Adrian Monck says that the decline of newspapers has nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with the changing world.
Amen.
(Picture by Ben Visbeek/Flickr)
Another amazing example of mismanagement at The New York Times:
Fraud charges were filed yesterday against a former newspaper delivery man accused of bilking the New York Times for nearly $325,000 by submitting about 8,500 fake subscriptions.
Martin T. Holtet, 50, of 235 S. 19th St., is accused of defrauding the company of $227,000 in delivery fees and $98,000 in printing expenses.
Holtet was arrested Tuesday and made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Madison in the afternoon.According to the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Holtet delivered papers for the New York Times from 2002 to April 2008.
Holtet was paid for each paper delivered in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
From 2007 to early 2008, the number of subscribers in the La Crosse area jumped from 65 daily and 103 Sunday to 2,781 daily and 2,818 for Sunday papers.
Nearly all of the new subscriptions were submitted on the paper’s Web site with a request to be billed later.
Federal investigators learned a recycling bin outside Holtet’s home regularly would be filled with old papers, many times still wrapped in bundles.
Children were very close at the burial of the Nobel Prize-winning author whose books exposed the horrors of Soviet slave labor camps.
Time reports:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was buried today in a Russian Orthodox ceremony that included goose-stepping honor guards and a religious choir singing solemn dirges.
The service, attended by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and a bevy of white-robed Orthodox priest, had all the trappings of a state funeral, including the honor guards, a military band and a gun salute.
Putin, now Russia’s prime minister, instructed the nation’s education minister Tuesday to make sure that Solzhenitsyn’s works make a prominent part of schools and university curricula.
A fantastic front-page story in today’s New York Times, with a great infographic.
K2 is known as the world’s hardest and most dangerous mountain for climbers, more challenging even than Everest.
Farther north and 1,500 miles from Everest, it collects heavy snow and storms, and climbers have only a few days each year when they can try for the peak, usually in early August.
“For a professional, seasoned mountaineer it’s more of the holy grail than Everest,” said the veteran American climber Ed Viesturs. “
There is no easy way to climb K2.”
In a message sent back to friends, three South Koreans from the Flying Jump K2 Expedition expressed their awe about “the mountain of the mountains” and “the mountain that invites death.”
What a great story!
See an interactive version of the same graphic here.
Big promotions up.
Big stories down.
The wrong mix.
A bad sign for readers and advertisers.
No proportion.
No respect for the news.
A newspaper in crisis.
Bush driving Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed at Camp David.
Saving gas is the game.
(Picture by Getty Images)
The fight of the Century!
Murdoch versus Sulzberger.
The news:
The new Wall Street Journal is working.
Murdoch and his new editorial and management team are going full-speed against The New York Times.
How?
Ron Grover explains the Murdoch strategy here.
Months after it formally came under Murdoch’s sharp eye and equally pointy editor’s pencil, the Journal is clearly aiming at The New York Times in both business and nonbusiness news…
On Aug. 5, Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS) beat analyst estimates by announcing a 27% hike in net income, to $1.13 billion, for the fourth quarter that ended June 30.
The company highlighted a 21% gain in operating profits that it said included $24 million in operating income from Dow Jones.
The acquisition, which closed in December, has added $45 million of operating income since then, even after accounting for $47 million in acquisition costs, the company said…
“Other companies may be suffering,” Murdoch said in a telephone hookup with analysts from Beijing. “But our confidence and ambition is buttressed by a very healthy balance sheet.”
In July the paper raised its newsstand price to $2 from $1.50—which Murdoch had hinted he would do in a March conference call with analysts after having noted that the paper was spending $6 million annually to “add new features to its news and editorial pages.”
At the time, Murdoch also noted that the Journal was one of just two newspapers among the nation’s 10 largest to increase circulation, and was the only one to hike its number of paid subscribers.
“There are significant opportunities to raise advertising revenues, increase circulation volume and revenues, and to reduce subscriber churn in several markets around the world,” Murdoch said then.
At that time, Murdoch said the Journal’s paid subscriptions had increased by 1.6%, to nearly 1.5 million.
Where does Murdoch intend to take the Journal next?
He’s already expanded pages for U.S. and world news and added a weekly sports page and a new Currents page, which highlights trends in religion, science, and education. Murdoch’s aim, which he scarcely disguises, is to create a truly national newspaper, much as he’s done in Australia and Great Britain.
