Earlier today Portfolio picked up on an interview Huffington Post CEO Betsy Morgan recently gave to her alumni magazine in which she addresses HuffPo's no-pay policy (and yes, we are one of the many who have written for them) and seems to suggest that this is something that may change in the near future.

Not all of the plays have been written yet for this company. That said, we have a very good relationship with our bloggers; we're unbelievably respectful of them. By blogging, they get terrific exposure and our brand gives them a unique platform. We've had a positive two-way relationship with them. Could that include money at some point? Sure. But it feels very 1993 to say, 'Hey, it's all about the check that I get at the end of the month.'

Isn't time travel grand! However, before you get too, too excited, when we contacted HuffPo to get some clarification on this they told us: "There are no plans to pay our bloggers, but those who want to join our (growing) full-time staff of paid writers and editors are more than welcome to apply for positions as they become open." Meaning, we presume, that for the time being exposure will have to suffice, though, as we are all discovering, attention can be its own sort of payment. Use with care!

On Friday, Reflections of a Newsosaur's Alan D. Mutter drew our attention to seven newspaper companies, including News Corp. and The New York Times, whose stocks reached new lows. (In part, he blames lots of short selling, an interesting argument.) So how are those stocks doing today?

In a word, poorly.

All but two (News Corp. and Lee Enterprises) sunk even lower at some point today. While most have recovered value, the outcome is bleak. Hardest hit were GateHouse Media (down to $1.11 from $1.55) and Media General (from $10.34 to $10.23). McClatchy fell to $4.815. That extra half cent strikes us as an unnecessary splitting of hairs.

We hear from someone with knowledge of the deal that ContentNext, the company Rafat Ali sold to the Guardian News & Media group for a reported $30 mm, had revenues of "a few million" in 2007. (When we spoke with Ali, he declined to comment on any financial information.) The site does have a growing conference business and jobs section, and recently relaunched "research support" Ali tells us, but an estimated 10+ times revenues valuation seems high to us.

We're not experts in business transactions — although we did learn a fair amount during mediabistro.com's sale last year — and it's hard to evaluate ContentNext's finances without knowing more about the conference business (Ali says the "economy of scale" will make them cheaper to run), but in a struggling economy, the high value of this deal would seem to be based more on synergies with existing Guardian B2B properties (Emap perhaps?) than on ContentNext's revenue stream. Or maybe Tim Brooks, the newish managing director of Guardian Newspapers Limited, just wants to make a splash.

Regardless, our sincerest congratulations go out to Ali.

And finally, here's a video interview The Wall Street Journal's Kara Swisher conducted with him after the news broke yesterday morning.

Bolstered by growth in countries such as China and India and in the new media world, the global media market will hit $5.7 trillion in 2024, according to the Future of Media Report 2008 released by the Future Exploration Network. In just 16 years, the amount spent will more than triple from its current figure of $1.7 billion.

"In developed countries such as the US people are consuming media from multiple sources wherever they go," Ross Dawson, chairman of Future Exploration Network, said in a statement. "This will mean average media consumption will be 13 hours a day by 2020, and not long after that will be equivalent to all our waking hours. Advertisers will spend ever more to cut through this massive media overload."

Despite the sunny outlook, media company shares continue to fall through the floor.

Let's just give all our money to Google and be done with it.

Lauren Stanich is following in the footsteps of her colleague Debra Bishop, leaving Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for a position at Meredith Corporation. The former president of publishing will take over as a senior vice president of Meredith Publishing Group, where she'll oversee business, marketing and editorial for More and ReadyMade. (Bishop is the creative director of the former magazine.)

The announcement comes three weeks after MSLO chief executive officer Susan Lyne resigned following months of speculation. The departed CEO could join at Time Inc.

Stewart's company is launching a Philippines edition of Martha Stewart Weddings soon.

Newspaper reorganizations are all the rage these days, and Gannett Co., Inc — publisher of 85 daily newspapers, including USA Today — didn't want to be left out. The company, based in McLean, Virginia, announced on Friday that its turning its five regional groups into four: East, South, Interstate and West.

Current East head Curtis Riddle, also publisher of Wilmington, Delaware's The News Journal, will continue in his role. Carol O. Hudler, president and publisher of Fort Myers' The News-Press, will head up the South group, while Barbara A. Henry takes control of Interstate until her retirement on August 1. Finally, Laura L. Hollingsworth, president and publisher of The Des Moines Register, becomes group president of West.

According to a memo sent by Sam Zell to LAT and Chicago Tribune employees obtained by FishbowlLA, the debt-ridden Tribune Company is examining the possibility of selling the homes of both papers.

Partners,

When we started this adventure together, I made a point of saying we would challenge traditional thinking, that there would be no sacred cows, and that we would do everything possible to maximize the value of our assets.

With those objectives in mind, we are in the process of asking a number of real estate firms to give us their best thinking on how we can generate more value from Tribune Tower in Chicago, and the Times Mirror Square complex in Los Angeles.

We'll be considering numerous options to maximize the value of these properties. While a near-term transaction is possible, we'll be focusing on opportunities that allow for some level of ongoing occupancy in both buildings for the mid-term (defined as five years), for farther out (15 years), and beyond.

More here.

In his company's annual meeting today, Cyrus Freidheim, CEO of Sun-Times Media Group — what's left of disgraced and jailed baron Conrad Black's media empire — told shareholders that the company may go private.

In May, S-TMG stock was de-listed on the New York Stock Exchange after it fell well below a dollar. Freidheim said the company, called Hollinger International during Black's tenure, would continue to explore options to sell one or more of its businesses, which include more than 60 newspapers.

The McClatchy Co. publishing empire, which is the country's third-largest newspaper company, will lay off 10 percent of its work force due to a downturn in the economy, The Wall Street Journal reports. Chief executive Gary Pruitt called the cuts "painful" and said "We're taking this action to help ensure a healthy future for our company." The layoffs will effect 1,400 employees and trim roughly $70 million from its annual budget.

The announcement comes on the heels of the news that McClathy's advertising revenues fell 17 percent in May, leading to a company-wide revenue decline of 15 percent. Online ad sales rose 13 percent.

McClatchy's, whose Kevin McClatchy says his family is nothing like the Bancrofts, laid off 13 percent of its staff between the end of 2006 and April of this year.

We always thought the way to get rich was working in finance. But, given today's news, maybe we were wrong. There's just too much insecurity. All this time we should have been working at Discovery Communications LLC, home of the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

According to Sam Schechner at The Wall Street Journal, the company, which is about to go public, paid founder and chairman John Hendricks $57.9 million last year while CEO David Zaslav made $19.1 million in his first year on the job. Much of the value came from Discovery stock price, which increased 52 percent during 2007.

For comparison's sake, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman made $20.6 million, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves made $36.8 million and Rupert Murdoch made $32.1 million during 2007. So maybe we just need to be more of a big deal.