By: E&P Staff
In today's edition, a Texas university has canceled its subscription the New York Times over the recent scandal involving bank records disclosure, a lawsuit against the Philadelphia Inquirer is over after 23 years, and big media companies seem to still be struggling with the Internet's resurgance.***
Job #1 for New Philly Owners: Raise Papers' ProfilePhiladelphia Inquirer: The new owners of Philadelphia's largest news media company promised yesterday to raise the profile of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com with a $5 million print, billboard and broadcast advertising campaign, plus stepped-up promotion and subscription drives. Investors in Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C. signed a pledge affirming their goal "to help our readers become better parents, better workers and better citizens," and "to become the finest news organization in the U.S."
***
Texas University Cancels Subscription to 'NY Times' Over Bank Records FlapSan Antonio Express-News: The Dean of Library Services at University of the Incarnate Word canceled the library's subscription to the New York Times Wednesday to protest recent stories exposing a secret government program that monitors international financial transactions in the hunt for terrorists.
***
Chilling the PressThe Nation: "In recent months [Gabriel Schoenfeld's essay in Commentary] -- "Has The New York Times Violated the Espionage Act?," which appeared in the March issue -- has taken on a life of its own and has brought its author a certain degree of fame and notoriety," writes Scott Sherman. "His influence may expand as the Times and other newspapers endure Republican fury and calls for prosecution as a result of their June 22 decision to publish a story revealing a secret government financial tracking program."
***
Critic: Don't Say 'NY Times' Is UnpatrioticMarketwatch: "I'm always leery when right-wing or left-wing politicians lash out at the liberal or conservative media, in what could appear to be a highly opportunistic manner," writes Jon Friedman. "Often times, it seems that they have launched full blast into campaign-spin mode as a way to appeal to a large group of voters. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the current anti-New York Times furor has occurred with the 2006 campaigns heating up (and 2008 seemingly right around the corner). Maybe the politicians are already gearing up with a vengeance, at a time when the Republican Party is very nervous about losing its majorities in the House and the Senate."
***
Right Wing Talk Show Host: 'No Problem' If 'NYT' Editor Bill Keller 'Sent to the Gas Chamber'Huffington Post: "Did you know that a right-wing talk show host has just said that she would have 'no problem' with it if Bill Keller were 'sent to the gas chamber' for publishing the big Times piece on the U.S.'s secret financial surveillance program?" writes Greg Sargent. "And no one even blinked. The host was Melanie Morgan, a sometime guest on MSNBC and a radio 'personality' whose show airs on San Francisco's KSFO-AM."
***
Libel Lawsuit Over 1983 'Inquirer' Series EndsTwenty-three years after The Inquirer published a series of articles about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and 15 years after a jury awarded a $6 million verdict to one justice, the libel case has been dismissed. Bucks County Court Senior Judge Edward G. Biester Jr., who was specially appointed to hear a pending retrial, signed an order earlier this week dismissing the decades-long litigation after Inquirer lawyers and lawyers for the sons of the late Justice James T. McDermott agreed to the dismissal.
***
Companies Aim to Tap Podcast BuzzWall Street Journal: Podcasts were initially the province of amateurs, but have since been embraced by radio stations, newspaper publishers and others looking to distribute content that users can download and listen to at their leisure. A number of large companies, including General Motors Corp. and Whirlpool Corp., have seized on the popularity of the broadcasts as part of their marketing strategies to tech-savvy consumers. The companies have little to lose ? podcasts can be created cheaply with little more than a microphone and a computer. Often, the hosts of corporate podcasts are public-relations staffers who are doing double duty.
***
Polluting The BlogosphereBusinessWeek: Ted Murphy is launching PayPerPost.com, which will automate hookups between advertisers and bloggers and thus codify a new frontier of product placement. Advertisers pay to post details about their "opportunity," specifying, among other things, how they want bloggers to write about, say, a new shoe, if they want photos to be included, and whether they'll pay only for positive mentions. Bloggers who abide by the rules get paid; heavily trafficked blogs may command premium rates.
***
Big Media's Brave New WorldForbes: It's the Internet boom 2.0 article of faith: New technology has changed the media landscape. Nothing will be the same again. But for many media players, today's view doesn't look a whole lot different from the one they saw five or even ten years ago. They still make almost all of their money the same way they always have: offline. And asked to figure out how they'll make money online, they'll nod sagely, and shrug. This kind of conversation happened frequently at a conference hosted earlier this week by financial publication The Deal, where summit panelists seemed as stumped as anyone else about how to make money off the new opportunities.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here