Media News

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Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America? (NYT)
At a time when Fox, MSNBC, and CNN routinely mix news and entertainment, larding their 24-hour schedules with bloviation fests and marathon coverage of sexual predators and dead celebrities, it's been The Daily Show that has tenaciously tracked big, "super depressing" issues like the cherry-picking of prewar intelligence and the politicization of the Department of Justice.

LAT Names Former DirecTV Chief to Publisher's Post (LAT)
Eddy Hartenstein, the former head of satellite television provider DirecTV, will become the new publisher of the Los Angeles Times today. Hartenstein said Friday that he would fill the post vacated when publisher David Hiller resigned July 14, the same day parent company Tribune Co. began implementing the latest round of staff cutbacks at the paper.

NBC Coverage Gives Narrow View of China (USAT)
Robert Bianco: For NBC, Beijing is just a backdrop. Granted, there was never any chance that NBC was going to jeopardize that investment by making Michael Phelps take a back seat to some investigative reporter. Still, rather than expand our understanding of China beyond the Water Cube, NBC seems determined to shrink it, turning a blind eye to most any hint of a problem. NBC: The Beijing Games have become the hottest event of the summer, with numbers that so far have been certifiably big -- far beyond the network's expectations. Hollywood Reporter: NBC has best Saturday since 1990.

McCain Protests NBC Coverage (Politico)
Sen. John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis asked Sunday for a meeting with Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, to protest what the campaign called signs that the network is "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the presidential race." Davis made the request Sunday in a letter that is part of an aggressive effort by McCain to counter news coverage he considers critical.

Veteran Journo Leroy Sievers Dies (LAT)
Leroy Sievers, a broadcast journalist who candidly and poignantly commented on the disease that would take his life in My Cancer, a popular National Public Radio blog, has died. He was 53. Sievers, a former executive producer of ABC's Nightline, died Friday at his home in Maryland, NPR announced.

Topic Pages to Be Hub of New BusinessWeek Site (NYT)
With advertising revenue sliding, publications try a lot of things online to get noticed, like verticals, aggregation, user-generated content, popularity rankings, and even something resembling social networks. BusinessWeek magazine is about to introduce a site that combines some elements of all of the above in ways intended to capture new readers and funnel them into niches that will attract advertisers.

America's Next Top Fashion Editor (New York Mag)
The events that conspired to upset the fashion-media ecosystem culminated in one brutal week in early April, when news broke that Project Runway producer Harvey Weinstein had sold the next five seasons of the show to Bravo competitor Lifetime. Then the news emerged that the show was losing its producers. Soon trade publications were reporting that Nina Garcia's office at Elle had been cleared out.

New Magazine-Sharing Site May Violate Copyrights (AP)
The magazine industry, already facing a decline in newsstand sales and falling ad revenue, is being besieged by a new foe: digital piracy. A fledgling Web site called Mygazines.com encourages people to copy and upload popular magazines that are currently on newsstands. Visitors can read high-quality digital copies of dozens of current titles, including People and The Economist, in their entirety.

Jesse Ventura in Talks for Court Show (TV Week)
After moving from the wrestling ring to the Minnesota governor's mansion, Jesse "the Body" Ventura is close to moving behind the bench. As television syndication companies this year seek high-profile names and show formats, Ventura, the former governor, actor, author, and professional wrestler, is deep in negotiations with Twentieth Television to host a court show aimed at daytime television.

Sports Illustrated Sells Ads Via Online Auction (AdAge)
Sports Illustrated has begun using online auctions to sell some of its print, digital, and event-marketing inventory. It's one of the most striking attempts yet to harness new media for a traditional publisher's gain, particularly among magazines where publishers have feared undermining their sales teams.

NBC's New Web Tale (Forbes)
The 50-episode Gemini Division, a new online TV show from NBC Universal, debuts today and is the first project to launch from NBC's four-month old digital studio. The network hopes Gemini will capture and expand upon the audiences drawn to web shows like LonelyGirl15 and Michael Eisner's PromQueen, while leveraging the network's creative talent and advertisers. TV Week: Searching for web video's Seinfeld. TV Week: Traditional media companies are chasing web hits just like the digital studios that have pioneered the genre.

Disney's Jonas Brothers: Billion Dollar Boy Band? (Portfolio)
The Jonas Brothers are a budding tween franchise with dark locks, bright hooks, and the ability to actually play their instruments. They're currently busy invading Manhattan. "It would be easy for them to become the next billion-dollar brand," says Tina Wells, C.E.O. of Buzz Marketing Group. "Touring is probably most profitable for them now, but we haven't begun to see the full potential of things."

Democratic Party Platform: More Diversity in Media (TV Week)
A final draft of the 2008 Democratic Party Platform signals that its candidates will follow Barack Obama's push for increased diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, as well as more educational content on the web and television. The plank also calls for the appointment of a "chief technology officer" and seems to put Democrats on record as supporting "net neutrality."

Revolving Door Newsletter: Gannett Slashes 1,000 Jobs (mediabistro.com)
Here's everything you need to know about the state of the newspaper business in 2008: the largest publisher in the nation, Gannett, announced Thursday it was cutting 1,000 jobs across all of its properties, and 600 of those cuts would be layoffs. The company's stock rose 10 percent on the news.

Health Returns (WWD)
It wasn't all doom and gloom in the first-half magazine circulation reports. The redesign of the oft-overlooked (at least in New York media) Health magazine seems to have gained some traction: The magazine is up about 10 percent on the newsstand, notwithstanding a price increase to $3.99 from $3.50.