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 Future of Newspapers | Ian Delaney – "I talk to digital professionals, and all they use is Google and RSS – they haven’t bought newspapers in years, except when they take a flight or a train ride with no wireless…

  But then I talk to my step-mother, and she’s not having it. She doesn’t want to read a frickin’ screen."

• Falmouth lecturer’s death shocks campus | Falmouth Packet – "Jim Hall, course leader of the BA Honours Journalism degree, died on Sunday afternoon.

  His death has shocked staff, who have said he will be sadly missed.

  Mr Hall has led the journalism course for many years and tutored hundreds of students that have gone on to become professional journalists in print, radio and television."

• The Unspiked Files | Gawker – Satan's shoveller has an offer for you: "[H]ere's an alternative for journalists who've spent weeks slaving on an article only to see it spiked: Gawker's unspiked files.

  By the time a magazine piece is killed it's usually too late to find another print outlet. And magazines are usually too proud and competitive to resuscitate someone else's seeming rejects. We're not. Initially at least, we won't be providing financial compensation (and you have already been paid a kill fee, after all) but we'll run your article in full and promote in links any book or other project."

• BBC to cut nations and regions division | guardian.co.uk – To preserve the broadcasting union: "The BBC today announced it would axe its nations and regions division, bringing its English services under its network news umbrella and promoting the controllers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."
• Tymoshenko showed journalists how she can’t get through to President | UNIAN – Don't pick up: "Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko called to President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko in presence of journalists from her cabinet in the governmental building today, but he did not answer the telephone.
  According to an UNIAN correspondent, Yulia Tymoshenko invited journalists to show them her attempt to get in contact with the President to discuss possible restoration of the democratic coalition."
• How risk sensitivity led to the greatest financial crisis of modern times | vox – "The pursuit of “risk sensitivity” led to a re-organisation of bank assets away from lending on the basis of the banker’s private views about the borrower – regulators considered this hard to quantify and a little suspect – towards lending on the basis of an external credit rating. The higher the rating, the lower the capital banks had to set aside against the loan. Regulators saw this as not only risk-sensitive but transparent and quantifiable. Banking by numbers was oh so modern."
• How Will Press Handle This One? | E&P blog – "Today John McCain at a rally asks rhetorically, "Who is the REAL Barack Obama?"  Someone in the audience shouts, "Terrorist!"  McCain looks a little startled (should he have been, given the attacks of the past two days?), his wife smiles a little, many in the crowd signal approval.  Then McCain says – and it's actually  unintentionally funny – that when someone asks that question "all you get is another barrage of insults."   The NYT report on the speech by Michael Cooper does not mention this episode at all."
• US newspapers in the Google time tunnel: Part 1 | Martin Belam – 2001, Belam's online newspaper odyssey: "I thought it might be fun to peer back through the Google time tunnel and see how 25 American newspapers looked and ranked online in 2001."
• What To Look For Next | Fred Wilson – "In bad bear markets, like we are in, investors look to corporations to defend their stock and Google has not yet shown an interest in doing that. That's something to look for. When you net out Google's cash, it's trading at US$100bn, a mere 12x operating cash flow. That's value territory."
• Barry Diller on newspapers | WSJ.com – "WSJ: Newspapers are suffering as advertising moves online. You are a director of Washington Post Co. Do you think newspaper companies will survive?

  Mr. Diller: If they call themselves newspaper companies they are probably going to be toast. It will depend absolutely on what the product is. We're still at such an early period to talk about the death of journalism."

• Are Editors ‘Retard’ Servants To Arianna? | Gawker – Arianna Huffington "requires her employees, journalists included, to sign nondisclosure agreements."
• Beecher: Gawenda’s right, Fairfax ruined by incompetence | Crikey – "When I was appointed editor of The Age in 1997, the internet loomed on the horizon and the potential threat that this thing had to seriously damage the paper's classified business was becoming increasingly clear …
  … At the same time, the senior management at Fairfax and the Fairfax board lost confidence in the company's newspapers. The implicit — and sometimes explicit — message was that these managers and board members did not really see a future for these papers.
  They were often bemused about what it was exactly that journalists did. They were bemused and disconcerted by passion for newspapers from editors and journalists, and even readers."