to create a local section for any city, state or country in the world and include thousands of sources. We're not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located."
TextandIdeas.com reports, "Bill Adair is one of the lucky ones. His bosses at the St. Petersburg Times let him experiment with a new way of delivering news and do it full time, he told me in a recent e-mail Q&A. Adair founded PolitiFact.com and runs it with a small staff of writers and fact checkers from the St. Pete Times and its sister publication, Congressional Quarterly. Not only do they check the claims of candidates running for president, but they rate the truthfulness of those claims on a scale from 'True' to 'Pants-on-fire.'"
Check out The Prince of Petworth's profile of The Washington City Paper's Angela Valdez.
Poynter Online reports, "As many newspapers continue to falter financially, the quest for a new business model to support journalism continues. The Jan. 29 episode of American Public Media's Future Tense explored a controversial option: direct or indirect government subsidies to prop up newspapers."
"Over the years, Washingtonian has written profiles about nearly every important political candidate in this year's presidential race. Here's a roundup of some of our favorite political articles."
Time's James Poniewozik writes, "Writing about election coverage, I have disclosed, probably to the point of tediousness, that I voted for Obama. I think it's a good thing for you to know, but I really do it for me. It's important to me that I have enough perspective to critique campaign coverage whether it works for my candidate or against him. Having you know more about where I'm coming from helps you keep me honest and forces me to police myself."
A release announced, "Beginning Feb. 11, 2008, WAMU 88.5's The Kojo Nnamdi Show will join XM Radio as part of the satellite radio service's line-up for 'The Power' (XM Channel 169), the nation's only 24-hour radio channel exclusively dedicated to African-American talk programming. The Kojo Nnamdi Show will air at 7 p.m., and 11 p.m., weekdays on 'The Power.'"
Also, "WAMU 88.5 will broadcast live coverage of the Virginia, Maryland, and District of Columbia presidential primaries at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008. Kojo Nnamdi, host of The Kojo Nnamdi Show, and WAMU 88.5 News Director Jim Asendio will co-host the program. Jonetta Rose Barras, political analyst for The Politics Hour with Kojo and Jonetta, will provide in-studio analysis and commentary. WAMU 88.5 news reporters will contribute live field reports from polling sites throughout the region."
Public Radio reports, "The number of people turning to the Internet for campaign coverage has tripled since 2000. While the Web still lags television in viewership and ad revenue, it's making some big gains as a source of political coverage."
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