Free Republic

Mark Russell, whose nearly three years as editor of the Orlando Sentinel were marked by coverage of the Trayvon Martin case and the hazing death of a marching band member at Florida A&M University, was ousted Wednesday in a reorganization that eliminated his job. Russell was replaced by Avido Khahaifa [pdf], a corporate manager who is also African American and for whom the editor's job will be an additional role. Both men were at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week in nearby Kissimmee, Fla...........

The newspaper business stinks Take a look at the product People don't read, they skim, Readers trust peers, not institutions Does anyone really "read" a newspaper anymore? Did they ever? (snip) According to Gallup, 55 percent of Americans get their news from TV, 21 percent from the Internet, and 6 percent from radio. Print? 9 percent. But no one is really talking about the product. Once you take the movie times (Fandango) and the classified ads (Craigslist) out of the paper, you're pretty much left with news stories. (OK, and the comics.) (snip) And those news stories haven't changed much....

The New York Times Company [$NYT] reported second quarter 2013 earnings 48% below last year's quarter due to severance and other "special" items but digital paid subscriptions rose 40%. Despite rising numbers of readers and paid subscriptions, the company continues to struggle as advertising revenues continued to fall again— 6% in this quarter. This is the eighth sequential quarter of declining print and digital advertising revenues. "Print and digital advertising revenues decreased…

Journalists responded with shock, awe and a predictable amount of snark to the news that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos had bought The Washington Post. The news was announced Monday afternoon. Bezos himself, rather than his company, bought the Washington newspaper for roughly $250 million. The sale includes just the Post and not other publications owned by The Washington Post Company. Esquire's Chris Jones joked about Bezos's decision not to buy the contrarian Slate.com, which The Washington Post Company owned for the last few years.....

Newsweek, the former weekly news magazine that now publishes online only, is being sold to digital news company IBT Media. Terms of the deal, announced late Saturday, were not disclosed.

ABC News is being accused of deceptively editing, or at least misrepresenting (intentionally or not), some of the comments made by Juror B29, the lone “nonwhite” juror in the George Zimmerman murder trial. Further, the media as a whole are being accused of manipulating some of her statements. These allegations come not from a conservative news source, but rather from Slate.com. The key phrase latched onto by most media outlets, due to its sensational nature, was “George Zimmerman got away with murder” — words that were, in fact, said by Juror B29. But the full unedited video of the comment,...

Everything I initially wrote about the Trayvon Martin killing was based on network news reports. And it was almost entirely wrong. In my KOMO radio commentary of March 23, 2012, I said the following about the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman: “Thinking of 17-year old Trayvon the way we’d think of our own kids is exactly how to view this tragedy. The man who police say shot him, George Zimmerman, is a 28-year old CrimeWatch volunteer, who apparently did just about everything a Crimewatch volunteer SHOULDN’T do, such as following the 17 year old teen when a 911...

The story fed to the press would outrage anyone…and, predictably, it outraged everyone. The family provided a picture of Trayvon at age 12 or 13, which the media ran with the ugliest picture of Zimmerman they could find. The meme of a huge armed adult “stalking” a “helpless child” was born fully grown, to a Godzilla-like size. It loomed over America unopposed. The investigating officers and the State’s Attorney’s Office knew that the evidence showed something else: Zimmerman attacked by Martin, who towered over him, beat him to the ground, clearly smacked his head into the concrete, and might have...

"Never had standing to sue, Ninth Circuit confirms." http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/copyright-troll-righthaven-finally-completely-dead/

Threats by members of the Los Angeles City Council to use the city’s pension funds to penalize investors if they sell the Los Angeles Times to Charles and David Koch could be illegal and unconstitutional, experts say.A proposal by councilman Bill Rosendahl would allow the city to yank investments by the city’s three pension funds in the Tribune Co., which owns the Times, if the company opts to sell the paper to someone who does not uphold “the highest terms of professional and objective journalism.”Rumors that libertarian industrialists Charles and David Koch might buy the paper spurred him to propose...

I tweeted this link last night and John Ziegler replied, “Isn’t this guild statement the ultimate smoking gun of liberal media bias? Didn’t do same for David Geffen’s efforts to buy LAT”. Precisely my point in yesterday’s post. If the media was as neutral as they pretend to be for professional (and political) advantage, any bid from a strong partisan, whether left or right, should cause jitters about the newsroom becoming “unbalanced.” Where’s the hand-wringing over liberal ideologues buying up media?Here’s the Guild statement in full, via Jim Romenesko. Note that there’s no hand-wringing over traditional union concerns like the...

The deadline for New York Times newsroom managers to take voluntary buyouts came and went yesterday — without reaching the target of 30 takers. Now, insiders are worried that involuntary cuts — layoffs — will start. Jill Abramson, the executive editor overseeing the process, declined to comment yesterday as the deadline passed but several insiders worried that as few as a dozen raised their hands and volunteered — meaning up to 18 heads must roll.

Two-dozen conservative activists and media personalities on Tuesday urged members of their respective groups to switch off the "biased news media," claiming in an open letter that establishment media are "out of control with a deliberate and unmistakable leftist agenda." Though these groups frequently complain about a left-leaning media bias, they claimed in the letter that the political slant this cycle is unprecedented. "In the quarter century since the Media Research Center was established to document liberal media bias, there has never been a more brazen and complete attempt by the liberal so-called 'news' media to decide the outcome of...

Below, via Mark J. Perry and Bill Gross, is a chart we've run before. It shows inflation-adjusted newspaper advertising revenue over the past 60 years. Thanks to the precipitous decline in the last ~7 years, the industry is now back to where we it was in 1950. And it's only slightly better off when you factor in online revenue. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/newspaper-advertising-collapse-2012-9#ixzz26jSCZVzI

Digital First Media, which jointly operates MediaNews Group -- owner of the Daily Camera and the Denver Post -- and the Journal Register Co., announced today that the Journal Register has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The company will seek a prompt sale, said John Paton, chief executive of Digital First Media. New York-based Journal Register operates more than 350 multiplatform news and related products in 10 states. "We expect the auction and sale process to take about 90 days, and we are pleased to announce the company has...

The New York Times Company, which has been shedding assets and focusing on its core newspaper and Web site, is preparing to sell another of its properties. The company has a letter of intent to sell the About Group, the unit that includes the About.com online resource guide, to Answers.com, a question-and-answer site, for $270 million, a person familiar with the deal said on Wednesday. It is not clear when the deal will close because financing has not yet been secured. When the Times Company originally purchased About.com in 2005 for just over $400 million, analysts questioned how compatible About.com...

Newsweek may cease its print publication by the end of this year, according to IAC chief Barry Diller, who as of this week owns the majority stake in the company. During a conference call with analysts this morning, Diller suggested that the magazine would eventually transition to an online-only publication, and that changes would begin to take place as early as this Fall. "The transition will happen,” Diller said. "The transition to online from hard print will take place. We’re examining all of our options." UPDATE: IAC spokesperson Justine Sacco emails to clarify: [Diller] was speaking about the weekly print...

Managers at The Times-Picayune informed more than 200 members of the newspaper staff Tuesday that their last day at the company will be Sept. 30. The Times-Picayune, according to company executives, is shrinking its overall staff - including news, advertising, circulation and other departments - by 32 percent, or 201 employees. Employees who were not laid off were offered new jobs beginning this fall with Nola Media Group or Advance Central Services Louisiana, two new companies that will oversee news coverage and production and distribution, respectively, for The Times-Picayune and its affiliated website nola.com. The layoffs come as part of...

Hello, My name is Chase! New, hot, & ready to forfill [sic] all of your wildest dreams. Weighing 115 and standing at 5’4” with the complete package to take you to ecstacy [sic] ! ! ! In call starting at $80. Out call starting at $100. Poster's age: 19. That’s an actual sex ad posted today in the Seattle listings of Backpage.com, a website that boasts a 70 percent market share of the nation’s prostitution ads according to AIM Group, the leading research and consulting service for the classifieds industry. The owners of Backpage.com, Village Voice Media, are determined to...

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which distinguished itself amid great adversity during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, is about to enact large staff cuts and may cut back its daily print publishing schedule, according to two employees with knowledge of the plans. Newhouse Newspapers, which owns the Times-Picayune, will apparently be working off a blueprint the company used in Ann Arbor, Mich., where it reduced the frequency of the Ann Arbor News, emphasized the Web site as a primary distributor of news and in the process instituted wholesale layoffs to cut costs. A request for comment late Wednesday night from the...