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Sean Penn Takes Issue With SF Paper (AP)
Actor Sean Penn's days of writing for the San Francisco Chronicle may be over: The actor now calls the publication an "increasingly lamebrain paper." Penn offered the critique in a letter published Tuesday, written in response to a tongue-in-cheek article that focused on celebrity interest in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Tapper on Top! (NYO)
According to a new study, of all the hyper-driven personalities reporting on network nightly news, ABC political reporter Jake Tapper is quantitatively the least likely to lollygag. The Tyndall Report — a Web site that encyclopedically chronicles the weekday nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC — recently published a study of the "Top 20 Most Heavily-Used Reporters" (anchors excluded) of 2007. Tapper triumphed.

After Newspaper Industry Job Cuts in 2007 — What's Ahead? (E&P)
The axeman came at newspapers large and small last year, and now companies are issuing statements with much of the same tone. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that for the first 10 months of 2007, the number of employees in the newspaper industry declined 2.8 percent to roughly 350,000.

Media Intent on Destroying Britney? (Marketwatch)
Jon Friedman: I'm beginning to envision a tragic conclusion to the whole Britney Spears media circus: The Hollywood paparazzi seem determined to hound her until she is dead. For sure, the paparazzi are as old as Hollywood itself. But the current crop has gone far beyond the bounds of professional behavior, not to mention good taste, human decency — or any of those fuddy-duddy values.

Best Music Scribing Awards 2007 (PopMatters)
Jason Gross: In the end, maybe the best news is that readers are still hungry for content. As a summer Reuters article explained, "half of web time (is) spent viewing content," even though they didn't break that down into news or reviews. With less traditional venues or less writers at the remaining left standing, new publications and blogs will have to pick up the slack, while citizen journalism has potential even though it's in its infancy.

Feder, Matthews Join CNN (TV Week)
CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein has created two new programming positions and filled them with local news veterans. Bart Feder will be a New York-based senior VP for current programming. In addition to overseeing all TV programming, Feder will coordinate efforts to distribute programming across multiple platforms. Scott Matthews will be director of programming based in Atlanta, reporting to Feder.

UK Press Complaints Soar to Record High in '07 (Independent)
Complaints to the press watchdog reached record numbers last year, due in part to outrage over a magazine which mocked the disabled son of the glamour model Jordan. The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) dealt with 4,340 complaints in 2007, a rise of 31 per cent from 2006.

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