Mediagazer: Media General execs realized in 2011 newspaper decline wasn't cyclical (Steve Myers/Poynter)

4:45 PM ET, May 29, 2012

Top News:

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Media General execs realized in 2011 newspaper decline wasn't cyclical — Media General President and CEO Marshall Morton tells Michael Schwartz that the company didn't realize until 2011 that its newspaper revenue declines were not simply due to the recession:

Discussion: Richmond BizSense and NetNewsCheck Latest

Clay Shirky:

Warren Buffett's Newspaper Purchase — Last week, Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, purchased two dozen small newspapers and their related online properties from Media General, a conglomerate with holdings mainly concentrated in the southeast Unites States.

Henry Blodget / Business Insider:

DEAR JOURNALISM STUDENTS: Don't Mean To Intrude, But Your Professor Doesn't Get It — We had a good laugh in the (virtual) newsroom this weekend when folks started passing around this letter-to-students from a journalism professor at the University of Tampa.

Discussion: Poynter and College Media Matters

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:

Business Insider goes investigative on anti-Semitism — Right now the headline on this Business Insider post reads, “What Are the Sources of Anti-Semitism.” Don't get too attached to that formulation, however. The post has been changing at a Business Insiderish pace, as the notes and updates at the foot of the item explain:

Discussion: Business Insider, Mediaite and HyperVocal

Adam Martin / The Atlantic Wire:
Just In Case You Were Starting to Respect Henry Blodget...

Discussion: Gawker, The Huffington Post and The New York Observer

Jay Rosen / Quote and Comment:

Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, made up a story about his victimization by the New York Times. — Seriously. “Made it up” is not too strong a term. As best we can determine, it never happened. But it's important to understand that he thinks it happened. Because this expresses so well what Fox sells: resentment news.

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Erik Wemple, Gawker, @jayrosen_nyu, Inside Cable News and The Huffington Post

Lynne Marek / Chicago Business:

Chicago Tribune to leap over pay wall — The Chicago Tribune is mulling a plan to charge online readers premiums for different kinds of content, a structure similar to the fee it charges for the print literary magazine it introduced this year. The city's largest newspaper is charting …

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Amid Tweets and Slide Shows, the Longform Still Thrives — In the age of 140-character tweets, aggregated blog posts and throwaway slide shows, common sense says you can't expect the Web generation's ADD-addled minds to spend more than a few minutes with any sort of content.

Discussion: Free Press and eMedia Vitals

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Anthony Bourdain to Join CNN for Weekend Show — Anthony Bourdain is about to take a television trip. The chef and author will host a weekend program on CNN beginning early next year, once his shows for the Travel Channel end, CNN announced on Tuesday. CNN said in a news release that the program …

Discussion: FishbowlDC, Radio & Television …, TVNewser, The Wrap, Deadline.com, Broadcasting & Cable, TVbytheNumbers and Adweek

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Local TV Stations Cut Costs by Sharing News Operations — SAN ANGELO, Tex. — Call a reporter at the CBS television station here, and it might be an anchor for the NBC station who calls back. Or it might be the news director who runs both stations' news operations.

Discussion: Save the News, The Rural Blog, B&C, Media Decoder, Free Press, TVSpy and Gannett Blog

John Biggs / TechCrunch:

Doing It Wrong: Irish Newspaper Licensing Organization Asks Women's Charity To Pay For Links — An Irish women's charity, Women's Aid, linked to some articles on the Irish Examiner (like this, this, and this) and thought that all was right with the world. Heck, that's how the Internet works, right?

Discussion: Betabeat

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Atlantic Media business website, Quartz, staffs up and strategizes — Atlantic Media's forthcoming digital business title is taking shape with new hires and a clear editorial strategy. — Two months ago, Chris Batty, the former Gawker sales boss who'd just been tapped as publisher …

Discussion: FishbowlDC, FishbowlNY and Talking Biz News

Tim Kenneally / The Wrap:

DirecTV's EVP of Content Strategy to Step Down; Ex-AT&T Exec to Replace Him — DirecTV's executive vice president of content strategy and development Derek Chang is stepping down from his position, and will be replaced by ex-AT&T executive Dan York, the company said Tuesday.

Discussion: Home Media Magazine and Multichannel

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Promising writer, Yale grad Marina Keegan dies in weekend car accident — Marina Keegan died Saturday in a car accident in Dennis, Mass. She was 22. Keegan had just graduated from Yale University and was due to start a job at The New Yorker in early June.

Discussion: Capital New York, The New Yorker Blog, DealBook, Los Angeles Times and newsfeed.time.com