Got a blind item, interesting link, funny note, comment, birthday, anniversary or anything of the sort for Morning Reading List? Drop us a line or let us know in the tips box below.
We've got your morning mix of media Muesli after the jump...
No one guessed it, but yesterday's photo was from Banana Republic. On his Facebook page, Brian Beutler says he "wants to thank all his amazing friends for the best possible week under the worst possible circumstances." Bela Fleck is 50! Washington Times' Ryan O'Halloran says that he's having some identification issues. FamousDC is on a mission. "Let's figure out where thehotfile works." It's David Brinkley's birthday. Chris Cillizza discusses "How Matt Drudge Rules the (Political) World." Playbook reports, "CHATTER -- The Regional Reporters Association toasts Suzanne Struglinski for her work as 2007-2008 RRA president and dogged Washington correspondent for the Deseret News of Salt Lake City -- FRIDAY at the National Press Club, in the Truman Lounge upstairs after 5 p.m. Suzanne was also a stalwart of the Romney press corps. The regional reporters are Washington correspondents for metro dailies around the country -- a romantic, hard-working breed that was once a huge contingent in Washington but is becoming an endangered species -- ironic, at a time when readers are demanding localized coverage from their newspapers." Chicago Tribune presents "Our 50 favorite magazines." And Playboy.com asks, "Who is the web's hottest blogger?" Chris Matthewsis ranked #4 by PunditWatch (David Brooks is at #7). And on a completely different note, FamousDC writes, "We Could Understand Viqueira ... but David Gregory?." Today's "Angry Journalist" rant of the day: "really bad things are about to happen." Check out today's White House Photo of the Day from Time.
Gorkana reports, "Jonathan Kaplan, who has written for The Hill, Washingtonian Magazine, The New York Sun, The Baltimore Sun, American Lawyer and the New York Times sports section and who most recently was the Washington, D.C. Correspondent for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, is now available for freelance commissions."
Suzanne Struglinski, former RRA president and formerly of the Deseret News, tells us regarding her recent lay-off, "My editor flew up Monday to tell me that it was my last day of work and the paper is closing its Washington Bureau.....a bureau it has had for about 60 years I have been told. I was the only person in the bureau so no more job for me."
Reflections of a Newsosaur reports, "Upcoming cuts at a pair of Tribunes show how publishers are nibbling away at the long-held standard for the minimum number of journalists deemed necessary to staff a newsroom. The unwritten but widely honored rule of thumb in the industry always has been that a newspaper should employ one journalist for every 1,000 in daily circulation. But plans announced today to lighten the Chicago Tribune newsroom by some 14% to 498 journalists will drop the ratio there to 0.88 newsfolk for every 1,000 of the paper's 556.8k daily readers. The staff will be 25.7% smaller than it was in 2005, according to the newspaper."
Recovering Journalist writes, "Because as layoffs and cutbacks continue to course through newsrooms, in no small part because of longstanding and chronic management incompetence, newspaper company CEOs still are taking home the big bucks, and even getting nice raises in their base pay."
The Chicago Tribune reports, "It's not as though the Chicago Tribune would rerun old stories to reduce costs, but you can be excused for feeling as though you've read this one before: Tribune staffers were told Tuesday that the paper plans to eliminate 80 of its current 578 newsroom positions by the end of August in response to declining revenue."
DCist reports, "At the beginning of June, the Washington Times launched a fancy redesign of their web site to incorporate a lot of overdue Web 2.0 features, like 400,000 specialized news feeds by topic (neat) and a bunch of new video and audio features (sure, OK). They also moved their nearly nonexistent local coverage into the A section, which we hoped might mean a new emphasis on local news, but so far that hasn't been the case."
Press Think reports, "Tree House Media Project Debuts."
Washingtonian reports, "Welcome to the Blogger Beat, an interview with our favorite local bloggers every Wednesday. This week, we catch up with Rusty of Why I Hate DC -- and just in time! Our pal who loves to hate is moving to Ohio next week. Read on to find out what Rusty won’t miss, what he will -- hint: a news anchor with an earring -- and his parting words to Washington."
A release announced, "More than 8,000 images of major American figures —Presidents, movie stars, athletes, artists--go online at www.stanleytretick.com. Stanley Tretick, an award-winning photojournalist, died in 1999, and left his photo archive to the writer Kitty Kelley. As legal representative for the estate, Kelley has worked with Victoria Rehberg of ArtVision Exhibitions to set up the Web site for historians, librarians, photo researchers, publishers, and collectors."
