These are some of the things that have caught my attention lately. It’s a more eclectic mix than just the news business, but then so’s life:
- Lyons under fire from regional press | Holdthefrontpage.co.uk – They have a point: "Sir Michael leads the body that will decide whether the plans go ahead. He should not be commenting on these issues during the process and effectively pre-judging it."
- NY Times’ Andrew Rosenthal: “Information Isn’t Free” | BusinessWeek – "[H]ow could you possibly start charging people to read the nytimes.com now?
“Maybe ten years ago we [as in, many newspapers and other content sites] could have done something – held hands and jumped off the cliff together.
We didn’t.
It’s the biggest mistake we ever made.”
- Dan Rather on the Evening News | Jeff Bercovici – Dan predicts demise of CBS Evening News: "I would not be surprised to see one or more of the major over-the-airways networks do away with evening news as we know it. Having said that I believe someone, at least some one, will stay in that business."
- Al Jazeera pays price for tribunal victory | Roy Greenslade – "Al Jazeera's argument – which prevailed as far as the tribunal was concerned – got much less space with smaller headlines.
For the record, its point was that journalistic staff felt Burgin's managerial style was harmfully affected by her being Clark's wife. As a result she was offered a role in a different department, but refused to accept it."
- News Corp. Annual Meeting: Questions About Bailouts; A Deal With Redstone? Murdoch: No, And No | paidContent.org – "Newspapers in Australia and England newspapers are doing well. Murdoch noted that that things don't look so well for most others. That said, the merger with Dow Jones has contributed to News Corp. and that company's properties mutually. 'Since Dow Jones was acquired by News Corp., WSJ.com's audience has surged 90 percent. We continue to believe that a subscription wall is the surest path to growing revenues at WSJ.com.'"
- Where did Norwegian success of VG come from? | forum4editors – Minor market domination sounds like a convincing explanation to that question but here's their mission statement: "VG’s plan is no more to be the best read newspaper in the country – it wants to be the leading news outlet in Norway. So far so good – VG is way ahead of its competitors with 3 milion unique users and 335 million page views weekly."