By: David S. Hirschman In today's edition, The Washington Post debuts its new radio station, Michael Kinsley says objectivity is a myth, and a charge that the New York Post dumped tens of thousands of unread papers yesterday morning.
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'Seattle P-I', 'Times' Agree to Arbitration, But Citizens' Group ObjectsHours after the publishers of Seattle's two daily newspapers proclaimed that an end to their lengthy, life-or-death legal battle was in sight, a self-styled citizens' group said it might try to scuttle the plan.
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Opposites Attracted to 'St. Paul Pioneer Press'When news broke that MediaNews Group Inc. included the St. Paul Pioneer Press among the seven Knight Ridder papers it wants to buy, it undoubtedly sent a chill through the newsroom. The tight-fisted, cost-slashing reputation of MediaNews CEO William Dean Singleton is legendary for his ability to turn poorly performing papers profitable.
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'WaPo' Radio Station DebutsThroughout its inaugural day, WTWP, or Washington Post Radio, mixed weather, traffic and news updates with longer discussions about news and features, quickly settling into a niche somewhere between the in-depth reporting of National Public Radio and snappy news bites that typify WTOP AM-FM.
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Jill Carroll Wondered From Day to Day Whether She Would Die a Hostage."It was like falling off a cliff for three months, waiting to hit the ground," the 28-year-old American reporter said Thursday after being released by her kidnappers.
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Objectivity a Myth?"No one seriously doubts anymore that the Internet will fundamentally change the news business," writes Michael Kinsley. "The uncertainty is whether it will only change the method of delivering the product, or whether it will change the nature of the product as well. Will people want, in any form -- and will they pay for -- a collection of articles, written by professional journalists from a detached and purportedly objective point of view?"
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'NYP' Dumped Over 10,000 Papers Yesterday, Reports 'Daily News'Four vanloads of bundled copies of the 'Post' were unceremoniously thrown into the recycling plant in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn at 6:30 a.m. yesterday without any attempt ever having been made to distribute them.
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Newsday Writers Sue Agent Over Book DealNewsday reporter Rocco Parascandola and ex-Newsday reporter Sean Gardiner thought they had a $100,000 deal wrapped up with HarperCollins for a book on a mafia cop. Their agent was Frank Weimann at The Literary Group. Now they have filed a lawsuit against Weimann, claiming that behind their back Weimann shopped the project to another writer, David Fisher.
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How to Free the Press"The end of Knight Ridder, whose thirty-two newspapers had earned a combined eighty-four Pulitzer Prizes, illustrates the peril of practicing the craft of journalism in times like these," writes John Nichols. "No conspiracy took Knight Ridder down; it was Wall Street's line that profit margins of 19 or 20 percent -- which the chain posted in recent years -- no longer suffice."
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Newsroom Fear: I Don't Wanna Start Blogs That Suck!One theory says: never blog about the things the newspaper normally writes about. Only blog about the stuff the paper never writes about. Follow that rule and your blogs won't suck.
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'Trib' Columnist to Management: Dump the Cubs"A newspaper has no business owning a baseball team, in the same way a newspaper would have no business owning a cell-phone company, an insurance company or any other company it might have to cover as a news story," writes Rick Morrissey.
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