After it was reported in January that Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was taking control of Playboy Enterprises Inc., it appeared as though Hef was calling the shots and all was right in the bunny universe.  According to Jeff Bercovici of Forbes however, Hefner is really more of a figurehead whose title as owner is more honorary than it is rooted in any real controlling power.  Hefner is actually the junior partner of Icon Acquisition Holding LP and — by Moody’s Investors Service estimations — holds a 37 percent stake in the company.

A controlling 60 percent share of the venture is owned by Rizvi Traverse Management, the private equity firm involved in the Playboy buyout.  The remaining 3 percent belongs to Playboy CEO Scott Flanders.  While the numbers indicate that Hef is a minority partner, he still carries plenty of the perks of ownership including a $1 million annual salary, editorial control of Playboy, and continued lodging in the Playboy mansion for a small fee.

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In the February 14th issue of Forbes, Jeff Bercovici takes a look at the expansion of Bloomberg LP and what it means for the man behind the company. Bercovici notes that starting in 2009, with Bloomberg LP buying Businessweek, the company has been taking its reach far beyond its data-centric roots:

It has hired more than 100 journalists and analysts for a new service, Bloomberg Government, that launched in January, providing information about legislation and regulation for an annual fee of $5,700. Most recently it announced plans to expand coverage of the wealthy and to launch Bloomberg View, which will serve as the company’s equivalent of an op-ed page, producing opinion for all Bloomberg platforms.

While Bloomberg has remained silent on the presidential run subject, each of these moves has prompted the rumor mill to get louder and louder. He would probably be a force if does run, though he might have lost FishbowlNY’s vote for forgetting to plow Brooklyn’s streets. Brooklyn matters Bloomberg! Remember that!

After five-plus years as a business writer, Joe Nocera is making a move at The New York Times.  Jeff Bercovici reports that Nocera will join Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman by contributing to NYT’s op-ed page.  The move makes Nocera the Times’s first new, full-time op-ed columnist since Ross Douthat replaced Bill Kristol in 2009.

Prior to joining the Grey Lady in 2005, Nocera spent over a decade as editorial director at Fortune magazine.  He has won two Gerald Loeb awards and three John Hancock awards to mark his achievements in business writing.  Nocera also was a Pulitzer Prize finalist this past year.

David Shipley and James P. Rubin were named executive editors of The Bloomberg View less than a month ago and already they are moving offices.  Forbes.com’s Jeff Bercovici writes today that the two new hires will be splitting time between Bloomberg LP’s main offices on Lexington Avenue and the Bloomberg Family Foundation located on Madison Avenue and 78th Street.  According to a Bloomberg spokesperson, the move is simply the result of space limitations in the Lexington Avenue newsroom, however a pair of insiders say this measure was taken to avoid the conflict-of-interest restraints that separate Mayor Bloomberg from closely managing the company.

His interaction with the company is so highly regulated.  This enables Mike to meet with them, talk to them, have influence over what they write.

Bloomberg has toyed around in this legal gray area before  — most notably when he irked local government officials by appointing his former deputy mayor Patricia Harris CEO of his charity.  Although Bloomberg owns the office, his company would likely have to pay rent to the Family Foundation once the editors begin to work out of their space.

The last we heard The Daily was supposed to launch next Monday, the 17th. That date was reported by Peter Kafka. Now Jeff Bercovici is claiming that next Wednesday, the 19th, will be the day for The Daily. Bercovici says he recieved this date from a News Corp insider, and claims that a spokesperson declined to comment on if this information was correct. There’s also a website for The Daily now, and Bercovici adds, plenty of impatient writers:

The debut can’t come soon enough for The Daily’s staffers, who for weeks have been engaged in full-scale dry runs, cranking out dummy issues for what I’ve been told is a distribution list of 1,000 privileged readers.

It looks like no matter what, sometime next week the world will be blessed with the first iPad-only newspaper. Great job by Kafka and Bercovici getting this information out, but sadly, no one has been able to answer FishbowlNY’s only question: Will The Daily feature the zany antics of Marmaduke?

When the rumors started flying that News Corp’s iPad only newspaper would be called The Daily, IMG, the owner of the magazine The Daily and its rights, decided to investigate if  News Corp was infringing on the name. Rupert Murdoch, a man who doesn’t like to hear the word “no,” then decided to have News Corp get a court to rule that the name “The Daily” was too generic to be trademarked in the first place.

Today it appears that Murdoch and News Corp got IMG to blink first, because the company has sold the magazine back to its founder and current Editor-in-Chief, Brandusa Niro.

Niro tells Jeff Bercovici at Forbes that The Daily will continue to publish, but didn’t comment on the ongoing dispute over the name. Something tells us that Murdoch is leaning back in his chair, smiling and saying, “It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.”

Bill Keller, Executive Editor for the New York Times spoke today at a conference hosted by Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab. The title of the forum was “From Watergate to WikiLeaks: Journalism and Secrecy in the New Media Age,” so naturally Keller reflected on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. As is often the case when WikiLeaks gets brought up, ambiguity reigns supreme.

Jeff Bercovici at Forbes has some choice quotes from Keller, who one minute sounds like he’s a fan of WikiLeaks, and in the next breath puts it down:

They have gone from an absolutist view of transparency with an at least suggested motive of embarrassing or bringing down bad governments to an organization that has been leaking out the documents in a more journalistic fashion, [including] redacting them. I don’t think they’ve become my kind of news organization, but they have evolved.

Keller went on to say that he didn’t think of Assange as a fellow journalist, only a source, and a comical one at that:

Throughout this experience, we have regarded Julian Assange and his merry band of provocateurs and hackers as a source. I will not say a source pure and simple, because, as any reporter or editor can attest, sources are rarely pure or simple.

If you’re picturing Assange in tights prancing around like Robin Hood right now, please know that we are too.

Forbes has now officially announced that Jeff Bercovici, formerly of Aol’s Daily Finance blog, has joined their editorial staff to cover tech, media and advertising.

Additionally, Kashmir Hill is joining Forbes to write about the intersection of law, technology, consumer information and social media.  She will also provide support and guidance for staffers as they focus more of their efforts on social media, and help build the new front of the book section of the magazine. Hill joins Forbes from “Above the Law,” where the worked as editor.

Another blogger joining Forbes‘ staff is Nicholas Sabloff, who will help run the Forbes.com home page and help guide breaking news efforts. Sabloff was previously the Huffington Post’s world editor.

Zack O’Malley Greenburg returns from writing about Jay-Z  to work as a staff writer for Forbes, covering finance and entertainment. He’ll write “The Beat Report” blog on the business of music (so he can write even more about Jay-Z! One hopes).

Halah Touryalai is also joining as staff writer, covering investments. She previously covered Wall Street and the brokerage and financial advisor industry for Registered Rep.

Because the world of business news isn’t saturated enough, Atlantic Media announced a new business site in October to be launched sometime this spring (after an initial push-back from this winter’s original date).

Originally, Michael Kinsley of Slate had been…er…slated to lead the site, but, according to Jeff Bercovici at DailyFinance.com, the editor/developer is out.

Said Kinsley of the mutual decision to leave the position:

“I’m not obsessed with business…I sort of looked into my soul, and Justin Smith [president of Atlantic Media] looked into my soul, and we both sort of decided that I really didn’t want to do that.”

No one has been announced to fill Kinsley’s position yet, another sign that the release date of the new site may be pushed back even further.

Read More: Kinsley Out as Editor of Atlantic’s New Business Site –Daily Finance

Previously: Slate Founder Michael Kinsley To Lead New Digital Launch For Atlantic, Changes At Atlantic Media

With The New York Times‘s pay wall a year away and its details vague, there are many questions still left to be answered. What will this metered system really look like? What will it actually cost? Will it send bloggers to link to other news sources and deter readers and advertisers? Although they don’t have all the answers, media insiders have their opinions, so we went to them for feedback on the Times‘ announcement today. Read their thoughts below.

Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post:

“This announcement is about a change of policy that is a year away — which is a lifetime in Internet years. The Huffington Post remains committed to the linked economy, and to building a sustainable business that gives our bloggers, editors, and reporters the widest possible audience for their work.”

Caroline Little, CEO North America of Guardian News & Media:

“If the Times begins to charge consumers for their content, I am sure they will do it in a way to maximize traffic from Google and the like. No doubt they will lose some of their readers, but they are most likely to be focusing on keeping their loyal readers, not the ones who come in and out of the site who don’t even know they are on the site. One word of caution: charging for content seems to be the new answer for a weakened industry but it’s not the silver bullet. It is going to take new revenue streams, continued reduction in costs and a strong ad market.”

Alan Meckler, CEO of WebMediaBrands:

“This is not a huge game changer. One can still see big parts of the Times for free. If you are a print subscriber you have total access. NYT will get extra revenues online without greatly hurting its online readership. I have to presume that should the 2011 test work well that the NYT might go further in 2012 by increasing charges and paid online use.”

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