Mediagazer: The Journal Register debacle: why Chapter 11 comes before ‘digital first’ (Michael Wolff/Guardian)

10:50 PM ET, September 10, 2012

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US site Homicide Watch DC exceeds $40k crowdfunding target — The US site will use the funding to run Homicide Watch DC as a ‘student reporting lab’ for the next year while founder Laura Amico and her husband Chris study journalism innovation at Harvard — US crime reporting site Homicide Watch DC …

Discussion: Homicide Watch DC, PandoDaily, Poynter, @homicidewatch, City Desk and New York Times

Michael Wolff / Guardian:

The Journal Register debacle: why Chapter 11 comes before ‘digital first’ — Touted by industry worthies as the digital future in the making, the Journal Register is more a business of financial engineering — Last November the New York Times' media reporter, David Carr …

New York Post:

Penske takes inside track in Variety auction — Variety, the legendary but struggling Hollywood magazine, is still not ready for its close-up. — Reed Elsevier, looking to unload the 107-year-old title, its last remaining North American trade magazine, has been forced to cut Variety's asking price …

Discussion: LA Observed and FishbowlNY

Henry Blodget / Business Insider: Destroyed By Blogs, “Variety” Magazine Will Sell For Less Than $30 Million

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

That was fast: Amazon is already discounting settling publishers' ebooks — Just four days after a federal judge approved the Department of Justice's settlement with HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster for allegedly colluding with Apple to fix ebook prices, Amazon has already begun discounting HarperCollins ebooks.

Discussion: Media Decoder, CNET and The Verge

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:
Lawyer files Hail Mary request to stop ebook pricing changes

Discussion: Forbes and Associated Press

Julie Bosman / Media Decoder:

After Summer of Turmoil, Oxford American Appoints Roger Hodge Editor — After enduring weeks of unflattering attention over the firing of its editor, The Oxford American has hired a successor: Roger D. Hodge, a Texas-born editor and veteran of New York media.

Discussion: The Wrap

Robert Mankoff / New Yorker:

Nipplegate: Why the New Yorker Cartoon Department Is About to Be Banned from Facebook — The New Yorker has a Facebook page for our cartoons, which a lot of you like, or maybe it's just one person with a lot of time on their hands, liking the page over and over again. But in any case, it's a whole lotta like.

Discussion: Mediaite, Gawker, Betabeat and PandoDaily

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Ken Lerer's CNN-Killer Hires a CNN Veteran — Who do you hire if you're a start-up that wants to reinvent TV news? — You start, apparently, with pros from brand-name media outlets. — That's what Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer has been doing as he builds up a supposedly stealthy …

Discussion: Lost Remote, Poynter, Capital New York, Betabeat, The Wrap, TVNewser and mediabistro.com

Rick Edmonds / Poynter:

Newspapers' print ad revenue losses are larger than digital ad gains by a ratio of 25 to 1 — The newspaper industry' s effort to cover print advertising losses with digital ad gains, weak in 2010 and 2011, deteriorated further in the first half of this year.

Discussion: The Newspaper Guild

San Diego Business Journal:

U-T Buys North County Times and Californian — Douglas F. Manchester and the San Diego Union-Tribune have purchased the North County Times and Daily Californian. The sale comes less than a year after Manchester acquired the Union-Tribune and renamed it U-T San Diego, and just months …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, LA Observed, Navel Gazing and Politico

Matt Buchanan / BuzzFeed:

How To Get Banned From Instapaper — If you tried to snag a page from 9to5Mac to read later with Instapaper yesterday, you got this error message: It's the first time I'd ever seen a publisher block Instapaper — in fact, Instapaper says, “As of the time of writing, no major publishers have chosen to opt out.”

Discussion: 9to5Mac

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:

Helen Gurley Brown's $18 M bequest to Columbia journalism school nets new-media guru Mark Hansen — Six months before she died this past August, legendary Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown gave the Columbia Journalism School the largest gift in its 100-year history …

Discussion: Columbia University … and CJR

Rebecca Shapiro / The Huffington Post:

NBC Paralympics Coverage Criticized By IPC — NBC's Olympics coverage was criticized by another entity on Monday. The International Paralympics Committee (IPC) said that it would further scrutinize media partners in the future after NBC did not air any live coverage of the 2012 games.

Discussion: BBC