Media News

Click here to receive mediabistro.com's Morning Media Newsfeed via email.

News Corp. To Buy Hearst's Skiff ePub Platform (eBookNewser)
News Corporation has acquired Skiff, Hearst Corporation's ePublishing platform, for an undisclosed amount. News Corp. is also investing an undisclosed sum in Journalism Online LLC, a company that helps digital magazines and newspapers collect revenue from readers. The news speaks to News Corp.'s push into the digital magazine and newspaper marketplace from both a design and experience point of view, as well as in terms of sales. This does not include Skiff's eReader platform, which Hearst will likely try to sell elsewhere. Folio: In association with the investments, News Corp. named Jon Housman president of the company's digital journalism initiatives.

Forbes.com Opens Doors To Unpaid Contributors (TechCrunch)
New chief product officer Lewis Dvorkin called an on-the-record meeting to announce a bold new online strategy for the company -- Forbes.com will soon be opening its doors to 1000s of unpaid contributors and that [rather than commissioning in-house journalism] "Forbes editors will increasingly become curators of talent." minOnline: Three years after acquiring the financial and investor reference site Investopedia, Forbes Media announced on Friday that it was putting the asset up for sale. Forbes says that the sale is part of a "larger strategy shift for Forbes digital." Business Insider: Paul Maidment, editor of Forbes.com and executive editor of the magazine, has resigned. While Maidment's departure was voluntary, apparently it was also expected, and seems to hint at bigger changes that may come to the magazine and its website.

Rupert Murdoch Moves Towards Full BSkyB Takeover (Telegraph)
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has made a bold approach to take full control of BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster in which it owns a 39 percent stake. The takeover approach, made last week, valued Sky at around £12bn. It was rebuffed by the Sky board for "deeply undervaluing" the company. One insider said: "There is still a meaningful gap between the two companies in terms of price." News Corp. reacted by threatening to walk away from the putative deal.

Time Prepares Major Upgrade For iPad (minOnline)
When Time debuted its iPad version on the day and date of the Apple device's launch in early April, the initial repurposing of the print edition was modest at best. But Time Inc. plans a substantial upgrade of its iPad edition. At Internet Week last week, Time showed off a demo of the upcoming multimedia magazine. The new version will include a video enabled cover, much more imaginative use of interfaces and extensive links to live web media.

Free Wi-Fi Is Just Small Part Of Starbucks' Plan: Free Access To Paid Content Coming Fall 2010 (RWW)
Starting July 1, Starbucks will finally begin to offer free and unrestricted Internet access over Wi-Fi in its stores. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz made this announcement at Wired's Disruptive by Design conference yesterday. By Fall 2010, Starbucks also plans to give Internet users in its stores free access to paid sites, including The Wall Street Journal.

Uncle Sam Unlikely To Back Handouts For Newspapers (Bloomberg Businessweek)
U.S. newspaper companies will probably get little help from the government after the FTC completes its review of the industry, says a person with knowledge of the agency's plans. The FTC is reviewing more than a dozen ways that the government could assist newspapers. Its recommendations are likely to exclude subsidies or new taxes to support newspaper companies, said the person, who asked not to be named because the proposals aren't yet finalized.

The Sun Launches £4.99-A-Month iPad Edition (paidContent)
News Corp.'s UK daily tabloid has followed The Times to Apple's tablet, with an app edition that, at £4.99 a month (about $10), is half as much as its serious stablemate. Renewing via iOS' recurring subscription, the price equates to £0.20 a day, £0.10 cheaper than in print, and includes two user interfaces -- a custom, "swipeable" app and a page-turner replica of the print edition that includes Page 3.

The Awl Wants To Win On The Web With Great Writing, Not SEO Tricks (Nieman Journalism Lab)
Generally, when you think of a site launch, there's a pretty standard checklist most people follow: pick a niche topic that appeals to a big enough audience to merit selling ads. Devise a content strategy, whether it's writers or aggregation or both. And, perhaps most important, draw up an audience strategy that factors in SEO, social media, and pageview-driving tricks. The Awl, a year-old site about current events and culture, has taken a slightly different course: Create great content.

BBC Offers Lower-Paid Staff About $950 Annual Pay Raise (Guardian)
The BBC has offered staff earning less than £37,000 a year a flat-rate annual pay rise of £475 [about $950] in a move designed to avoid accusations of profligacy at a time of economic crisis. Senior BBC insiders said the pay proposal, which has been put to unions, will increase the corporation's annual salary bill by 1 percent. The best-paid staff -- those earning more than £60,000 -- have had their pay frozen and last year those earning less than that received a flat rate £450 rise.

Paper Cuts' Erica Smith Is On A Week Long Furlough (FishbowlLA)
Erica Smith is the multimedia producer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. You know her name because she is the creator and updater of Paper Cuts, a map of layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers. Smith is on furlough for the rest of the week. According to the deal with her union, she'll have another week in the fall off and another one next year.

Zachery Kouwe, Accidental Plagiarist, Has Lost Another Job (NY Observer)
Zachery Kouwe has lost his job as a freelance blogger for Dealbreaker after commenters on the site complained that Kouwe had contacted them to say that he knew where they worked. Kouwe resigned from his post as a business reporter at The New York Times in February after accidentally plagiarizing the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and even Dealbreaker, among others, in his posts to The Times Dealbook blog. He began blogging for Dealbreaker in April.

Sarkozy Criticized In Selling Of Paper (NYT)
A group of shareholders in the French newspaper Le Monde has denounced President Nicolas Sarkozy for interfering in the process of selling the struggling publication. Sarkozy last week summoned Eric Fottorino, publisher of Le Monde, to Elysee Palace, where he is said to have expressed opposition to a bid for the newspaper from a group of three businessmen with links to the opposition Socialist Party.

Bowling Green Daily News Editor Resigns After Arrest (Bowling Green Daily News)
Following a weekend arrest for driving under the influence on federal property, Mike Alexieff, managing editor of Bowling Green, Ky.'s Daily News, has resigned. Alexieff, 50, was arrested Saturday evening by a Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife officer and cited for stopping, standing or parking on a limited access highway, operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, possession of an open alcoholic beverage container in a motor vehicle and failure to maintain control of a vehicle.

Beck: "If I Could Do Things Over Again I Would Be More Temperate On Everything I Said" (Mediaite)
Glenn Beck, on his new work of "faction," The Overton Window: "I have taken inventory of my words over the last five, eight years. And if I could do things over again I would be more temperate on everything that I said only because, you know, people will misunderstand, or I will misspeak, or I will just say something stupid, or people will take out of context and twist."

Newsweek.com: Zombies Attack! (NY Mag)
Yesterday, if you visited Newsweek.com and entered the Konami Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Enter), this is what appeared: Beware! "The haunted continue to walk the streets, often heard moaning 'BRAAAAAIIIIIINS!' [paraphrased]." A Newsweek spokeswoman said: "It's true that our programmers had a bit of fun and hid the Konami Easter egg in the site. It does not affect the rest of the site's functionality. Now that we've all had a laugh, we will be removing it."