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:

• Rude Awakening | FT.com – "[T]he internet is a great leveller and porn now finds itself in a similar situation to the music and newspaper industries, which are both struggling to adapt to the online world. The profusion of free content online has shaken established business models in those industries and relentlessly eroded their profitability."
• Some Bodkin! | Economic Principals – "Economists have done pretty well at stitching the global economy together these last thirty years, during a period of unprecedented growth. The failure to give recurring financial crises a more prominent place in its undergraduate texts is, however, somewhat embarrassing, or so it seems to me."
• Arise, Lord Carter of Convergence | Ofcomwatch – "I think Stephen Carter is the only person in the history of the UK to go from being the unelected head of a public regulatory organisation to being the unelected head of the relevant ministry that oversees that same public regulatory organisation."
• Bleeding ‘Times’ Blood | New York – "The fifth generation, the sons and daughters of Arthur and his cousins born between 1965 and 1990, have largely remained in the shadows of the company’s affairs, anonymously going about their lives as beneficiaries of its generous dividends, their names listed in the occasional SEC filing detailing the family trust. Like their parents, they’ve led the lives of a prestigious trust-fund family—attending private schools like Dalton and Fieldston and acquiring Ivy League educations at Brown and Columbia, then casting about for noble life pursuits or whatever pleases them."
• French elite on trial in ‘Angolagate’ | France 24 – The cast of the infamous “Angolagate” trial which opens on Monday is one worthy of a blockbuster thriller or a high-society Parisian bash. Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the son of former French President François Mitterrand; one of the former president's advisers, Jacques Attali [a FRANCE 24 columnist]; as well as former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, are in the dock. They are accused of taking part in a vast arms-trafficking network with the Angolan regime in the 1990s.
• Starting a Blog | Ian Delaney – "[A] simple wordpress.com or blogger.com account will be a start. Just go to the address and open the account. It is really easy, as the videos describe. It’s also easy to just have a go and then delete the whole thing: then there’s no embarrassing past to be unearthed by someone. Just have a go and then delete the whole thing."
• Chair of Ofcom job | Guardian Jobs – £200k, 3 days a week: "The Government is seeking to appoint a successor to Lord Currie as Chair of Ofcom. The Chair provides leadership to the Board and Ofcom more widely and is Ofcom's senior representative to its stakeholders, including licensees, other regulated entities, the Government and Parliament.

  As a candidate for this uniquely influential role you will have an outstanding track record of Chair or other Board level leadership within a major organisation. Experience of businesses operating in, or of regulating, rapidly changing competitive markets (ideally internationally) would be highly desirable, as would experience within the telecommunications, spectrum and/or information/content sectors.

  This appointment is made by the Secretaries of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) and Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The preferred candidate may be required to appear before a Parliamentary Select Committee prior to appointment."