Massive layoffs coming to Gannett

As reported on the Gannett Blog last week, Gannett Company plans to institute massive layoffs at its newspapers, and now comes word that an official announcement will drop in the next few days.

The Wall Street Journal reports that between 1,000 and 2,000 people will lose their jobs. The company's flagship paper, USA Today, will be spared.

Gannett has created a pile of pink slips in recent years. Between 2007 and 2008, the company eliminated 10,000 jobs.

From the New York Times:

Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and 84 other U.S. papers, saw newspaper advertising revenue fall 34.1 percent in the first quarter, compared with the period a year earlier. Analysts say second-quarter numbers will be similarly weak. The company has taken some drastic steps to lower expenses, including cutting home delivery of The Detroit Free Press from daily to three days a week, and stopping print publication of The Tucson Citizen.

(h/t Romenesko)

Four tonight

1. Employers are biased against the unemployed. WSJ via LA Biz Observed

2. The year is half over and the number is 10,102. Paper Cuts

3. The most ridiculous thing I read today. Johnee99

4. Overhead in the Newroom of the Day: “I guess 50 is the new dead.”

Chinese computers unshackled

The Chinese government has delayed indefinitely a requirement that all personal computers sold in the country include special software designed to block pornography and anything else officials deemed unsavory.

From the New York Times:

The filtering software has been the object of furious online debate since the requirement to install it was disclosed. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which licensed the technology from two Chinese developers, says the software automatically blocks Web surfers from seeing “unhealthy Internet content.” Updated lists of banned content are automatically downloaded onto users’ computers from the developers’ servers.

But the software’s current list of banned words, posted online by Chinese hackers, is laced with political topics. Businesses have complained that the software is so poorly designed that it opens computers not just to government snooping, but also to hacker attacks by vandals and criminals.

U.S. official protested the requirement as a violation of free-trade agreements and Chinese retailers had backlogs of pristine PCs.

Pioneer Press cuts nine

The St. Paul Pioneer Press, owned by Dean Singleton's MediaNews, is cutting nine people from its 138-person newsroom, and a tenth person from outside the newsroom. MinnPost reports:

The scuttlebutt around the newsroom is that reporters and photographers are most likely to be spared, while copy editors, news editors and page designers will most likely feel the pain. This continues a War on Editing that's played out similarly in Strib buyouts and pay cuts. ...

While it's cold comfort, ten layoffs would be fewer than the estimated 15-20, based on management's earlier $1.1 million annual savings demand. PiPress survivors are due to get a 1-2 percent raise tomorrow, though there's no guarantee against more pink slips.

Coleman concedes*

Norm Coleman has conceded the race for U.S. Senate to comedian and author Al Franken. earlier today, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Franken won the election.

*Update: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty says he will certify the election today. That means the only remaining hurdle to Franken's being sworn in is the Independence Day holiday. Also, a correction: For some inexplicable reason, I put "Gov." before Coleman's name in an earlier version of this post. Coleman is a former Senator.

Union-Tribune, editor team up for nonprofit venture

San Diego Union-Tribune senior editor Laurie Hearn has partnered with the new owners of the newspaper to launch a nonprofit investigative reporting outfit. Hearn will leave the paper in July to begin work on the project.

From the Voice of San Diego:

"This is not the Union-Tribune's non-profit," said Lorie Hearn, who currently oversees the paper's watchdog journalism efforts. "It is my idea for starting a nonprofit, and I approached The San Diego Union-Tribune as partners."

However,the U-T has made a substantial financial commitment to the fledgling enterprise and will be its lead partner, Hearn said in an interview today.

While certain investigative stories may be made available to all media organizations, they'll be provided exclusively to official partners such as the U-T first, she said.

U-T editor Karin Winner announced to staff on Friday that Hearn will leave the paper to start The Watchdog Institute, which is negotiating a partnership that may allow it to be housed at San Diego State University.

Court rules for Franken

In the marathon contest for the Minnesota Senate seat, the state Supreme Court today unanimously ruled that Democrat Al Franken beat Norm Coleman in the disputed race. If Franken is seated, Democrats will hold a supermajority in the U.S. Senate.

Pop goes the news

Iran led the media coverage last week, according to a study done by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, but the death of Michael Jackson came in a fast second - and almost certainly will take the top spot for this week:

For the week, the protests in Iran ended up being the biggest story, totaling 19% of the newshole studied during June 22-28 by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Though he died Thursday night, Michael Jackson’s death was nearly as big, filling 18%, and Governor Sanford’s story, which fully broke on Wednesday, was third at 11%.

Cable television went nuts with the Jackson story and ignored almost everything else:

All media sectors covered Jackson heavily, but it was cable news channels that led the way. Fully 93% of cable coverage studied on the Thursday and Friday following his death was about the King of Pop. On the front pages of Friday morning newspapers, 37% of their coverage was Jackson-related compared to 55% of the leading online coverage.

The social networks were all atwitter with Jackson as well:

So many Google users searched for information about the dead singer that the popular search engine mistook the interest as a potential malware attack. For a short period of time, Google users were greeted with a message that read, “We're sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application.”

The popular communication site Twitter crashed, and Wikipedia experienced more than 500 edits to Jackson’s profile in less than 24 hours. AOL’s popular instant messenger service went down for approximately 40 minutes and the company released a statement that read, “Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."

OC Register cutting wages

FishbowlLA just reported that the Orange County Register, owned by Freedom Communications, plans to institute a 5-percent wage cut companywide.

*Updated 6/30: A few more details on the wage cuts from the OC Register:

Workers at the Orange County Register will get a 5% cut in pay effective July 13 as part of an across-the-board reduction being implemented by its parent company, Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc. ...

Freedom is laboring under $700 million in debt, which it took on in 2004 to pay members of the family-owned company who wanted to cash in their shares.

Over the last couple of years, Freedom has implemented a range of cuts including voluntary severance, layoffs and ending the company’s matching contribution to the 401-K plan. During the second quarter, all employees had to take a five-day unpaid furlough.

Burl Osborne, Freedom’s incoming interim chief executive, said the executive team considered and rejected other actions, including additional furloughs in the last two quarters of the year and further layoffs.

“There is no best way,” he said. “This, I believe, is the least worst way. No one is enjoying this.”

Return of the Drex

Drex Heikes, a former editor at the Los Angeles Times and now deputy managing editor at the Pulitzer-prize winning Las Vegas Sun, will return to Southern California in August to takeover as top editor of the LA Weekly, LA Observed reported today.

From the Weekly blog:

During an 18-year career at the Los Angeles Times, Heikes served as editor of the Sunday magazine--where he directed both long-form news journalism and the coverage of local arts and culture--and as foreign affairs editor in the paper's Washington bureau. He spent the fall of 2001 in New York City supervising the Times' coverage of the World Trade Center attacks.

In 2005 Heikes was offered the number-two position at the Sun and a rare opportunity to recast the traditional afternoon daily as a magazine devoted to enterprise and analysis. Two years ago he noticed that construction workers were dying at a high rate on the Las Vegas Strip. He assigned a newly hired reporter to look into the deaths and then guided the newspaper's year-long series of stories and editorials that led to the Pulitzer.

Heikes said he is eager to invigorate LA Weekly's online content and also do the kind of print journalism that requires space and time.

"Village Voice Media publishes vital newspapers because it has upheld the vision of its founding editor, Mike Lacey," Heikes said. "Mike is a reporter at heart. His mission has never wavered. First you report, and you report hard. Then you write--and you do it as a storyteller.

"Find me another vehicle for that today.

"I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled, at this chance to lead a Los Angeles newspaper in that mold," he said.

Heikes replaces Laurie Ochoa, who was parted from her job earlier this month.

The new news dialectic

In this age of well-trafficked digital social networks, two distinct types of news have emerged: the verified and the unverified.

Verified news is what traditionally has been printed on the pages of our newspapers and news websites and broadcast on the nightly news - fact-checked, reported impartially, presented in a coherent and contextualized manner, conveyed as a story of importance to broad segments of society.

Unverified news is what gets printed or broadcast on a variety of online and cellular networks and that also provides context and deals with issues of importance to broad segments of society.

Recently, and most notably with coverage of protests in Iran, the verified and unverified have been fused together on the websites and broadcasts of news organizations that would never have run the latter in the past.

From the New York Times:

“Check the source” may be the first rule of journalism. But in the coverage of the protests in Iran this month, some news organizations have adopted a different stance: publish first, ask questions later.

If you still don’t know the answer, ask your readers. CNN showed scores of videos submitted by Iranians, most of them presumably from protesters who took to the streets to oppose Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election on June 12. The Web sites of The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Guardian newspaper in London and others published minute-by-minute blogs with a mix of unverified videos, anonymous Twitter messages and traditional accounts from Tehran. ...

Many mainstream media sources, which have in the past been critical of the undifferentiated sources of information on the Web, had little choice but to throw open their doors in this case. As the protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad grew, the government sharply curtailed the foreign press. As visas expired, many journalists packed up, and the ones who stayed were barred from reporting on the streets.

The writer is partly wrong here: News organizations had a great big choice. Pretending the situation was nearly automatic is a cop out.

That doesn't mean that the news organizations made the wrong decision. Indeed, responsible news organizations can act as a useful filter on the open spigot of social networking. Short of being able to verify the flood of information coming out of Iran, news orgs are in a position to begin the work of verifying information publicly while providing important context.

The New York Times, for instance, still has a reporter in Tehran and has a team of editors with institutional memory, so it doesn't have to blindly repeat what it's seen and heard on Twitter updates and YouTube videos. The paper also has staff that can sift through the flood of updates to pick out what is relevant, and help determine sources who are reliable (old fashioned reporter's work).

Again, from the Times:

Even anonymous Internet users develop a reputation over time, said Robert Mackey, the editor of a blog called The Lede for The New York Times’s Web site, who tracked the election and protest for almost two weeks. Although there have been some erroneous claims on sites like Twitter, in general “there seems to be very little mischief-making,” Mr. Mackey said. “People generally want to help solve the puzzle.”

Readers repeatedly drew Mr. Mackey’s attention to tweets and photos of protests in the comments thread of the blog. Some even shared their memories of the geography of Tehran in an attempt to verify scenes in videos.

Over time, the impromptu Iranian reporters have honed their skills. Some put the date of a skirmish in the file descriptions they send. Others film street signs and landmarks. But the user uploads can sometimes be misleading. Last Wednesday, Mr. Mackey put a call out to readers to determine whether a video was actually new. A commenter pointed to a two-day-old YouTube version.

This kind of fact checking is important in this new dialectic between reader and news organization. It's also why it's wrong for news organization to see this kind of collaboration as inevitable. That's passive and short changes readers. Information may be coming more quickly and from geometrically more sources, but news organizations still have a responsibility to avoid becoming platforms for untrue or overly biased information. They should be gatekeepers worth subscribing to.

Four today

1. The head of Wikipedia agreed to suppress information about the kidnapping of New York Times reporter David Rohde by Taliban mercenaries. NYT

2. In the old days, non-staffers hired on an interim basis to produce news stories were called freelancers. Now we call them "citizen" journalists so that we can pay them even less. Live Citizen is the latest to get into the act. The start-up is advertising for freelancers, er, citizens to produce do-it-yourself newscasts - up to five a week - for the site. Live Citizen will pay a fee per story on rotating three-month contracts. The only requirement is that stories be "relevant and intriguing." Berkeley's J-Jobs

3. The sluggish performance of some online news shortly after news of Michael Jackson's death has some scratching their heads about whether the Internet can handle the traffic when big, breaking stories hit (whether you consider Jackson's death big, breaking news is another debate). A new study says third-party advertising on websites, not internal content, may be to blame. Data Center Knowledge

4. YouTube is teaching people how to be reporters. YouTube Reporters' Center

Someone's hiring...

Posted on Talking Points Memo:

We'll do more formal job announcements next week. But for our regular readers and for those who might be interested in joining our team, I wanted to let you know that we're going to be adding eight new editorial positions to our staff. Most of those slots will be new reporter-bloggers in New York and Washington. But there will also be new junior editorial positions.

We plan to hire for six of those positions this summer. And then two more in early fall. Together, that will more than double the size of our editorial staff.

TPM is news with a view, so probably not something worth applying to unless you share the site's politics.

Iranian protesters caught in the net

Farhad Manjoo at Slate throws some cold water on the theory that social networking tools have delivered the means to bring about revolution in Iran, and warns that these same tools have been wielded by the wicked to sew confusion and silence voices calling for reform. Manjoo writes:

Over the last couple of weeks, those who believe in the transformative powers of technology have pointed to Iran as a test case—one of the first repressive regimes to meet its match in social media, the first revolution powered by Twitter. Even in the early days of the protest, that story line seemed more hopeful than true, as Slate's Jack Shafer, among many others, pointed out. Since last week, though, when the state began to systematically clamp down on journalists and all communications networks leading out of the country, hope has become much harder to sustain. The conflicting accounts about what happened at Baharestan Square are evidence that Iran's media crackdown is working. The big story in Iran is confusion—on a daily basis, there are more questions than answers about what's really happening, about who's winning and losing, about what comes next. The surprise isn't that technology has given protesters a new voice. It's that, despite all the tech, they've been effectively silenced.

-snip-

On Wednesday, a reader alerted the Lede to an Iranian government Web site called Gerdab.ir, where authorities had posted pictures of protesters and were asking citizens for help in identifying the activists. That's right—the regime is now using crowd-sourcing, one of the most-hyped aspects of Web 2.0 organizing, against its opponents. If you think about it, that's no surprise. Who said that only the good guys get to use the power of the Web to their advantage?

Meantime, the Washington Post reports that repressive regimes in China, Cuba and Burma have censored news of protests in Iran to ensure calls for democratic reform don't go viral.

Four in the evening

1. Russia and Nigeria launch what is perhaps the most poorly named business venture in history. BBC (via TPM)

2. Jill Stewart launches another volley at Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey in response to his critical column about the LA Weekly editor. Once again, she cites awards at the LA Press Club as evidence that she's on the right track. LAT

3. Ann Arbor is about to lose its only daily newspaper. Poynter

4. Scott Martelle on Michael Jackson, Marshal McLuhan and the evolution of new media. Scott Martelle

Palmdale Water District unplugged

Palmdale Water District General Manager Randy Hill recently admonished his employees not to talk to a specific reporter at the Antelope Valley Press - and threatened them with discipline "up to and including termination" if they failed to follow the directive - after the newspaper published a story about the district's financial problems.

Aside from being hamhanded, and a badge of honor for reporter Alisha Semchuck, the general manager's order might violate the law, according to Jim Ewert of the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

From the AV Press:

Targeting a reporter to be singled out is shaky practice [when] viewed through the lens of case law, Ewert said.

"If they're going to provide access to one media source, they must provide to all," Ewert said. "They have to treat all media sources the same." That conclusion falls under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Asked about it, Hill was quick with an answer.

"It applies to all media," Hill said of his memos. "I just happened to use your name because you've been the problem," he told the Valley Press reporter.

Maybe it's because public water agencies are usually ignored that they get so bent out of shape when they're forced into the light. No matter. Hill has all but guaranteed that the district will face added scrutiny for months to come.

(via CalAware)

You know it's really over when...

About 200 employees with the Colorado State Court Administrator's Office will move into the space once occupied by the Rocky Mountain News this weekend, the Denver Business Journal reports. The Mountain News, which closed in February, was housed on the fifth floor of the Denver Newspaper Agency Tower, home to the Denver Post and the Post's owner, MediaNews Group.

MediaNews going mobile with Verve

Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group, along with Belo, Hearst and Cox, have contracted with Verve Wireless to develop publishing software to transfer online content to mobile devices, including the iPhone. Mobile technology appears to be the next big thing for online news content.

Verve is headquartered in Encinitas, California and headed by Art Howe, a former reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize with the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Comical

Comic artist John Campbell's take on how television news covers the death of celebrities:

(via fishbowlLA)

Digging out from under the fluff

In response to a shareholder's plea, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said at a recent meeting that the company is developing a tool - know as the "Fluff-o-meter" - that would allow customers to turn down the volume of celebrity gossip appearing on their home pages. Editor & Publisher reports on the exhange:

“Please stop dumbing down the home page. We can use CNN-type stuff. We can handle it. Give us something that’s not Hollywood,” a shareholder complained to Bartz during the question-and answer period of the meeting.

Bartz then mentioned something Yahoo is developing internally called the "Fluff-o-meter," with which -- presumably some time in the near future -- users can customize their preferred mix of hard news and fluff.

“Even though people don’t like to declare it, there’s a lot of sneaky people that love that kind of news,” she said. “I very much understand your issue,” she told the shareholder.

“My I.Q. thanks you,” he responded.

Jackson's death and the LA Times*, **

The Los Angles Times website must have seen a spike in traffic like never before as people from around the world search online for news of Michael Jackson's sudden death this afternoon. At one point, I clicked on the home page and found that the top story had reverted back to news that Jackson was hospitalized, even though the paper had already put up a story confirming that he had died. Right now I'm only getting error pages when I try to log onto the site.

*Updated: Deleted my cache and cookies and now the page seems to be loading correctly.

**Updated, 6/26: LA Observed has the memo from executive editor Meredith Artley laying out the numbers. Looks like 12 million page views yesterday.

Four in the afternoon

1. A different kind of grunion run near Long Beach. Paul Oberjuerge reports on the swarm of resumes that landed on the desk of Harry Saltzgaver, executive editor of the Grunion and Downtown gazettes, a pair of small weekly newspapers in the South Bay, when he advertised an entry level features job. Oberjuerge writes:

Lots and lots and lots of us out there. Former print people, out of the business, willing to get back in for a weekly most of us wouldn’t have looked at (except perhaps to run or buy) just a few months ago. And “entry level” is what, $9 an hour? Benefits? Not sure, but maybe not. And the new “kid” likely will be doing all the drudge work, too.

2. Huffington Post goes Big Apple. On Monday, the site launched its New York edition:

We are also teaming up the Gotham Gazette and the Brooklyn Rail to combine their local reporting experience with our citizen journalism outreach to dig deep into important local stories. And we'll be working with the Mayor's office to highlight and help in its efforts to encourage and facilitate service among New Yorkers.

3. Nieman Lab examines why a spike in online traffic rarely equates to spikes in revenue from the accompanying ads (which is, perhaps, a good thing). (h/t Bloggasm)

4. Another bad day for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Several media sites report that $11,000 in taxpayer money was used to cover a trip to Argentina in June of last year. Sanford said he'd repay the state.This should certainly turn up the volume on those calling for him to resign. From the Wall Street Journal:

In a statement released after inquiries by The Wall Street Journal Thursday, the South Carolina state Department of Commerce said more than $11,000 in state funds were spent to cover the cost of Mr. Sanford and another state employee to travel to Argentina in June 2008. There is no indication that state funds were spent on Mr. Sanford's most recent six-day trip to Argentina, during which time his staff said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Black ops around downtown*

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean no one's out to get you...

Stealth helicopters have been circling above L.A. neighborhoods as part of a joint military exercise coordinated with the Los Angeles Police Department, the Eastsider LA blog discovered. An earlier effort to photograph one of these black helicopters as it flew by at night was somewhat less than successful.

(h/t LA Observed)

*Updated: Looks like the military maneuvers have spread farther and wider than just the neighborhoods around downtown. Larry Altman at the Daily Breeze reports sightings of helicopters over San Pedro and Rancho Palos Verdes.

Newspaper held on to Sanford emails

The State, a newspaper in South Carolina, has published an email exchange between Gov. Mark Sanford and the Argentinian woman he admitted today to having an affair with. The paper said it first obtained the emails in December but held off publishing them until it could authentic them. That's no longer necessary, it seems.

FitzSimons named to Media General board

Dennis FitzSimons, former CEO of Tribune Co., and the man who helped engineer the sale of the company to Sam Zell, has been appointed to Media General's board of directors.

Media General owns the Tampa Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Winston-Salem Journal, as well as community newspapers in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina.

(via Romenesko)

Four in the morning*

1. Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina wasn't hiking the Appalachian Trail on Father's Day weekend, as his office staff claimed. Instead, he was caught in Atlanta by a reporter from The State getting off a plane from Argentina. Sanford told the reporter he'd wanted to do something "exotic." Needless to say, there's still plenty of skepticism about the governor's story. He's scheduled to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. Eastern today. The State

*Updated: In his presser, Sanford admits to having an affair with an Argentinian woman, says he'll resign as head of the Republican Governors Association. Calls for his resignation as governor will inevitably follow.

2. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez has some more bad news for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Lopez writes:

I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but I've been gathering up the results of polling at the 10 schools that for the last year have been under the mayor's wing, and there's no way to sugarcoat this.

At eight of the 10 campuses, the mayor's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools got a resounding thumbs down from teachers.

3. First Lady Michelle Obama makes her first visit to California since becoming First Lady... again. LA Observed

4. Rainey vs. Stewart, round 3. LA Weekly (via LA Observed)

Boston Globe union, New York Times reach deal

Poynter reports that the last holdout union representing Boston Globe employees has reached a tentative deal with the paper's owner, the New York Times Co. If members agree to the contract on July 20, they'd lose six percent of their pay and some would lose their lifetime job guarantee.

More cuts coming to Gannett

Gannett Co., the largest newspaper publisher in America and parent of USA Today, plans another round of layoffs at the start of July, according to reports from Gannett Blog. The Business Courier in Cincinnati - Gannett also owns the Cincinnati Enquirer - summed up what's at stake:

A report by the Gannett Blog on Friday references a memo from Gannett CFO Gracia Martore that projects 4,500 newspaper layoffs throughout the Gannett chain in July as well as a 10 percent pay cut for its broadcast employees. The Gannett Blog report also says Gannett workers will not face any more furloughs this year.

Chopping 4,500 jobs would amount to an 11-percent reduction in the company's worldwide workforce. Gannett Blog's Jim Hopkins says the company is probably aiming to save the financial equivalent of 4,500 jobs (roughly $338 million, he estimates), so the number of layoffs could change.

Grassroots need water, too

I don't imagine it was a tough conclusion to come to, but Alan Mutter at Reflections of a Newsosaur now doubts volunteerism will come to journalism's rescue. He writes:

Although a number of do-it-yourself ventures have embraced modern technology to attempt to fill the void created by the retrenchment of the mainstream media, there is scant evidence to date that any have succeeded to the point that they will support the sustained efforts of professional journalists. ...

Even where the will to go forward remains powerful, there is no satisfactory answer to the practical question of how long talented, capable and motivated individuals can afford to commit themselves to self-assigned journalistic endeavors that so far are not known to have generated any appreciable income for the writers.

Mutter cites the soon-to-be defunct Gannett blog as evidence of this latter point.

Not getting paid is a sure way to spoil just about any job in a capitalistic society.

More on Rohde's great escape

The New York Observer offers new details - and raises new questions - about New York Times reporter David Rohde's escape from his Taliban captors. The harrowing tale includes bribes, sky-high ransom demands, secret negotiations with private contractors, a split between NYT execs and its reporting staff, and a 20-foot rope. Read it here. (via Romenesko)

Some Union-Tribune real estate up for sale

The new owners of the San Diego Union-Tribune have put two of the newspaper's buildings on the market, the VoiceofSandiego.org reports. Platinum Equity, which paid just over $50 million earlier this year for all of the Union-Tribune's real estate holdings, has listed an abandoned property in La Jolla and a building in Carlsbad that houses the paper's North County newsroom for a combined $9.1 million.

VofSD said the listing prices are a good deal more than what Platinum paid Copley News when it bought the paper in March.

All of which seems to confirm what Ken Doctor at Content Bridges said shortly after the sale was announced, that the deal was all about the real estate:

Hard as it may be to believe, we may have entered a new rocky period for newspaper companies. It would be a period in which the real estate on which they sit determines their market value. Consequently, their real estate value may determine who wants to sell the newspaper property and who wants to buy it -- to get at the real estate.

Iran dot net

As the political and social consequences of a networked world slowly unfold, Iran has become the test case for how repressive regimes fit into the worldwide web. To that end, the New York Times has a piece today about the "laboratory" that the whole world is watching:

At one time, authoritarian regimes could draw a shroud around the events in their countries by simply snipping the long-distance phone lines and restricting a few foreigners. But this is the new arena of censorship in the 21st century, a world where cellphone cameras, Twitter accounts and all the trappings of the World Wide Web have changed the ancient calculus of how much power governments actually have to sequester their nations from the eyes of the world and make it difficult for their own people to gather, dissent and rebel.

Iran’s sometimes faltering attempts to come to grips with this new reality are providing a laboratory for what can and cannot be done in this new media age — and providing lessons to other governments, watching with calculated interest from afar, about what they may be able to get away with should their own citizens take to the streets.

One early lesson is that it is easier for Iranian authorities to limit images and information within their own country than it is to stop them from spreading rapidly to the outside world. While Iran has severely restricted Internet access, a loose worldwide network of sympathizers has risen up to help keep activists and spontaneous filmmakers connected.

Of course, repressive regimes also monitor these new nodes of communication in hopes of disrupting and punishing dissent.

Meantime, the mainstream media is struggling to adapt to these changes. News outlets have much more information to sift through to determine what they should report - and what they can verify, and must also strike a balance between becoming massive retweeting tools and capturing the larger political and social narratives in their storytelling.

Four in the afternoon*

1. Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times profiles Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old philosophy student who was shot and killed Saturday during the Iranian protests:

Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, was shot dead Saturday evening near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators who allege rampant vote-count fraud in the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The jittery cellphone video footage of her bleeding on the street has turned "Neda" into an international symbol of the protest movement that ignited in the aftermath of the June 12 voting. To those who knew and loved Neda, she was far more than an icon.

The video of her death can be seen here. Be warned that it is extremely graphic.

*Updated, 6/23: Kevin Roderick at LA Observed makes a good point about promoting Daragahi's work with the people who pay the bills (or don't) at the top of the Tribune Co. chain. He writes:

Somebody should also get word to Lee Abrams and Sam Zell that Daragahi is over there and this is why. Zell, notoriously, has ridiculed foreign news in the LAT as just something "journalists like to cover" and Abrams is the idiot aide-de-camp who didn't realize reporters actually go to the places they write about and dodge bullets.

2. No surprise here: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa bows out of the 2010 race for governor. He chose CNN as the venue to announce his decision. LAT

3. Speaking of governors, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford likes to disappear every once in a while. The State

4. Today's "To The Point" is about Iran and what happens next. TTP

Authorities admit voting irregularities in Iran*

Iranian authorities now say that in the June 12 presidential election "the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters," according to the New York Times, but insist it's a "normal phenomenon." More ominously, they warned protesters of a "revolutionary confrontation" if they returned to the streets Monday.

*UPDATE: Robin Wright, formerly of the LA Times, looks at the long unraveling of the Iranian revolution and the persistence of ideas in the face of oppression. She writes:

Who would have thought that a Berlin Wall moment for the region might happen in the strict Islamic republic, where a revolution 30 years ago unleashed Islam as a modern political idiom and extremism as a tool to confront the West?

Unlikely as it seems, the rise of a popular movement relying on civil disobedience to confront authoritarian rule — in the last bloc of countries to hold out against the tide of change that has swept the rest of the world over the past quarter century — is almost a diplomatic dream for the Obama Administration.

I’m not talking about the regime's obstinate reaction or the brutality it unleashed on the streets of Tehran this past weekend. Even in his terse comments since the beginning of the electoral chaos in Iran, Barack Obama has made it clear the violence upsets him greatly. But in his speech to the Islamic world in Cairo on June 4, Obama spoke about the same principles that just eight days later galvanized millions of people throughout Iran to take to the streets.

"All people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose," Obama said.

With what now looks like uncanny prescience, he added, "There is no straight line to realize this promise ... Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away."

Yet in the midst of a debate over the U.S. role in Iran — recent past, present and future — Washington can take almost no credit for what is happening. The $400 million allocated by the Bush Administration for intelligence operations and the $75 million the State Department budgeted to promote democracy in Iran had little if any impact in changing the regime's ways or empowering Iranians. Many Iranian NGOs even publicly said they did not want, need or dare to be tainted by U.S. financial assistance.

Wright will be one of our guests on today's "To The Point."

Sunday in Iran

Yesterday's protests left 13 dead, according to Iranian state television; CNN has put the number at 19 dead, and some reports are as high as 150.

Another protest is reportedly planned for today at 5 p.m. Tehran time, the New York Times reports.

Iranian authorities have deemed reform candidate and opposition symbol Mir-Hossein Mousavi a criminal; he's said he's ready for "martyrdom." Meanwhile, state television says police have arrested family members of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a vocal supporter of the opposition movement.

Steve Clemons of Washington Note and the New America Foundation reprints a letter to a colleague about Mousavi supporters targeting Iran's thuggish morals-police, the Basij (h/t Talking Points Memo):

Basij hunting

By the way, two nights ago I went out to see a few things ... as the general crowds spread into their homes militia style Mousavi supporters were out on the streets 'Basiji hunting'.

Their resolve is no less than these thugs -- they after hunting them down. They use their phones, their childhood friends, their intimate knowledge of their districts and neighbours to plan their attacks -- they're organised and they're supported by their community so they have little fear. They create the havoc they're after, ambush the thugs, use their Cocktail Molotovs, disperse and re-assemble elsewhere and then start again - and the door of every house is open to them as safe harbour -- they're community-connected.

The Basiji's are not.

These are not the students in the dorms, they're the street young -- they know the ways better than most thugs - and these young, a surprising number of them girls, are becoming more agile in their ways as each night passes on.

What's an update on Iran without an update about Twitter? "Six lessons learned" from the New York Times. Change comes on the ground, not online, from the Berkman Center. Etaoin Shrdlu calls bullshit on Clay Shirky claims.

Helene Cooper analyzes the extent to which America's shifting foreign policy has inspired reformers in Iran to challenge the hard-line regime.

Robin Wright looks at the way mourning, martyrdom and the death of a woman on the streets of Tehran could shape opposition strategy.

Foreign Policy talks to a Mousavi surrogate to find out what the reform candidate wants.

24 journalists arrested in Iran

Iranian authorities have arrested at least 24 reporters, editors and bloggers since June 14, according to Reporters Without Borders and other media sources. The NYT's Lede blog reports on the latest detention, that of Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari:

The number of reporters arrested since the June 12 election has risen to at least 24. The Lede has learned that Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari was arrested without charge on Sunday morning in Tehran, and has not been heard from since. Mr. Bahari, a Canadian citizen, has been living in and covering Iran for the past decade. His most recent article for Newsweek examined opposition supporters’ concerns that pro-Ahmadinejad groups were staging violent incidents at their rallies to undermine support for their movement.

An earlier AP story put the number at 23, based on the work of Reporters Without Borders.

CNN's medium is a mess

I've watched a fair amount of CNN's coverage of the Iranian protests today. Between the giant CNN ads at the bottom of the screen (BREAKING NEWS!) and the fetishistic fascination with Twitter, iReports and camera shots of computer screens showing videos and photos posted on various websites, I'm left to wonder if the entire network has gone fucking insane.

Are the producers there more interested in showing how they're getting information - and advertising that they're hip to the new social-networking tools - than in figuring out what the hell is going on in Iran? Can important reporting escape this self-referential echo chamber anymore?

The Iranian people aren't protesting because they have access to Twitter, they're using Twitter (and emails, and phone calls, and word of mouth, and chants, and blogs) to help organize their protests.

President Obama releases statement on Iranian protests

Statement from the President on Iran

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

Police clash with Iranian protesters

Iranian authorities are trying to clamp down on the now daily protests in Tehran. Here's a few options to keep up to date on what's going on:

Borzou Daragahi and Romin Mostaghim are still in Tehran for the Los Angeles Times.

Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish is scouring Tweets from Iran.

The New York Times is filing reports from inside Iran.

Robert Mackey at the NYT's Lede blog is also following updates from social networking sites.

Updates from Tehran Bureau, an independent site with original reporting, commentary and citizens.

Washington Post has a reporter in Tehran.

Nico Pitney from Huffington Post is live blogging the protests.

Reporters escape Taliban kidnappers

David Rohde, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, and local reporter Tahir Ludin escaped their Taliban kidnappers Friday after seven months in captivity in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The New York Times and other media outlets had kept the story of the kidnappings under wraps "out of concern for the men's safety."

The New York Times reports:

Mr. Rohde, 41, had traveled to Afghanistan in early November to work on a book about the history of American involvement there when he was invited to interview a Taliban commander in Logar Province outside Kabul. Mr. Rohde, who years before had been taken prisoner while reporting in Bosnia, had instructed The Times’s bureau in Kabul about whom to notify if he did not return. He also indicated that he believed that the interview was important and that he would be all right.

His father, Harvey Rohde, said that while he regretted that his son had made the trip, he understood his motivation, “to get both sides of the story, to have his book honestly portray not just the one side but the other side as well.”

In 1996, while working for the Christian Science Monitor, Rohde was imprisoned and interrogated by Bosnian Serbs after he snuck into Serb territory to find evidence of mass graves in the Bosnian conflict.

Overhead of the day

Overheard in the Newsroom of the day:

“I think they’re screwing up my stories on purpose to make sure I can’t use them to find another job.”

Reports of Cronkite's illness might be gravely exagerrated

Legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite has taken ill, but may not be as "gravely ill" as some have reported. His executive assistant told the Boston Globe that Cronkite is "dealing with the challenges of being a 92-year-old man."

Four today

1. Social-media networks continue to tune their tools to respond to public interest in the Iranian protests. Facebook recently launched a Persian-language site and now Google has added a Persian-to-English/English-to-Persian translator to its Google Translate function. Google

2. Jakarta correspondent Paul Watson has left the Los Angeles Times to return to the Toronto Star. LAO

3. The city of South Pasadena has found a unique way to raise revenues in this down economy. It involves the police department and a school bus. LAT *Updated: Looks like the SPPD wants to make this go away. LAT

4. Californian vs. Californian. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, cast the deciding vote to squash an amendment from Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, that would have forced the federal government to keep funding the Guantanamo Bay prison. Politico

Aggro LA Weekly*

James Rainey, media critic at the Los Angeles Times, argues that the news gets skewed - and not in a good way - by an overly aggressive and indignant LA Weekly.

Rainey writes:

When the LA Weekly wrote a lengthy story last September about how little Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attended to his official duties, it wasn't plowing fresh soil.

-snip-

The media, rightly, should do whatever it can to determine if a politician is already measuring the drapes for his next office while sitting in his current one.

But as it has with several stories in recent times, the Weekly didn't let the facts speak for themselves in its Villaraigosa takedown.

Instead, it employed more semantic spin than Kobe Bryant puts on a jump shot, along with a prosecutorial methodology that proved much more about the declining quality of our city's dominant alternative newspaper than it did about our attention-grasping mayor.

Rainey pins most of the blame on the editorial judgment of news editor Jill Stewart.

I'm reminded that the LA Weekly just took home a slew of awards from the LA Press Club, including one for political writing.

*UPDATE: Jill Stewart responds to the Rainey column in an email to fishbowlLA and asserts the awards defense:

Hi there,

I wanted to tell my colleagues and friends in journalism and blogging that James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times did not contact me for his take-down attempt column about me today, published during the very same week in which news-side stories I assigned and edited blew the Times out of the water at the Los Angeles Press Club awards. These awards, announced five days ago, were judged entirely by journalists in other major cities around the nation to avoid local favoritism. And then yesterday, a young reporter who won a major award for a piece that I assigned and edited beat The New York Times and was in Washington, D.C. collecting his award...

It goes on from there here. The best part might be the graphic atop the fisbowlLA post.

Walter Cronkite "gravely ill"

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite, 92, is "gravely ill."

Facebook releases Persian version

Much has been made about Iranian protesters' use of social networking tools such as Twitter to communicate and organize in the wake of last week's disputed presidential election. That led Facebook to release an test version of its site in the Persian language.

From the company press release:

Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath. Much of the content created and shared on Facebook related to these events has been in Persian – the native language of Iran – but the users have had to navigate the site in English or other languages.

Today we’re making the entire site available in a test version of Persian, so Persian speakers inside of Iran and around the world can begin using it in their native language.

Persian was already in translation before worldwide attention turned to the Iranian elections, but because of the sudden increase in activity we decided to launch it sooner than planned. This means that the translation isn’t perfect, but we felt it was important to help more people communicate rather than wait.

Good morning at the Nieman Lab

The Nieman Lab at Harvard has some good stuff this morning, including this:

Good morning! The Watergate burglars were arraigned 37 years ago. How would (or wouldn't) Watergate get covered today?

Here are a few of the stories Nieman's linked to today:

1. The Guardian is using crowdsourcing to scour documents in the Parliament expense scandal.

2. Pollster John Zogby asks why people trust the Internet more than newspapers when they're getting the same information from both.

3. Authorities in Beijing plan to hire 10,000 Internet monitors to look for "harmful" websites and content - the other side of crowdsourcing. Last month, China demanded computer makers install filtering software on all personal computers sold in the country.

Four in the morning

1. For its spring issue, the Pomona College Magazine asked a few alumni to reflect on the turmoil in the newspaper industry. Essays from New York Times media reporter Richard Perez-Pena ('84) and NYT Editor Bill Keller ('70) are included, as well as a story about the changing times at the campus newspaper, The Student Life. PCM (h/t LA Observed)

2. The High Court in Great Britain has rejected an anonymous blogger's request that it block the London Times from publishing his true identity. The blogger, Detective Richard Horton (aka Night Jack), had criticized government and police bureaucracy. After being exposed, he received a written warning. BBC

3. "The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged[.]" NYT

4. Huffington Post is still not turning a profit and says it's "time to invest" - but I don't think that means paying writers. NYO

'Citizen-based warfare' takes on Iranian regime

Online activists are launching web attacks aimed at shutting down pro-government websites in Iran. The attacks have raised ethical questions and led some to worry the tactic could backfire on the very people the activists are trying to help.

From Wired:

What started out as an attempt to overload a small set of official sites has now expanded, network security consultant Dancho Danchev notes. News outlets like Raja News are being attacked, too. The semi-official Fars News site is currently unavailable.

“We turned our collective power and outrage into a serious weapon that we could use at our will, without ever having to feel the consequences. We practiced distributed, citizen-based warfare,” writes Matthew Burton, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who joined in the online assaults, thanks to a “push-button tool that would, upon your click, immediately start bombarding 10 Web sites with requests.”

But the tactic of launching these distributed denial of service, or DDOS, attacks remains hugely controversial.

-snip-

Other online supporters of the so-called “Green Revolution” worry about the ethics of a democracy-promotion movement inhibitting their foes’ free speech. A third group is concerned that the DDOS strikes could eat up the limited amount of bandwidth available inside Iran — bandwidth being used by the opposition to spread its message by Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. “Quit with the DDOS attacks — they’re just slowing down Iranian traffic and making it more difficult for the protesters to Tweet,” says one online activist.

MySpace getting smaller

The social-networking site MySpace plans to cut 30% of its workforce, leaving the Beverly Hills-based company with about 1,000 employees in the U.S. The Wall Street Journal reports:

"Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company," MySpace Chief Executive Owen Van Natta said Tuesday.

Both MySpace and the Journal are owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Four in the morning

1. North Korea's official news agency claims that Current TV journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling confessed to crossing illegally into the country during their secret trial. Lee and Ling were sentenced to 12 years hard labor for the alleged transgression. NYT

2. Google offered several established artists the chance to work for free. The artists - some anyway - declined to consider "exposure" as payment. NYT (h/t fishbowlLA)

3. The federal government has raised anti-trust issues about Google's planned online book registry, with critics, including librarians, saying the company will have effectively cornered the market. Time

4. What's the Boston Globe worth (assuming the New York Times Co. decides to sell)? A buck, says Ken Doctor at Content Bridges: "A buck essentially represents a gentleman’s agreement: I take a liability, headache and a distraction off your hands, says the buyer. I give you the great potential of the Globe brand, a top 25 news web site and improved ability to re-jigger the pieces, thanks to our new contracts and cost-cutting, says the Times." Content Bridges

Press-Enterprise pullout

As part of the continuing cutbacks at the paper, the Riverside Press-Enterprise has announced it will stop delivering to several cities in San Bernardino County. The paper has eliminated a sizable chunk of its SB County reporting and editing staff already.

From the memo:

In January of this year, we were faced with the choice of leaving San Bernardino County or implementing a very aggressive price increase to allow us to cover our costs of publishing and continue delivering in San Bernardino County. Unfortunately, a significant number of subscribers in parts of S.B. County refused to accept the increase in price and cancelled their subscriptions.

Consequently, after further review, we have made the decision to discontinue home delivery in certain parts of the San Bernardino market due to low penetration levels. We will continue delivery in those areas where subscriber acceptance remains high, but unfortunately we will eliminate home delivery service in Chino Hills, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana and Rialto on Monday, July 13, 2009. The final print edition of The Press-Enterprise will be delivered to subscribers’ homes on Sunday, July 12, 2009.

Read the complete memo here.

In addition, rumors abound that the PE wants to sell its new headquarters, which the paper moved into two years ago, and move back to the old digs next door.

A new online publication brewing

Los Angeles could be getting a new online news publication courtesy of the recent purges at the Los Angeles Times.

A group of former Times staffers started a Yahoo newsgroup called "ex-LATers" a while back to exchange information about buyouts, jobs openings and sundry gossip, but more recently the talk has focused on the creation of an online news site, I'm told. At least one non-virtual meeting has been held to discuss the plan. As I understand it, the first step is to form a freelancer's network to help attract a stable of writers for the site. The group is currently debating what to call the network - the list of names is long and includes LAWritersNest.com, WriteMedia.com and TimesMediaTalent.com.

I'm told organizers have yet to settle on a model for a future site, but they are looking for financial backers. Some of the ex-LA Times staffers involved in the newsgroup include Richard Kipling, Scott Martelle, Janet Wilson and former associate editor Leo Wolinsky.

As usual, the photographers got an early start. A few ex-LAT photogs have already formed a freelance network of their own called Pro Photography Network, LLC.

*This post has been updated

Kaye's LA

Ex-Daily News editor Ron Kaye has unveiled an early version of his Our LA news site. One of the lead stories is about the potential for another Valley secession movement. (h/t LA Observed)

Night of the awards

The Los Angeles Press Club announced its awards last night. The full list of winners is here.

A new voice in Newport Beach

A group of journalists with roots at the Daily Pilot and LA Times have launched an online news site called The Daily Voice that will cover Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. Co-founder Tom Johnson explains the situation:

No large backers. No deep pockets. Just a group of us committed to providing Newport-Mesa with more local news, commentary and information, at a time when many news organizations are folding up shop.

We’ll start with some baby steps, but will grow up soon enough with the help of additional contributors and reader input. Stay tuned and you’ll see: the latest news posted whenever it happens; a fun and unique way to cover prep sports (we’ll tell you the secret this fall); community commentary from a diverse group of locals; and video for better editorial coverage and better results for advertisers.

They are soliciting donations "large or small" to keep the publication going.

I've heard rumblings that other former LA Times staffers have plans for online news sites.

(h/t Scott Martelle)

Four Sunday

1. The Associated Press plans to distribute the work of four nonprofit news organizations - ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Center for Public Integrity, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University - to its 1,500 member newspapers. NYT, ProPublica

2. The Long Beach Press-Telegram will be moving once again. All operations, including the newsroom, will be consolidated onto the first floor of the ARCO Tower Building by the end of the month, and will be moved to an as yet undetermined site by the end of the year. Stress-Telegram

3. The Los Angeles Times chronicles the failures of LA County's child welfare program. LAT

4. More on the movement of mobile news. Newspaper Project

Editing the new front page

Almost every newspaper site has "most viewed" widget on its front page. The list is mostly a passive tool - reporters and editors can throw a few search engine-friendly words into a headline or lede to try to generate buzz, but I doubt this is very common on the news side. Instead, readers largely drive the list and, once a story makes the ranks, its popularity becomes almost self-fulfilling: readers see Story A is the eighth most viewed, so they get curious and click on it, and suddenly it's the fifth most viewed. And up the chain it goes.

Which makes me think that newsrooms need a more robust plan to drive the stories out onto the Internet that they deem most newsworthy (not necessarily most click-worthy), using the same care and judgment they apply to building the front page of the printed edition.

Editors need to take the lead (and some surely are). They need to be the ones using the Twitters and Facebooks and blogs to push the front page out. Don't leave it to reporters to promote their own work (which is generally a bad idea anyway) on personal Twitter accounts; don't wait for bloggers, aggregators or algorithms to find the stories; and don't let the popular become the enemy of the good.

Promote the paper's editorial judgment and, in doing so, promote the things that separate newspapers from other media: traditions of accuracy, institutional memory, standards, ethics, beats, etc.. Flaunt it. If you have an A1 blowout on a corruption scandal that's not riding the "most viewed" tide, then advocate for it on the social networks and blogs (and to producers like me) with the same intensity used to get it onto A1 in the first place.

Don't wait to find out what readers think is news. Show them. And, in doing so, build an active relationship with the audience, rebuild a sense of mission in the newsroom, and show readers why being a witness to events is different from reporting on them.

In the past, the printed front page stood as a newspaper's collective assertion of editorial judgment. Story placement, photos, headlines... these were the visual and written record of what the newspaper could do, and how well it did it. Now the front page has fragmented and spread. The rigid architecture is gone and an organic one has taken its place.

Reporters are now being asked to write more frequently, more briefly and on shorter deadlines. Copy editors are being asked to work faster and more efficiently to get copy online. Editors - their ranks thinned, their influence diluted, their resources strapped - have tried to keep the paper's bearings. Now editors must actively and collectively assert their judgment to create front pages that unfold onto a complex, multidimensional online environment.

Times' Sunday circulation drops below one million

Ed Padgett at the LA Times Pressmens' blog reports that the Sunday circulation of the Los Angeles Times dropped below one million last Sunday for the first time in his memory. Padgett writes:

My career at the Los Angeles Times began on August 3, 1972, and the Sunday circulation of our newspaper always surpassed the million mark my entire career. This unfortunately changed on Sunday June 7, 2009 when circulation eased below one million copies.

Here’s a headline from the Los Angeles Times Media Center: 1961 Sunday circulation breaks the one-million mark several times during the year.

Eddy Hartenstein was brought on board as publisher of the Los Angeles Times on August 18th, 2008 to stem the bleeding at the newspaper. Just like his three Tribune Company predecessors, the blood flow has not stopped or even slowed.

With circulation and advertising descending on a daily basis at the Los Angeles Times will our publisher resort to cutting expenses by reducing the size of the workforce to increase revenue, one more time?

On Sunday, June 7th, 2009 the Los Angeles Times distributed 584,310 West edition newspapers, 404,352 East Edition newspapers, for a total distribution of 988,662 Sunday newspapers.

Blood sucking

Today's print edition of the Los Angeles Times is wrapped in a faux front page, complete with Times masthead, that's actually an ad for the HBO show "First Blood." (via Romenesko)

Four in the morning

1. Rand Corp.'s Chaibong Hahm, an expert on North Korea, thinks negotiators could win the release of jailed journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee before the end of the year. McClatchy (Related: UN imposes tough new sanctions on North Korea.)

2. The long lament of the languisaur - and the death of long-form journalism - from one-time Long Beach Press-Telegram reporter Candy Cooper. AJR

3. News organizations should reserve their vanity Facebook URLs - if only to prevent a squatter from doing it first. Poynter

4. An unhappy reader points out that the LA Times website this morning led with a story about a suit that OJ Simpson might or might not have worn to court the day he was acquitted of murder.

Missing links

Shortly after the shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, websites that hosted the writings of James von Brunn began erasing the links. Although caches of the writings still exist, the effort to remove his words has raised questions about online ethics and transparency.

From the Washington Post:

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, which resulted in the death of one security guard, several items were unearthed online that appeared to be written by von Brunn: a piece titled "Obama Is Missing," which questioned the president's citizenship, on conservative forum FreeRepublic.com. A Wikipedia user bio page (von Brunn had edited only sporadically), in which he wrote that Judaism is "the Enemy of Mankind." A long-stagnant personal site, HolyWesternEmpire.org, which included links to a novel.

Throughout Wednesday afternoon, these links began to disappear. Clicking on the personal site resulted in an error message. The Wikipedia user page vanished. The Free Republic link was also removed -- at least for a while. Current events Web site Daily Kos remarked on the removal, and a few hours later, the post reappeared.

Four in the evening

1. Also still adjusting to the Internet: politics. Matt Bai

2. Overhead in the Newsroom of the day: Reporter: “Just cause somebody got gunned down doesn’t mean his story is all that compelling.” OITN

3. More LANG moves, this time in the San Gabriel Valley. From LA Observed: Steve Lambert is the new Editor and Publisher of the San Gabriel Valley newspaper Group and Steve Hunt is promoted from managing editor to senior editor. LAO

4. News is going mobile. Recovering Journalist

The daily battle for Detroit

The decision to cut delivery of the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News to three days a week has opened the door to a new daily newspaper - the Detroit Daily Press.

The name itself is a finger in the eye of the former dailies, as Ken Doctor points out, but also a clever mashup that will give subscribers and advertisers a sense of establishment. But who wants a daily newspaper anymore?

Doctor answers:

Daily newspaper publishers have been making the point that the new economics of the news business simply won't pay for business (and staff and product) as usual. They are right, of course -- given their economics, but not necessarily the next guy's.

In making reductions, they've had to hit the panic button more often than the strategic switch, and that inevitably may have left them open to competitors of all kinds. They may not have protected their flanks well enough in cutting back. If the entrepreneurial pioneers turn into a parade, newspaper publishers will have a new headache: intensifying competition for the local ad dollar, and for readers' share of attention.

In Detroit, the exposed flank is home delivery. Publisher Dave Hunke may well have been right that the Detroit Newspaper Partnership was unsustainable in its traditional form, and that cutting whole days of home delivery made sense for Gannett and MediaNews. He exposed the flank though -- a big flank of maybe more than a 100,000 baby boomers and up (in age) who want the newspaper delivered to their home. They don't want an e-edition to be read on a computer, and they don't want to wait 'til they get trundled off to an old-age home (DNP has decided to keep up daily delivery to senior citizen facilities). They want a newspaper. Delivered.

Will the Globe go Intercontinental?

The owners of Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. have placed a bid to buy the Boston Globe, and I'm guessing it's not because they're interested in the articles.

From the Boston Herald:

“Intercontinental is interested in any good investment that offers superior returns for our investors, as well as opportunities for job preservation, and even job growth, for our union investors,” said a top executive for Boston-based Intercontinental ... “The Globe fits our profile.”

Since very few companies - especially ones with "real estate" in their name - think newspapers are great investments right now, what's the attraction? According to the Herald, the Globe owns some "prime property" along the I-95, which makes the proposal look a little like the deal Platinum Equity made to buy the San Diego Union-Tribune. Intercontinental also manages investment funds, including union pensions.

Speaking of which, the Herald reports that the largest union at the Globe has called for an equity stake in any new company. Assuming Intercontinental emerges as the buyer, that would at least leave one entity with an interest in the newspaper that wants to keep it a newspaper - albeit a much smaller one.

Of course, the New York Times Co. has yet to confirm it's going to sell the Globe. Putting the paper on the block could be a tactic to get the unions to sign off on wage and benefit cuts; or the wage and benefit cuts could be a tactic to make the Globe more attractive to a buyer.

Indictments in Temple City

The mayor, a former mayor and a former councilman of Temple City were all indicted today on charges stemming from a bribery investigation that has already taken down one City Councilman. The Pasadena Star-News reports:

Temple City Mayor Judy Wong was charged with five counts of bribery, three counts of perjury, and one count of solicitation of bribery. Her bail was set at $250,000.

Former Mayor Cathe Wilson was charged with three counts of bribery and three counts of perjury. Her bail was set at $150,000.

Former City Council candidate Scott Carwile was charged with four counts of perjury and one misdemeanor count of not reporting campaign contributions. His bail was set at $100,000.

All three pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Four in the evening

1. Los Angeles Times employees got a scare Monday when they arrived at work and found their ID cards wouldn't get them into the building. From Ed Padgett's Pressmens blog:

Why would employees think they had been let go you ask? Last year two employees were not notified of their job loss until they arrived at the newspaper. When their I.D. cards did not work, security gave them the bad news that they had lost their jobs.

(h/t fishbowlLA)

2. USA Today is the latest to offer subscribers an electronic edition of the printed newspaper. LANG launched theirs earlier this week.

3. What an emotional world. Clay Shirky says our penchant for instant news updates to be rebroadcast over social media sites "favors excitement over objectivity."

4. A study finds that newspapers salaries rose 2.1 percent between 2008 and 2009. Experienced reporters saw a 2 percent increase and interactive producers saw gains of 13 to 14 percent. It's not clear whether eliminating jobs might have boosted the averages.

If journalism loses its value, do journalists lose theirs as well?

James Rainey at the LA Times makes note of an interesting response to the news that two U.S. journalists had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for allegedly crossing the border into North Korea.

Rainey writes:

... a small but determined backlash took form, from a minority who say that reporters who go where they are not supposed to go get what they deserve. That's unsettling, but not surprising given a more insidious sentiment loose in the land: that journalists haven't earned and don't deserve any special privileges.

It's a populist nostrum that seeps into my e-mail basket and oozes from blogs and mainstream media websites with some regularity.

Although my blog is too small to be representative of a national trend, it stuck me that the only comment I received after Current TV reporter Euna Lee and Laura Ling were jailed came from someone who felt they deserved to be punished:

I believe the reporters broke the law and should pay the price. I have family members in the military and think this type of recklessness puts our military in harm’s way just so the reports (sic) can make some money.

Al Scal Guam USA

Clearly someone who's never seen a reporter's paycheck

As Rainy says, "The case of Ling and Lee provides the most recent reminder that some people passionately defend our freedoms, except when it becomes clear they won't come free." I'll let you work out the double meaning, but let's hope that the people who do sympathize with the two journalists take the time to consider why they went to China.

To that end, the Washington Post has a story today about the trafficking of women from North Korea to China that seems to be similar to what Lee and Ling were reporting on.

Tracking failure (and success)

Database reporting is a somewhat new trend in Internet journalism. Publishers can track data changes over a period of time and provide readers with periodic updates, whether it be the latest homicide or broken promise.

In its relatively short lifespan, the nonprofit ProPublica has become a master of the database, compiling all of "midnight regulations" in the last days of the Bush presidency, for example. Yesterday, the news site launched the "DNA backlog tracker" that will monitor the progress five law enforcement agencies make, or don't make, in eliminating their backlogs of untested DNA evidence. The list includes two California agencies, the Los Angeles Police Department and California Department of Justice, as well as the FBI, Illinois State Police and Virginia Department of Forensic Science. ProPublica is taking suggestions for other agencies to add to the list.

Globe for sale

The New York Times Co. wants to sell the Boston Globe.

(via Nieman Lab)

Four in the afternoon

1. AP reporter reprimanded for critical comment about McClatchy posted on personal Facebook account. Former AP reporter David Kravetz has the story.

2. "We don't believe you, Joe." - Gawker

3. USC basketball coach Tim Floyd resigns. Clarion Ledger

4. Advice for graduates, from Bob Rector

More Temple City indictments coming

The hammer is about to drop on a trio of Temple City pols accused of soliciting bribes from a developer, the Pasadena Star-News reports. Mayor Judy Wong, former mayor Cath Wilson and former council candidate Scott Carwile are expected in court tomorrow, when prosecutors will unseal a grand jury indicment against them.

The indictments were supposed to be announced yesterday, but the court delayed a couple days when Carwile, who ran unsuccessfully for the state Assembly in 2006, showed up without an attorney.

Temple City has already lost one councilman in the bribery scandal. Last week, Councilman David Capra was forced to resign after he pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to report a campaign contribution.