TUESDAY'S LINKS: 30 Years Since Ariz. Newsman Bolles' Death, Tierney Weighs in on PNI, Enron's Press Pass

By: E&P Staff In today's edition a critic asks whether U.S. news organizations failed on Enron, Web ad spending set to overtake that of newspapers in the U.K., and questions about how Brian Tierney will run his Philadelphia newspapers.


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'Arizona Republic' Honors 30-Year Anniversary of Newsman's Death
On June 2, 1976, a bomb exploded beneath Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles? car. Eleven days later, he died. Today, there are still those who believe Bolles? slaying is something of a mystery. Prosecutors say he was killed because of his stories attacking powerful Valley businessman Kemper Marley. Others think he died because of what he wrote about organized crime. Still others believe he was done in by a combination of the two.


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Enron's Press Pass
"Why -- until the Wall Street Journal began its telling reports on Enron's final slide toward oblivion -- weren't the investors who lost $60 billion or the more than 5,000 employees who lost their jobs and, in many cases, their life savings, warned about the company's dubious behavior?" asks Tim Rutten. "One of the answers has to do with inherent limitations the press often is loath to admit."


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CBS Deaths Underscore Dangers of Iraq War for Journalists
Since the start of the war in 2003, 71 journalists have been killed in Iraq, a figure that does not even include the more than two dozen members of news media support staff who have also died, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That number is more than the 63 killed in Vietnam, the 17 killed in Korea, and even the 69 killed in World War II, according to Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan free speech advocacy group.


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'Times' of London Eyes more Deals, Aims for 10,000 U.S. Readers
Rupert Murdoch's London-based newspaper, is considering further expansion abroad and is aiming initially to win 10,000 readers for a new U.S. edition, its editor Robert Thomson said on Monday. The U.S. venture is likely to be followed shortly by further moves to boost the global presence of the Times, which already has a deal to provide news to the world's biggest paper, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, Thomson told Reuters in an interview.


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Reuters Recruits 100 Journalists
Reuters, the international news and financial information company, is in the process of hiring 100 journalists after three years of cost cutting and reorganization. While the new hirings will boost the ranks of Reuters journalists to 2,400 -- who operate in 196 news bureaux in about 130 countries - this is still short of the 2,500 journalists who worked for Reuters in 2000.


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Web Ad Spending to Surpass That of Newspapers in U.K.
The Internet will this year overtake national newspapers to become the U.K.'s third-biggest advertising medium by spend, according to authoritative forecasts. By the end of next year, internet advertising will close the gap on regional newspapers, the number two medium by spend, but will still be well short of television, the biggest outlet in the U.K. media advertising market.


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When a Newsmaker Buys a Newspaper
"What I see at The Inquirer, The Daily News and Philly.com is really incredibly powerful brands in this marketplace that have perhaps been a little beaten up, ignored, not nurtured and underleveraged, and there's an opportunity for growth," new PNI owner Brian Tierney said over red meat and potatoes at The Palm, a favorite spot for the city's movers and shakers. "I'm interested in this not because I want to control the press," he added, "but because as a business, boy, this is an incredibly important mass media tool and it's way underutilized."


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A New Open-Source Politics
"Will 2008 bring the first Internet president?" asks Jonathan Alter. "Last time, Howard Dean and later John Kerry showed that the whole idea of "early money" is now obsolete in presidential politics. The Internet lets candidates who catch fire raise millions in small donations practically overnight. That's why all the talk of Hillary Clinton's "war chest" making her the front runner for 2008 is the most hackneyed punditry around. Money from wealthy donors remains the essential ingredient in most state and local campaigns, but "free media" shapes the outcome of presidential races, and the Internet is the freest media of all."


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Oriana Fallaci Directs her Fury Toward Islam
Italian journalist and novelist Oriana Fallaci believes the Western world is in danger of being engulfed by radical Islam. Since September 11, 2001, she has written three short, angry books advancing this argument. Two of them, "The Rage and the Pride" and "The Force of Reason," have been translated into idiosyncratic English by Fallaci herself (She has had difficult relationships with translators in the past.) A third, "The Apocalypse," was recently published in Europe in a volume that also includes a lengthy self-interview.