Top News:
Newsweek:
Washington Post Co. to Sell Newsweek — Chairman Donald E. Graham cites multi-year losses. ‘We are exploring all options to fix that problem,’ he said. — Newsweek Web Exclusive — The Washington Post Co. announced today that it has retained Allen & Company to explore the possible sale of NEWSWEEK magazine.
Discussion:
Media Decoder, Mediaite, Romenesko, MarketWatch, Washington Post, MediaMemo, On Media's Blog, Associated Press, Newsbroke, Guardian, The Atlantic Online, paidContent, Matthew Yglesias, Wonkette, Crain's New York Business, Epicenter, Dow Jones Newswires, National Media, The Wire, Gawker, rbr.com, Media Buyer Planner, GalleyCat, Deadline.com, The New Republic, New York Magazine, Gothamist, Tech Trader Daily, Ben Smith's Blog and The Awl
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John Koblin / New York Observer:
Meacham on Buying Newsweek: 'I'm Going to Take a Look at This' … Newsweek is up for sale, and Jon Meacham is going to explore the possibility of rounding up some bidders to buy the magazine himself. — “I believe this is an important American institution,” he said in an interview. “I just do.
Discussion:
The Biz Blog, The Wire, MediaPost, Romenesko, Newsonomics, Media Money …, MinOnline, New York Times, On Media's Blog and Gawker
Chris Rovzar / New York Magazine:
Can Jon Meacham Save Newsweek Now? — The news from this morning's Washington Post Company board meeting that Newsweek is being put up for sale is a public acknowledgment of a fact that has become increasingly apparent to everyone: The magazine is broken. Under Jon Meacham …
Discussion:
Guardian
Jeff Bercovici / DailyFinance:
‘Newsweek’ Is For Sale, But Buyer Will Be Hard to Find
‘Newsweek’ Is For Sale, But Buyer Will Be Hard to Find
Discussion:
The Wire
Juli Weiner / Vanity Fair:
Washington Post Co. to Sell Newsweek; “Mood's Not Bad Here, Surprisingly!”
Washington Post Co. to Sell Newsweek; “Mood's Not Bad Here, Surprisingly!”
Discussion:
Economy Watch, Romenesko, Mediaite, Media Week, Bloomberg, FOXBusiness.com, CBC News, This Just In and Reuters
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Time Inc. Publishes Good News: Ad Dollars, Subscription Revenue Up — Maybe the magazine business really did touch bottom last year. At least at Time Warner's giant Time Inc. unit: The publisher says ad revenue and subscription dollars actually increased in the first three months of 2010.
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Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Ad Recovery At Time Inc., Turner Helps Time Warner Beat Street — Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) handily beat revenue and earnings estimates for the first quarter of 2010, with a profit increase of nearly 10 percent boosted by the ad recovery, higher affiliate fees and a strong film slate.
Discussion:
MediaPost
Matthew Shaer / Christian Science Monitor:
Faisal Shahzad Facebook mixup highlights hazards of Web journalism — Earlier today, bloggers at the Huffington Post published a photo from Faisal Shahzad's Facebook page. One problem: They got the wrong Faisal Shahzad. — It was a testament to the hazards of reporting in the digital age.
Joel Johnson / Gizmodo:
48 Hours, 1,000s of Contributors, 1 Magazine — Can you make a magazine in a weekend? Of course you can. But can you make it good? That's the question 48 Hour Magazine is trying to answer, using online media tools to make an old-school rag in two days.
Daniel Lyons / Newsweek Blogs:
Apple vs. the Web: The Case for Staying Out of Steve Jobs's Walled Garden — Long before Apple even announced its new iPad, media companies were going nuts about the device, for two reasons. First, they believed they would be able to create apps that would be gorgeous and stunning …
Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:
Variety 2.0: Save the Good Stuff For Print — Variety appears to have settled on a strategy to change its declining fortunes, and all indications have been that in the age of online the trade is betting on print. — New evidence of this from Variety.com editor Chris Krewson's blog (which …
Paul Boutin / VentureBeat:
Newsy raises $2M for honest-to-God mobile video journalism — Newsy, a startup formed in 2008 and based in Columbia, Missouri, announced this morning that the company has raised $2 million from undisclosed angel investors. The money, president Jim Spencer wrote in a prepared statement …
Guardian:
Will Lewis out at Telegraph Media Group — Editor in chief and digital managing director understood to have departed after disagreement with chief executive — Will Lewis has been pushed out of the Telegraph Media Group after a disagreement with chief executive Murdoch MacLennan …
Bill Carter / Media Decoder:
Craig Kilborn to Return With a New Syndicated Show — Craig Kilborn, the original host of “The Daily Show” and then a late-night host for CBS in its 12:35 a.m. “Late Late Show” is about to return to television in a prospective syndicated show for 20 TV, the syndication arm of Fox's television stations.
Jim Romenesko / Romenesko:
Full-fledged CNN, CBS News merger would be difficult to consummate — There would be problems involving union contracts — CBS's news division is unionized, and CNN's is not — and contracts for on-the-air employees would also probably have to be renegotiated, reports Bill Carter.
Discussion:
Multichannel, Crain's New York Business, TVNewser, rbr.com, Media Decoder, Broadcasting & Cable and paidContent
Tara Conlan / Guardian:
TV channels plan hi-tech election night — BBC constructs massive ‘coliseum’ set, while rivals also plan touchscreens and graphics to display possible hung parliament — Following the success of the leaders' debates, broadcasters are preparing for the most extensive and hi-tech general election coverage ever on Thursday night.
Laura McGann / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Media Consortium offers members cash for collaboration — The Media Consortium, a network of about 45 progressive-leaning independent media organizations wants to get its members to do some real-world testing of the future-of-news ideas we all talk about. The best way to get their members on board: Pony up some cash.
Discussion:
Editors Weblog
Jonathan Stray / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Drawing out the audience: Inside BBC's User-Generated Content Hub — The BBC's User-Generated Content Hub is responsible for connecting with the huge organization's audience for news-gathering purposes, and they're good enough at it to have won a Royal Television Society award for their coverage of the 2007 UK floods.
David Carr / Media Decoder:
Janet Malcolm on Journalism's Long Con … In the current issue of The New Yorker, Janet Malcolm takes on what she sees as a broken system of criminal justice in a story about the trial of a Queens doctor convicted of killing her husband, but as is often the case in her work, there is a baked-in critique of the craft of journalism.
Discussion:
Mind Matters
Peter Krasilovsky / BIA/Kelsey Local Media Watch:
NY-Area's ‘Main Street Connect’ Takes Aim at Hyperlocal (Too) — When it comes to hyperlocal, the problem may just be that the local reporting doesn't reasonate with the community as much as the old community papers did. That's the feeling behind Main Street Connect, a new company launched …
Ben Smith / The Politico:
Washington Post shifts leftward online — The once-cautious Washington Post has begun to invest heavily in the liberal blogosphere, transforming its online presence - through a combination of accident and design - into a competitor of the Huffington Post and TalkingPointsMemo as much as the New York Times.
Discussion:
Romenesko, AdAge, Ezra Klein, The Atlantic Online, Queerty, Mediaite, New York Observer, The Daily Caller and Ben Smith's Blog
Felix Gillette / New York Observer:
High Tide at ‘The Atlantic’ — In the winter of 2009, David Bradley, the owner of the Atlantic Media Company, and Justin Smith, one of his top executives, met for a late-night dinner at Kinkead's restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue to plot the opening gambits in a Beltway media war.
Discussion:
Romenesko
Steve Busfield / Guardian:
Simon Waldman to join LoveFilm — Guardian Media Group digital strategy chief to become group product director for DVD rental subscription service — The Guardian Media Group group director of digital strategy and development, Simon Waldman, is to join LoveFilm.
David Kaplan / paidContent:
CBS Interactive Display Revs Rise 19 Percent — As CBS and the other broadcast nets head into the heart of the upfront season, the ad recovery appears to be gaining momentum. The company's revenues and profits were up by healthy amounts. But one of the clearest signs of a turnaround …