Media News

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Vibe Magazine Shutting Down (Daily Finance)
Vibe magazine, the urban-music magazine founded in 1993 by Quincy Jones, is the latest victim of the media recession. In recent years the title has fallen on hard times under the Wicks Group, which bought it in 2006.

Gannett Will Cut More Than 1,000 Jobs (WSJ)
Gannett Co., the largest U.S. newspaper publisher by daily circulation, will cut between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs out of its 41,500-person work force in response to continuing revenue declines. The cuts will come from the U.S. Community Publishing division, which consists of more than 80 local dailies.

NBC News Unveils Plans For New Series on War Crimes (NYO)
At NBC News in recent months, there's been a lot of chatter among staffers about what was happening to a network series, apparently in development, about catching real-life war criminals. NBC has announced that the series, titled The Wanted, will begin airing at 10 p.m. on Monday, July 20.

Furor Over OK!'s Michael Jackson Death Cover Shot (P6)
Some staffers objected to owner Richard Desmond's decision to put the ghoulish picture of a possibly dead Michael Jackson on this week's cover -- and it looks like others may agree. Media buyers have reportedly canceled upcoming meetings and Sean Combs and Jay-Z are said to be organizing a boycott.

Did David Blum Help Gut a Third New York City Weekly? (Gawker)
Was former Village Voice and New York Press editor David Blum -- whose tour through New York's dying weeklies has, fairly or unfairly, been regarded as a kiss of death -- behind the bright idea of firing 10 New York Observer staffers?

VF Sarah Palin Story Sparks GOP Feud (Politico)
A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year's GOP ticket -- tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days.

Fired Columnist Roger Friedman Sues News Corp. (LAT)
Gossip columnist Roger Friedman wants more than $5 million in lost wages and damages from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. for firing him after he reviewed the company's X-Men Origins: Wolverine based on a pirated copy of the movie.

NYT Co.'s Retirement Plan Hit By $154M Loss (Boston Business Journal)
The 401(k) retirement plan for New York Times Co. employees suffered $154 million in investment losses in 2008, according to a regulatory filing. Net assets of the plan for the Times fell to $417.7 million.

4 Questions for ProPublica's Amanda Michel (FishbowlNY)
Amanda Michel, editor of distributed reporting at nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica.org, is working on a project for ProPublica that tracks the stimulus money and where it's being used, and whether promises made by government officials hold water.

TMZ Earns Second Look With Scoop On Jackson (WaPo)
Did TMZ just get lucky with its Jackson coverage, or has TMZ built a smarter new-media organization that could teach the rest of the pack how to get it done? Harvey Levin, the confident and energetic founder of the site (and its companion TV program), has no doubt about how to answer that one.

Column Appears in Several Dailies -- With Different Bylines (E&P)
A column on planning for retirement has appeared in several newspapers around the country this month -- under different bylines and little change from one to the other. The column appears to have originated from the Financial Planning Association.

Can This Geek Save the Post? (Washingtonian)
Harry Jaffe: Can the Washington Post's first "chief digital officer," Vijay Ravindran, and his team of technologists figure out a way to make journalism pay for itself in the Internet age? "There's no silver bullet," Ravindran says. "We have the willingness to experiment with a new mix."

TV Critics Needed Now More Than Ever (WaPo)
Tom Shales: Sadly, there are people who maintain that TV critics are anachronisms, unnecessary luxuries in a fidgety digital age. Unfortunately, some of those people happen to be newspaper editors. At more than just a handful of papers around the country, the job has simply been abolished.

Michael Jackson to Madoff: A Tale of Two Media Circuses (Marketwatch)
For journalists -- and their employers -- it doesn't get any better than the Jackson-Madoff bonanza. The coverage of the dynamic duo was predictably breathless and relentless. The pandemonium was grotesque. We were riveted. But was the public served? Of course not.

Revolving Door Newsletter: Facebook Names New CFO (mediabistro.com)
Facebook lands a new CFO three months after Gideon Yu departed. David Ebersman, formerly of Genentech, will jump on board at the social networking company. In his previous position, Ebersman helped triple revenue, an accomplishment Facebook would like to achieve as it hopes to IPO.