U.S. government spies on reporter

In a troubling case for press freedom, federal investigators have probed New York Times reporter James Risen's credit card, telephone and bank records as they try to build a case against an alleged leaker who gave Risen information for his 2006 book "State of War." From a Politico report:

First Amendment advocates said the Justice Department’s use of business records to find out about Risen’s sources was troubling. Those records, they argue, could potentially expose a wide array of Risen’s sources and confidential contacts — information that might fall beyond the initial investigation that led to Sterling’s indictment.

“To me, in many ways, it’s worse than a direct subpoena,” said Jane Kirtley, a University of Minnesota law professor and former director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “Third-party subpoenas are really, really invidious…. Even if it is targeted, even if they’re trying to just look at the relevant stuff, they’re inevitably going to get material that exposes other things.”

Google pushes down content farms

Google is fighting back against content farms with a change in it's search algorithm. NYT

NYT: Fox News chief allegedly told employee to lie

Bashing Fox News is cheap and easy sport for some on the left. But a report in today's New York Times looks like something different. After reviewing affidavits, the paper reports that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes allegedly encouraged Judith Regan to lie to investigators about an affair she had to protect the presidential aspirations of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican. Ailes is allegedly caught on tape telling Regan to obfuscate. From the Times:

After the publishing powerhouse Judith Regan was fired by HarperCollins in 2006, she claimed that a senior executive at its parent company, News Corporation, had encouraged her to lie to federal investigators two years before.
The investigators had been vetting Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who had been nominated to become secretary of Homeland Security and who had had an affair with Ms. Regan.

-snip-

That complaint said that News Corporation executives “were well aware that Regan had a personal relationship with Kerik.” 
“In fact,” the complaint said, “a senior executive* in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”

-snip-

Mr. Kerik, was sent to prison last year after pleading guilty to federal charges including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.

 *The "senior executive" referred to here is Ailes.

Review-Journal dumps investigative unit

There's plenty to investigate in Nevada, but the Las Vegas Review-Journal has decided to dump its investigative unit as layoffs hit the newsroom. According to an AP story in the Las Vegas Sun, five people lost jobs in the R-J newsroom, in addition to five production workers and two administrative staffers.

(found via Romenesko)

LA Times wins Polk award

The Los Angeles Times won the 2010 George Polk award for local reporting for its coverage of the city of Bell salary scandal.

Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings won for an expose of Gen. Stanley McChrystal - a story that led to McChrystal's being fired. The Associated Press was honored for its investigation into the BP oil spill, and the nonprofit news site ProPublica received two awards, one for a collaboration with Frontline and the Times-Picayune about police abuses after Katrina and the other for a series on brain injuries done with NPR.

The full list of winners is here.

We are all urban homesteaders now

The Dervaes family has garnered a good deal of favorable press for their family farm in Northwest Pasadena. But in 2006, the family farm, and its sustainable-living model, became The Dervaes Institute, and the "presiding officer," father Jules Dervaes, got trademark happy. Now the family is garnering bad press for the legal threat letters sent to anyone who uses "urban homestead" or "urban homesteading" without adding a registered trademark symbol - the circled R - and acknowledging the phrases are the institute's intellectual property.

Which is a bizarre tactic for a non-profit that wants good attention. Nevertheless, the institute has sent out 16 such letters, according to its own press release. Here's a key paragraphs from the letter sent to KCRW's Evan Kleiman, host of Good Food:

We realize that your use of Dervaes published words and/or trademarks may have been inadvertent. We are generally able to resolve any such uses without involving our legal counsel. This would require that you update your ____[webpage]____ to properly cite our works. For example, the writings of Jules Dervaes about sustainable living are original protected works in which Dervaes owns exclusive rights. Content from the Dervaes websites, including text and photographs, are also protected works.

To threaten a public radio show - a fellow nonprofit - for using the term "urban homestead" in a blog post promoting a free event seems, frankly, dumb (Good Food did comply and deleted the phrase). Dervaes has argued that these aren't cease and desist letters, but mentioning the possibility of legal action makes them so.

Of course, a Facebook page has sprung up to protest the attempt at word control.

Cracking open the reporter's brain pan

One difference between a good reporter and a bad one is that a good reporter usually knows a great deal more about a story than he or she is able to squeeze into a single article. In the old days (BI: Before Internet), the workaround to this information choke was to give the reporter a series, or a niche beat, or even a book. When the institutional/insider knowledge built up to dangerous levels, a reporter might even get a column.

But all of those solutions cost money. Today, mostly the blog serves as the information release valve. The problem is, however, that blogs demand too much and too little at the same time. They need constant feeding, but only want snacks. But for readers to care, the reporter needs to craft the bite-size story into something akin to a funny joke. That's a talent in and of itself, which means many blogs are full of time-consuming flops, flabby and/or caustic criticism, or boring notebook detritus.

As a radio producer, my job is, in part, about giving reporters a chance to say all the things they couldn't fit into a story (after they recount what they did put in the story). Then we give the story a second life by getting people, often experts, to talk and debate. The key is the host - the interlocutor who directs the discussion and asks the questions.

There are news and commentary sites springing up that follow a similar model. Calbuzz, started by Phil Trounstine and Jerry Roberts, is one such outlet. On occasion, it allows good journalists to go deeper into the weeds on stories than most general interest newspapers, but they have an audience that will willingly follow. In this case, too, the two hosts - and their curiosity - drives the conversation.

A good example of this is today's special report from Gene Maddaus, political writer at the LA Weekly. Maddaus took exception to some overly generalized CW on Calbuzz and, in response to his message, the editors asked him to write what most good political writers wish they could cram into their campaign coverage - but don't.

This kind of interaction improves journalism without robbing anyone of their valuable time (Gene didn't have to post the piece if he didn't want to) and without mindless consolidation or content-farming other news outlets have embraced (cough, AOL, cough, MediaNews).

GOP vs. NPR

Republican lawmakers in the House want to pull all funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, which provides grants to NPR and PBS stations and serves as seed money for stations to raise money from listeners. This isn't the first time the GOP has gone after public broadcasting; this latest effort was spurred by the firing of NPR analyst Juan Williams over comments he made on Fox News.

On today's "To The Point," a discussion about what would happen if public broadcasting the loses the money, and a debate over whether the networks offer a valuable services, or biased news. Guests are Paul Farhi of the Washington Post; Laura Walker, president of New York Public Radio; Laurence Jarvik, author of "PBS: Behind the Screen"; James Rainey, media columnist at the Los Angeles Times, and Adam Thierer of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. A link to the program, which was produced by Katie Cooper, is here.

A terrible thing in Cairo

Lara Logan, chief foreign correspondent for CBS News and 60 Minutes, suffered "a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating" while covering the celebration in Tahrir Square after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced he was stepping down as president. Logan, CBS reports, was finally "saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers," taken back to her hotel, and then flown to the United States on the first flight out. She is recovering in a hospital. CBS News said it will issue no further comments on the incident at this time.

The photo was reportedly taken just moments before Logan was separated from her crew and attacked.

Four today

1. Media companies making billions by convincing the masses to whitewash their fences - for free. NYT

2. Glenn Greenwald doesn't like Jim Rainey telling Anderson Cooper not to use the word "liar". Salon

3. Jimmy Orr, former internet strategist for President George W. Bush, was promoted to managing editor, online, at the Los Angeles Times. LAO

4. Huffington Post writer Jason Linkins says he gets a paycheck and has deadlines, so there's no need to pay the bloggers. HuffPo

No national consolidation plan, Singleton says

Dean Singleton, who's still the voice of MediaNews Group, put out a statement late today saying the newspaper chain has no plans for a national copy desk, despite a union letter warning of just such a proposal. He blames the union for jumping the gun, based on a casual conversation, and adds that this is why he doesn't include the guild in any planning sessions.

Romenesko also got hold of a memo sent from Dave Butler, head of MNG's California papers, that also says no national copy desk is planned, but indicates more regional clustering is probable. I'm reprinting the memos here, both taken from the Romenesko website. First Dave, then Dean:

Fellow MNG editors: 

FYI. I spoke to Dean Singleton this afternoon about the statement put out by the Guild regarding a national copy editing center. Below is his response to their press release. I would further add that we have two projects going on that fly in the face of any “national” center. We have consultant Ken Harding working with editors in Denver, Salt Lake and St. Paul to figure out ways to make local news production more efficient at each paper, and just yesterday a group from BANG went to LANG to exchange ideas on how we might streamline our regional desks. We also have some mini-regional desks around the company and may, at some point, consider more. Like most other newspaper companies, regionalization — where appropriate — seems to work well. Would we rule out doing something else? Nope. But the capital costs of one center and the challenges involved seem pretty daunting to me. Please share this information as is appropriate. 

-Dave 

******* 

Dean’s statement:
The Newspaper Guild on Friday issued a press release referring to a casual phone conversation I had with Bernie Lunser, president of the Guild, concerning the future of the newspaper industry and how newspapers can better serve their readers in print, online and on mobile products. 

Contrary to the assertions made in the release, there are no plans for “national consolidation” of MNG’s editing processes. 

While we constantly assess better ways to serve our readers in this changing and uncertain world, including the Guild in these considerations are not a part of those assessments.
The irresponsible Guild press release is a perfect example of why we don’t. 

There is no future for any of us if we continue to live in the past. Someone should tell that to the Guild. 

- Dean

Computer problems persist in LANG

The Unisys computer system used in the Los Angeles Newspaper Group newsrooms is still glitched, I'm told. Reporters are being asked to write their stories offline and then to email them to editors, who are able to sign on in limited numbers. This makes for a longer night and possible late Friday freakouts, but the papers should get published through the makeshift system.

The glitch caused problems with the Friday papers, with the Daily News, Daily Breeze and Press-Telegram forced to use sports and news pages from the papers in the San Gabriel Valley.

MediaNews consolidation plans pick up speed

The universal copy desk is on the march. Already implemented within the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, parent-company MediaNews Group has approached the Newspaper Guild about the potential for similar consolidation plans on a national level. Whether the company wants consolidated copy desks at regional hubs, as Gannett has planned, or something more drastic remains to be seen.

The changes would undoubtedly save money, make it easier to share content and allow for the outsourcing of some functions. It would also make it easier to implement chain-wide changes, such as adopting an MNG mobile news service or a pay wall strategy. And, of course, it would make any other consolidation or merger proposals easier to implement.

The guild press release follows:

MEDIANEWS APPROACHES GUILD ABOUT POTENTIAL PRODUCTION CONSOLIDATION

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FEB. 11, 2011

 

WASHINGTON, DC -- MediaNews Group Executive Chairman Dean Singleton has contacted national leadership of The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America (TNG-CWA) to discuss a potential national consolidation of the company's copy desks, pagination and front-end production.

 

We are seeking additional information from MediaNews to better understand what is being considered. At this point, we have no information to assess the timing of such a change, how many newspapers might be affected, or what such a radical shift in production would mean for current employees.

 

A union task force is being established consisting of leaders from all the Guild-represented work sites at MediaNews, including locations in Denver; York, Pa.; Northern and Southern California; and St. Paul, Minn. We hope to reach out to newsrooms at non-represented MediaNews operations as well. Our goal is to preserve jobs and quality journalism while engaging constructively with MediaNews.

 

We will keep our members and communities informed as we learn more details.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Bernie Lunzer, TNG-CWA President, 202-434-7175

CPAC protests AOL over Huffington Post deal

Conservatives at the CPAC conference are calling for a boycott of AOL after the company purchased the liberal website Huffington Post. A photo of the flier is here.

Technical difficults lead to one-day merger of LANG sports sections*

Readers of the Long Beach Press-Telegram awoke today to find the front page of their sports came from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, a sister paper in the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. No, this isn't another consolidation measure, but the result of a LANG-wide computer glitch.

Here's the note to readers:

Due to major technological issues, the print edition of your Press-Telegram is incomplete today. The inability to transmit several pages in multiple sections forced a decision to substitute some similar content from some of the P-T's sister papers in the L.A. Newspaper Group. All efforts will be made to get you all the content you missed via the website and/or the Saturday morning print edition, preferably both. We realize this resulted in the exclusion of some important local content (high school sports, local news) and some shortened versions of other stories. We regret the inconvenience that this has caused.

While a computer glitch could affect any publication, the fact that Press-Telegram substituted the Tribune as backup is a reminder of just how consolidated the LANG papers already are. After all, the two sports sections are designed and edited on a single copy desk based in the San Gabriel Valley. When a computer problem hits the Press-Telegram copy desk, it hits all of the paper's copy desks.

*Update: One-for-all indeed. Both the Daily Breeze and the Daily News had non-local sports pages as well due to the same glitch (Notes to readers in the DB and DN). h/t LA Observed.

Four in the morning

1. There's some news out of Egypt today. NYT

2. LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich wants to get tough with political protesters. LAT

3. Huffington Post economics editor Peter Goodman explains the Huffington Way of coverage. HuffPo

4. The low bar of getting a story on Gawker. Capital New York (via Poynter)

Layoffs in LANG*, **

The salary cuts and furloughs weren't enough to stave off layoffs in the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. I'm told that two editorial employees, including the photo editor, were fired from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and an unfilled editorial position was eliminated. An administrative assistant and IT staffer were also laid off.

There may be more layoffs in other departments and at other papers. I'll update when and if I get more information.

*Update: The layoffs include photo editor Bernardo Alps and designer Mary Roy. An unfilled editorial position at the Pasadena Star-News was also eliminated.

**Update II: Here's the goodbye email from Bernardo Alps to his former colleagues (I deleted his contact information):

...wasn't planning it this way, but I am off in search of new adventures. 

I want to thank all of you for the time we had together. You are a great group of people doing great work under difficult conditions. I enjoyed working with all of you and I learned from each of you. I hope you realize that I had to be a hardass to make things work smoothly. If I was hard on you sometimes, it in no way reflects how I feel about you personally. 

Please stay in touch (and send any leads my way). 

Now I'm off to make some lemonade... 

Take care

Current TV to go pro

Now that Keith Olbermann is on board at Current TV, where he'll host a show and lead the political coverage, the Al Gore-owned channel wants to hire more professional staff and reinvent itself as a mix of MSNBC and the Discovery Channel. TV Newser

SEO vs. the paywall

Farhad Manjoo at Slate wonders if the AOL-Huffington Post deal could falter as SEO loses its mojo inside Google's search algorithms. HuffPo can attribute much of its success to cutting down big stories into digestable sizes and then search engine optimizing the hell out of them. To explain how it works, Manjoo offered the following summary of the AOL deal to buy HuffPo:

Before I go on, let me stop and say a couple of more important things: Aol, Aol Acquires Huffington Post, Aol Buys Huffington Post, Aol Buys Huffpo, Aol Huffington Post, Huffington Post, Huffington Post Aol, Huffington Post Aol Merger, Huffington Post Media Group, Huffington Post Sold, Huffpo Aol, Huffpost Aol, Media News.

 Meantime, Felix Salmon says AOL-HuffPo will eventually beat the New York Times and compares the former site to walking through Times Square while the New York Times is like going to the library - and finding out it costs to check out a book. Here's Salmon's concluding graphs:

One of the paradoxes of news media is that most of the time, the more you’re paying to use it, the harder it is to navigate. Sites like HuffPo make navigation effortless, while it can take weeks or months to learn how to properly use a Bloomberg or Westlaw terminal. Once the NYT implements its paywall, it’s locking itself into that broken system: it will be providing an expensive service to a self-selecting rich elite who are willing to put in the time to learn how to use it. Meanwhile, most Americans will happily get their news from friendlier and much more approachable free services like HuffPo.

Rather than learning from or trying to emulate HuffPo’s hugely valuable editorial technology, then, the NYT is sticking its head in the sand and retreating to a defensive stance of trying to make as much money as possible from its core loyal readers. There’s no growth in such a strategy. Indeed, the opposite is true: the NYT is making it both hard and expensive to become a core loyal reader. Meanwhile, the open web will become ever more accessible and social, with friends pointing friends to news in a site-agnostic manner. The NYT is distancing itself from that conversation, standing proud and aloof. It’s a strategy which is doomed to fail.

Post-LANG success story

Marshall Allen, who worked at the Pasadena Star-News for several years before heading to the Las Vegas Sun, is up for a Goldsmith Prize in Investigative Journalism, which comes with a $25,000 prize. Allen co-wrote a series called "Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas". Here's a description of the series:

After a two-year investigation, including the review of 2.9 million records, the Sun’s five-part series identifies the preventable infections and injuries taking place in Las Vegas hospitals. Allen and Richards set out to impose transparency on Las Vegas hospitals so they will be held accountable. Their findings resulted in consumers having access to quality-of-care data that will help them make smart decisions.

Also on the finalists' list is the city of Bell series done by the Los Angeles Times.

Four in the morning

1. The AOL-Huffington Post deal is great, as long as you don't care much for journalism. LAT

2. If you have the data, the guvment will help you map it. IssueMap (via Nieman Lab)

3. Arianna Huffington trumpets the AOL-Huffington Post deal; Marc Cooper and others analyze the consequences for online and offline news operations in Southern California. WWLA?

4. Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology. New Yorker

The view from New York

New York Times media writers Brian Stelter and David Carr discuss the AOL-Huffington deal. It's short and to the point, with a cliffhanger of an ending. The link is here.

Mixing metaphors, and Huffington Patch vs. NewsBeast

AOL's purchase of Huffington Post is a fascinating case study of old and new media feeding off one another in a strange orgy of mutual cannibalism - legacy eats innovator eats legacy; pay eats no pay eats pay. It seems so incongruous, and yet so dirty natural as to be inevitable.

Here is Arianna Huffington, maven of the progressive blogosphere and mistress of the skimpy or nonexistent paycheck, and AOL, a company mostly associated with dial-up Internet and a panicky but paid-for venture into local news, making common cause to take on the likes of Yahoo News and NewsBeast (the royal marriage of the money-losing Newsweek and Tina Brown's mostly paid-in-exposure Daily Beast).

On one hand, we have once mighty media companies struggling to survive on a model of paid news staff who generate original content and, on the other, surging media companies that have learned to harness the power of ideological branding, agenda journalism and exposure-as-compensation to drive enormous traffic, though without the ad dollars to match. Given the triumphalist social media chatter, one would think the likes of HuffPo and the Daily Beast would leave their crippled ancestors to die upon the banks of the primordial swamp; instead the oldster companies have swallowed their offspring to serve as a sort of mitochondrial life force.

Which raises the obvious question: Will most or all of the writers and bloggers working for these hybrid media empires get paid? Even Dan Gillmor thinks they should.

And some writers do. Before Huffington Post and the Daily Beast got gobbled up, they'd hired veteran journalists from the likes of Newsweek, the New York Times and the Washington Post to invigorate their journo credentials and gain seats at the pundits' tables. Howard Kurtz, who worked at the Washington Post, which sold off Newsweek, has gone to the Daily Beast. Howard Fineman, who worked at Newsweek, which merged with the Daily Beast, is now senior politics editor at Huffington Post.

This feels like the kind of viral cross-contamination that has to happen for online media to move forward, though the evolution/mutation is far from over.

In strictly business terms, AOL-HuffPo has a built in advantage over NewsBeast. Huffington Post is more popular than Daily Beast and AOL has a large stable of news sites, such as TechCrunch and the relatively new Patch network, both giving AOL a foot in the niche/hyperlocal markets. These sites now fall under Arianna's editorial guidance. She's proven extremely adept at managing a single brand, her own, but can she manage multiple brands with different editorial missions? Or does everything AOL go The Huffington Way?

(edited)

Rep. Harman heads to think tank

Rep. Jane Harman, D-El Segundo, will announce tomorrow that she is leaving Congress to head the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars think tank. Her departure leaves Democrats scrambling to find a suitable replacement (The City Maven tweeted that LA Councilman Janice Hahn has already announced she'll run and Marcy Winograd, president of the Progressive Democrats of Los Angelse, has been mentioned as well).

Harman, who sits on the influential House Intelligence Subcommittee, is a staunch defender of Israel and a reliable hawk. Her departure opens the door to Democrats who'd like to see a more liberal person in the seat. It's unlikely Republicans will be able to take the South Bay district,  which runs from Venice to Redondo, then curls around the Palos Verdes peninsula to take in part of the Port of Los Angeles.

Harman's husband is Sidney Harman, who recently bought Newsweek magazine, which he quickly mated with Tina Brown's The Daily Beast, and which will probably be a prime competitor against the newly formed AOL-Huffington Post and Yahoo News. Thus begins the battle of the Howards (Howard Fineman, formerly of Newseek, now at Huffington Post, versus Howard Kurtz, formerly of the Washington Post, which sold Newsweek to Harman, who is now a Daily Beast writer).

Four in the morning (the Huffington Patch edition)

Did AOL just pay Arianna Huffington $315 million to figure out how not to pay its writers? This and other questions mulled in today's AOL Way-HuffPo roundup:

1. Huffington and her cohorts say the deal will change nothing and everything, "it will be like stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet." Atlantic

2. Ken Auletta on Tim Armstrong's "Hail Mary Pass." New Yorker

3. Nick Denton calls the Huffington Post "remarkably ugly" (scroll to bottom of Q&A). Atlantic Wire

4. Gawker makes fun of the whole thing. Gawker

AOL to buy Huffington Post*

AOL, which has tread heavy into the content arena with AOL news staff and its Patch sites, has agreed to buy Huffington Post for $315 million. Arianna Huffington will continue to lead HuffPo, Reuters reports. The deal calls for AOL and HuffPo to integrate content. From Reuters:

"The acquisition of The Huffington Post will create a next-generation American media company with global reach that combines content, community, and social experiences for consumers," said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL.

*The New York Times reports that Arianna Huffington will run editorial operations for the entire AOL network, not just the Huffington Post content. From the story:

Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.

One has to look no further than "The AOL Way" to know that AOL could use some editorial guidance. Whether Huffington is the one to provide it is another matter. Here's more from the New York Times has more:

While Huffington Post has been growing — it now employs more than 200 people, a threefold increase in just the last few years — AOL has been shrinking. Last year it eliminated close to 2,500 positions, roughly a third of its staff. Although its most recent earnings estimates beat Wall Street expectations, revenues for the fourth quarter were down 26 percent from a year earlier as dial-up customers continued to disappear. Ad revenue, which is seen as the company’s main business going forward, was down 29 percent from the year before. 

-snip- 

The Huffington Post, too, has faced criticism over its content, much of which is aggregated from other news sources. But it has started to invest more in original reporting and writing, hiring experienced journalists from The New York Times, Newsweek and other traditional media outlets. By acquiring The Huffington Post’s reporting resources, AOL hopes to counter the perception that it is a farm for subpar content.

Times media critic talks about possible SoCal media mergers

Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey looks at the various merger options before the owners of Southern California's newspapers, as the currently bankrupt and recently bankrupt look for ways to hook up to save money.

The chase seems to center on Freedom Communications, owner of the Orange County Register, which has put itself on the market. Most of the hedge-fund money is on the Register merging with MediaNews Group, also recently bankrupt and owner of the nine LANG newspapers. The same group of investors, led by Alden Capital Group, already own major stakes in the two companies.

Alden also owns a piece of the Times, and Rainey reports that the currently bankrupt Tribune Co. has kicked Freedom's tires. But Tribune's internal troubles and potential anti-competition complaints would seem to make this wedding a little more difficult.

Getting detained in Cairo

Andrew Lee Butters of Time magazine writes about how he got punched and threatened at a makeshift checkpoint on the way into Cairo's Tahrir Square, where the bulk of the protesters are encamped. He's one of dozens of reporters being detained or roughed up by thugs, some of whom are believed to be taking orders from the government.

An excerpt from Butters' post:

More young men arrived, and they punched and frog-marched me to a wall where there were several others being held by the crowd, including a pair of Russian journalists, a Lebanese video crew, a kid who had been caught with anti-Mubarak signs, men with Islamic-style beards, and a poor Nigerian house cleaner who had left home without a passport and whom one raving brute in the crowd accused of being a drug dealer. “Mubarak good, the Egyptian system good!” he shouted at us, though it was hard to see from his decaying teeth, tattered clothes, and yellowed toenails that the Egyptian system had done him much good.

LANG to cut staff salaries*

Employees with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group will have their wages cut starting this month, with the reductions first showing up in March paychecks. Senior managers will lose 10 percent of their salaries and most other staffers will experience a 5.5-percent cut, according to a Feb. 2 memo from LANG President Fred Hamilton. Employees making under $10 an hour are exempted.

LANG has already ordered furloughs and a vacation freeze for most employees. Hamilton says the wage reductions should be enough to avoid layoffs.

LANG comprises nine newspapers in Southern California and is part of the MediaNews Group chain.

*Update: A copy of Hamilton's memo is here.

In addition to being a morale sucker, the wage cut comes on top of a 10-day unpaid furlough, which is also a wage cut in disguise. When you add how much employees will lose from the furlough to the 5.5-percent cut announced today, it equals almost 9.5 percent in lost wages. And that comes after years of stagnant salaries and shrinking newsrooms, which force reporters and editors to do more work just to keep up.

"The AOL Way" is to get hits

AOL has a feverish case of hit-count lust. After creating Patch and investing in content creators, as it likes to call journalists, AOL has developed an aggressive plan for profitability that seems sure to grind the hell out of its editorial employees. The Business Insider got a copy of memo (really an excessively jargon-filled power point presentation) that outlines ways to boost traffic. Here's part of BI's summary (the "he" refers to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong):

By April, he wants AOL editorial to increase its stories per month from 33,000 to 55,000.
He wants pageviews per story to jump from 1,500 to 7,000.
He wants video stories to go from being 4% of all stories produced to 70%.
He wants the percentage of stories optimized for search engines to reach 95%.

All of which means many more "stories" from AOL staffers (five to 10 a day is the goal), with a keen eye on money metrics. The plan includes almost nothing about editorial goals, quality, or better coverage. It's machine journalism at its rawest - or what AOL management would call "The AOL Way," a name that rightly deserves to be ridiculed.

One journalist who joined AOL offered this response to Business Insider:

"AOL is the most f-----up, b------t company on earth," says one, who joined AOL in what he calls, "the worst career move I've ever made." 

An October 2010 study argues against turning online editorial into a content farm, saying better stories generate better ad revenue. But the insane valuation of Demand Media, said to be worth more than $1 billion, is certain to change minds.

****

Speaking of AOL's Patch network, I received a message from a Patch contributor who told me AOL plans to cut 30-50 percent out of freelance budgets. I'm not sure whether "The AOL Way" applies to Patch writers, but a smaller freelance budget means community editors will have fewer resources to create more content. Doesn't that sound familiar?