The official topics were the debt limit, energy policy and the end of federal covid-relief funding, but that’s not what many people wanted to talk about on C-SPAN’s morning call-in program this week. They wanted to complain about C-SPAN — specifically, about one of its board members, Allan Block, and his connection to a labor dispute at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which was not exactly the stuff of national headlines. The calls were part of a coordinated campaign by a labor union, the NewsGuild, to call attention to Block, a C-SPAN board member for more than three decades, and his role in resisting a strike against the Post-Gazette, which his family-owned company publishes.
Employees of The Philadelphia Inquirer will not be permitted to work in the newsroom at least through Tuesday because access to the company’s internet servers has been disrupted.
RAISING THE BARR
Why This Veteran TV Leader Is Trying To Buy A Newspaper
After a long career in television, I’m hoping to do my bit to secure the future of trusted information and civility in media by launching a not-for-profit newspaper company in Maine.
Angelika Albaladejo and Jessica DeLeon are two former print reporters currently going through the Google-sponsored Journalism Journey Initiative to transition their skills to TV at E.W. Scripps stations. They share the tougher parts of the transition, the fresh-eyes advantages they bring to TV and how other former print reporters may follow in their stead. A full transcript of the conversation is included.
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The Washington Post began firing staffers Tuesday as the Jeff Bezos-owned broadsheet suffers declines in advertising revenue and readership, the paper announced. The company is expected to lay off 20 journalists and not fill another 30 vacancies, leading to a sigh of relief from those at the venerable paper who were fearing a more major blood-letting.
Does Jeff Bezos love football more than he loves newspapers? That’s a question getting tossed around the nation’s capital as its NFL franchise hits the block. Chatter is growing that Amazon’s billionaire founder is looking to clear the way for a purchase of the Washington Commanders by selling the Washington Post — with speculation boosted last month by leaked video of publisher Fred Ryan disclosing layoff plans at an unruly town hall meeting. The problem for Bezos reportedly is that the Commanders’ embattled owner, Dan Snyder, is still sore over the storied newspaper’s series of exposes alleging a toxic management culture at the team, where bosses, including Snyder, allegedly enabled sex harassment.
COMMENTARY BY NANCY GIBBS
Newspapers Are Disappearing Where Democracy Needs Them Most
Every couple of weeks you can read about another newspaper shutting its doors, or moving from daily to weekly, or hollowing out its newsroom until it’s little more than a skeleton staff bulked up with j-school students. What’s even more alarming is that the very places where local news is disappearing are often the same places that wield disproportionate political power.
The incident began late on Tuesday night and has affected parts of the U.K. company’s technology infrastructure, with staff told to work from home. There has also been some disruption to behind-the-scenes services.
Fred Ryan, the publisher of The Washington Post, said in a meeting with employees on Wednesday that the company would eliminate some positions early next year, including some in the newsroom, as the company looks to focus on different coverage areas. Ryan said that the cuts would amount to a single-digit percentage of staff, adding that the company would finish its plans over the coming weeks. He said there would not be an overall reduction in the newsroom’s head count because the cuts would be offset by hiring in other areas. The newsroom has more than 1,000 employees.
News Corp. today named veteran U.K. journalist Emma Tucker as the next editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, succeeding Matt Murray, who oversaw significant digital growth and guided the news organization through the Covid-19 pandemic. Tucker, 56, will assume her new position on Feb. 1, the company said. Murray, also 56, will work with her during a transition period until March 1. He will then continue in a senior position at News Corp, where he will work on new projects and report to Chief Executive Robert Thomson.
More than 1,100 unionized New York Times staffers are intending to embark on a 24-hour strike today, leaving editors at the newspaper scrambling to put out a credible digital report for the day and print editions for the days following. A protest featuring some of the paper’s most celebrated names is scheduled outside the Times’ midtown Manhattan headquarters for 1 p.m. ET. Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones is among those expected to speak.
Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the United States, began another round of layoffs Thursday, joining a host of other media companies cutting jobs in recent weeks. Employees at Gannett’s newspapers, which include USA Today, The Indianapolis Star and The Detroit Free Press, began receiving layoff notifications Thursday, part of an effort to cut about 6 percent of the company’s roughly 3,440-person U.S. media division.
The Washington Post will stop publishing its stand-alone print magazine, one of the last of its kind in the country and which has been published under different names for more than six decades, the newspaper’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, announced Wednesday. The Sunday magazine has 10 staff members, who were told in a meeting that their positions have been eliminated, according to Shani George, The Post’s vice president for communications.
Earlier this month, newspapers controlled by Alden Global Capital said they would no longer endorse candidates for president, governor and the U.S. Senate. The newspapers in the hedge fund’s portfolio include dozens of dailies like the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Boston Herald, Orlando Sentinel and San Jose Mercury News. They’re not alone. The days when a prominent endorsement would quickly make it way into a campaign ad or voters would clip out an editorial to take into the voting booth seem destined for history.
The moves at the nation’s largest newspaper publisher include a week of mandatory unpaid leave and voluntary buyouts.
After Jeff German of the Las Vegas Review-Journal was found dead, his fellow reporters knew they would have to investigate his death before they mourned it. Now a suspect is behind bars.
Publications owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, the second-largest newspaper publisher in the country, will no longer endorse major political candidates in their opinion pages. In an editorial that is scheduled to run in papers as early as Friday, the company’s publications will tell readers that they will stop endorsing candidates in presidential, Senate and gubernatorial elections.
The Denton Record-Chronicle, Denton County, Texas’ primary local newspaper, and KERA, North Texas’ source for PBS and NPR programming, have announced they are moving toward KERA’s acquisition of the Denton Record-Chronicle. The two organizations are currently in a discovery phase, with plans to close the acquisition in 2023.
With advertising down and newsprint and delivery costs rising, reduced traffic puts pressure on an already ailing industry.
All three major American networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — broke into regularly scheduled programming to announce the news. Many Fox affiliates picked up the live coverage from Fox News. American newspapers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and USA Today had blaring headlines on their websites — the kind of headlines reserved only for the biggest news stories. CNN used its “Breaking News” banner — something it has done much less of since Chris Licht took over as the network’s boss.
The paper is considering a reduction of its daily print product next year, according to Saporta Report, based on unnamed sources within the newsroom. But the Journal-Constitution says no decision has been made. According to the Saporta report, the title would drop its weekly daily print product, continuing as a digital daily. But it would maintain its weekend print edition.
Revenue from digital advertising fell slightly in the second quarter, but subscription revenue continued to rise sharply, the company said.
Many doubted the story of a young rape victim who had to cross state lines for an abortion. But journalists on the ground kept reporting.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former Associated Press board chair Frank A. Daniels Jr., who shepherded The News & Observer of Raleigh through an era of political and economic transformation in the New South, died Thursday at age 90. Daniels, whose family owned the North Carolina newspaper for over a century before it was sold to […]
Newspaper publishers have seen revenues drop by more than half in the last two decades, as the internet disrupts advertising markets that once funded tens of thousands of jobs in newsrooms across the country. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows newspaper publishers collected about $22.1 billion in revenue in 2020, less than half the amount they collected in 2002, according to the Bureau’s Service Annual Survey.
Joseph F. Kahn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning China correspondent who rose to lead the international desk of The New York Times, and then as managing editor helped steer the newspaper into the digital era, has been selected to be The Times’s next executive editor, the top newsroom job. (Photo: Celeste Sloman for The New York Times)
For more than two decades, industry sages have been predicting the death of the printed newspaper. Now, a growing number of local publishers are cutting back on their print editions, pointing to rising costs and arguing consumers will prefer the immediacy and convenience of online news.
