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:

• The People Formerly Known as the Employers | Deuzeblog – "For all the brilliance of those advocating a more democrative media system, there is generally nothing in their analysis that acknowledges this erosion of power, this wholesale redistribution of agency away from those who tend to crave only one thing: creative and editorial autonomy. No matter how excited I can get about user-generated content and the collective intelligence of cyberspace, this power shift erodes the very foundation of the way we know (and thus interact with) the world, and our ability to truly function in it autonomously, and on our own terms."
• Voodoo newspaper economics | Reflections of a Newsosaur – "Accepting the premise that you could save 60% in expenses by abandoning print, here is how this would play out for a prototypical publishing company with $100 million in total revenues and a 15% operating profit:

  If the company abandoned print but were able to double its online sales to $20 million, it would lose $14 million in a year, for an operating margin of a negative 70%. To break even, the prototypical publication would have to more than triple its sales from the current levels. To make a profit of 15%, the company would have to quadruple it sales."

• New Monetarism by David Roche and Bob McKee – The book we all – perhaps – should have been reading before our asset price bubble burst…
• New York Times Running On Fumes | Henry Blodget – "[T]he New York Times (NYT) is approaching the point where it will have to manage its business primarily to conserve cash and avoid defaulting on its debt. This situation will only get worse as advertising revenue continues to fall, and it will be very serious by early next year."
• Paying Court to Rupert Murdoch | Peter Wilby – The Murdoch papacy: "Paying court to Murdoch has become a rite of passage for British opposition leaders, as though this international media mogul were some kind of monarch. It is often said that the influence of newspapers is declining. Fewer people buy them and, in any case, it is doubtful that anybody votes for a particular party because the press advises them to. But in Britain particularly – where there is no equivalent of the Murdoch-owned Fox News in the US or the "shock jock" radio stations – newspapers still set the agenda and determine the tone of political debate. When it comes to angling the news, the UK press still has a monopoly. Politicians live in terror of upsetting the highest circulation mass market papers, Murdoch's Sun and the Daily Mail."
• Nielsen: This Is Your Brain On Advertising | Media Post – "In a study released Thursday, Google and MediaVest used NeuroFocus findings to show that overlay ads appearing in YouTube videos grab consumers' attention and boost brand awareness.

  YouTube-owner Google has championed overlay ads–which appear in the lower third of video screens–as a less intrusive alternative to pre-roll ads. But the format has failed to gain much traction with advertisers, and earlier this month Google announced it would begin running pre-, mid- and post-roll ads with the launch of full-length videos on YouTube.

  With revenue from YouTube ads falling short of company expectations at an estimated $200 million this year – mostly from display ads – the pressure grows to find new ways to monetize the Web's largest video site."