Archives: June 2008

AOL: Now What? A Few Wisecracks And A Few Notions

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 27

AOL: A neverending pinata party for those who write about such things; a gremlin that never stops kicking your shinbones for those running Time Warner....

Sam Zell Speaks His Mind About Advertising On CNBC

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 27

. . . around five minutes ago. INTERVIEWER: What about the ad market? SAM ZELL: What ad market?...

Bloodbath: Tribune's Hartford Courant To Cut A Quarter Of News Pages And News Staff

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 25

I'm outside of London right now with wacky connectivity, so the following memo may be everywhere already. But around an hour ago Hartford Courant staffers were told that around a...

Arianna Huffington, The New News, And The Old Ecosystem

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 24

As you may have heard by now, last week Arianna Huffington said the Huffington Post will begin publishing local news Web sites, starting in Chicago. The new venture will unsurprisingly...

Victor Ganzi Out At Hearst

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 18

Hearst Corp. President-CEO Victor Ganzi is out after 6 years in the top slot. Ganzi, the sixth CEO in Hearst’s 120 year history, is being replaced, at least temporarily, by...

Sad News About Tim Russert Broken By Wikipedia?

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 13

While making calls to confirm the swirling chatter that Tim Russert passed away today, I clicked on Wikipedia....

Yahoo-Google's Deal Is Done, But The Next Thing . . .

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 12

. . . is AOL-Microsoft. Given the latest, how long before some AOL-Microsoft deal gets announced, and will it just be for search? (Seriously. I’m asking. Let me know...

Dean Singleton’s Speech In Sweden: 19 Of The Top 50 US Newspapers Are Losing Money

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 09

Last week Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group (which owns the Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News, and 55 other American dailies) gave a remarkably candid speech on the state...

The Felix Dennis Tapes, Part 4: Launching And Selling Maxim

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 04

(Part 4 in our ongoing series of interview excerpts, in which Dennis talks about starting and selling the American version of Maxim. And hints, perhaps, at the the downsides of...

Deputy Managing Editor Bill Grueskin To Leave The Wall Street Journal

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 04

He's heading off the to be a dean at Columbia Univeristy's Journalism school. There's been generalized chatter among WSJ-ites that the editors' ranks--as opposed to the reporters' ranks--are in for...

The Felix Dennis Tapes, Part 3: "The Respectfulness Accorded Is Quite Astonishing, And It's Not Earned"

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 03

(Part three in our ongoing series of interview excerpts, in which Dennis mocks American self-seriousness. Previous entries can be found here and here; a column I wrote following this interview...

In Which A Middle Aged Print Executive Gives Up All Print Media For A Month And Lives To Tell The Tale

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 03

Had an interesting conversation a week or so ago with a fiftysomething exec who's spent more or less his entire working life involved in businesses that put ink on paper....

The Felix Dennis Tapes, Part 2: "Robotic Sex" To Be "So Big, It's Impossible To Compute."

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 02

(Part two of our ongoing series of interview excerpts, wherein Dennis discloses a novel investment opportunity. Part one can be found here; a column I wrote following this interview is...