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Students at U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism launched their third hyperlocal news website, Richmond Confidential, last week, part of the Warren Hellman-backed Bay Area News Project.

The new site is completely staffed by students, like the sites in Oakland and San Francisco, and the San Francisco Chronicle often links out to the student sites. The hyperlocal sites will eventually "fuel an innovative internet news hub starting early next year."

The New York Times has also agreed to distribute print versions of the hub's output in its newly-created Bay Area pages.

(More: In California, Startup Journalism Outfits May Be Bucking The Trend)

The Newspaper Guild of New York accused People of overworking its editorial staffers in its LA bureau, saying that owner Time Inc. is violating an agreement about how and when staffers will work on a publication's accompanying web site.

Time Inc.'s 2007 agreement with guild-covered staffers at Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Money, and People states that Guild employees may not be required to work for the companion web site.

Time Inc. admitted no wrongdoing.

Witnesses testified in arbitration last week and briefs are due in two weeks, MediaWeek reports.

"Nobody in L.A. doesn't want to do the work," guild rep Bob Townsend told MediaWeek. "But they're working outrageous hours. They're working their tails off, and they don't get any compensation for it."

Our take: Guys, you're conflating the issues. Overworked staff deserve a break. Staffers complaining that they're working on a Web site when they're supposed to be working on print? In 2009? To coin a phrase, people may find it hard to feel sympathetic with the people of People.

Despite cutbacks in staff, Forbes has found the cash to purchase FlipGloss Media, a technology that creates a "digital glossy insert" that lets users interact with ads, minonline reports.

A purchase price was not disclosed by the two private companies.

Our take: We examined the FlipGloss page, where there are samples, and it turns out that a "digital glossy insert" is just a fancy name for "fancy flash navigation system" (surprise). So the tech isn't necessarily very eye-popping, but FlipGloss already includes among its clients "Variety, ScrippsNetworks, Modern Luxury Media as well as major brands such as Target and BMW." Forbes' purchase means that it, now in the technology supplier role, will ultimately see the revenue coming in from these clients.

Also: Let's say Forbes wanted to create a whole bunch of these slideshows for Forbes.com; now that it has this tech, it maybe doesn't need a fashion reporter—which is good, because they just cut one.

News Corp may remove its sites from Google's index within months.

Jon Miller, News Corp.'s chief digital officer, said that the company "could survive both economically and audience-wise without the search giant driving traffic to its sites."

"The traffic which comes in from Google brings a consumer who more often than not read one article and then leaves the site. That is the least valuable of traffic to us... the economic impact [of not having content indexed by Google] is not as great as you might think. You can survive without it."

Just yesterday, News Corp. president and COO Chase Carey said that the "leaky wall" strategy currently in place at the Wall Street Journal was inconsistent. Currently, non-WSJ subscribers can access articles behind the pay wall by searching Google for the headline.

"We don't want people going though a backdoor, or other channels," to access the Journal, said Carey.

(h/t SAI)

Kara Swisher reports that AOL will be cutting about 100 jobs today, in preparation for the company's spinoff from Time Warner later this year.

We're not sure from which departments these layoffs are coming, but we're betting it's not content.

The company's placed all its eggs in the content basket and will be focusing on that for the foreseeable future.

After today's layoff, CEO Tim Armstrong says he's considering offering a buyout.

And after that, right around the spinoff, Armstrong will likely cut another 1,000 employees.

Best of luck to all AOLers affected.

Discovery Communications (The Discovery Channel) launched a new web site dedicated to reporting science news Monday, seeking to fill a gap in mainstream science news.

News.Discovery.com is pretty clear about its coverage, if you just look at the site's title bar, and it's all very Discovery Channel-esque stuff: "Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History," the bar reads (talk about your SEO!)

The Discovery Channel's main site has featured news reporting for more than a decade, but this is its first venture into a standalone news site.

The Washington Post reports that Miguel Monteverde, the site's general manager, declined to say when he expected the ad-supported site to turn a profit.

I just hope that the work [Discovery News does] is high-quality," media analyst John Morton told the Post. "Some of their television programming leaves a lot to be wanted and is very entertainment-oriented...[but] the public generally ought to welcome it. This is at least a gesture in the right direction."

Discovery News' main competitors are likely National Geographic News, Science News, and Science Daily, and, to a lesser extent, Popular Science and Wired.

The author behind the Twitter account @ShitMyDadSays which is, indeed, a chronicle of the stuff the author's father says, has already landed a book deal.

Now we're hearing that Justin Halpern has parlayed his Twittering into a sitcom.

What? Really? Yes.

"Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick are on board to executive produce and supervise the writing for the multicamera family comedy, which Halpern will co-pen with Patrick Schumacker," writes Hollywood Reporter. "Halpern and Schumacker will also co-exec produce the Warner Bros. TV-produced project, which has received a script commitment."

FYI: Hollywood Reporter notes that the show's title "will change if it gets on the air."

Now that's an internet success story.

flickr: Caren's Photo Trip

The story: UX designer Dustin Curtis wrote a blog post criticizing American Airlines' web site (it is pretty awful, in our humble opinion, but why single out AA? There are plenty of bad web sites out there). And to his surprise, a designer contacted him back, explaining, in essence, "yes, our web site isn't that great, but there are a lot of levels of corporate hierarchy that a redesign has to go through, and it's not as easy as just making a mockup and running with it."

Big mistake.

"AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot. From what I have learned, they also threatened him with legal action if he spoke to me again. Apparently he broke his non-disclosure agreement by discussing the design process at AA," Curtis wrote.

Sorry, dude.

Your work e-mail is never, ever safe.

But in "Mr. X"'s defense, one might expect that a modicum of criticism would be tolerated, even by a behemoth of a company. Here's one of the uber-duber trade secrets he revealed:
"The group running AA.com consists of at least 200 people spread out amongst many different groups, including, for example, QA, product planning, business analysis, code development, site operations, project planning, and user experience."

Another trade secret: "We have a lot of UX improvements coming down the line, most of which we'll incorporate over the next 12 — 18 months as new projects go live. Some of our slated efforts include improved navigation; 16 column grid-based layouts; a lighter, more airy visual design; improved user interactions; and an increased transparency to fares and sales policies across the board."

We're torn between what to think here. On the one hand: boneheaded move, using your work e-mail. On the other hand: can you really fire a designer for giving away the secret of your airy design? Really?

Have y'all seen this yet? We just saw it cross our desk today. Technorati's massive survey of nearly 3,000 bloggers is completed, and the results have been tabulated. If you blog for money, are you in the majority? Has the number of companies employing corporate bloggers grown? Read on to find out.

72 percent of bloggers say they blog for fun, not money.
15 percent of bloggers do it to supplement their income, but don't consider their online musings to be a full-time job.
9 percent are full-time self-employed bloggers (and, in a telling statistic, 88 percent of those are Twitter users), and 4 percent are paid a salary to blog for their company.

Fourteen percent of all bloggers claim their household income is in the six figures, but obviously, there are some problems with that statistic: How much of that is from other members in the household? How much is from non-blogging activities?

The strangest statistic: 35 percent of bloggers claimed that they once were, or still are, employed by traditional media. Of those 35 percent, only 3 percent were actually blogging for their employers—the rest had left their traditional media jobs (not necessarily voluntarily, of course) or maintained blogs on the side.

More State of The Blogosphere is here.

UWIRE, the wire service powered by 800 student newspapers across the country, has been "suspended indefinitely," leaving some student editors stiffed for work they did for the site and college papers everywhere confused and without wire content.

On October 4, student editors received a message saying the site was "temporarily suspended," the Seattle University Spectator reported. But that was a month ago, and UWIRE's general manager Tom Orr recently e-mailed another student editor and referred him to the company's written statement on the suspension. "Short of just sending out that same exact e-mail every day, there's really nothing I'm able to update anyone on," he told that editor, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Chronicle also reported that UWIRE's turnover seemed unusually high; "one student editor said he had four supervisors in five years working with the service."

Are you affiliated with a student paper? Will UWIRE's absence affect you? Let us know.