UPDATE: AOL Patch Jettisons 40 Percent of Staff

Image via CrunchBase

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong last Friday took actions promised in his earnings call to investors (see "TUOL" posts 8/7/13 & 8/9/13), laying off 40 percent of the staff of the Patch hyperlocal news sites.

Reports on the number of workers actually pink-slipped to reach that 40 percent figure ranged from 350 to 480, in various news accounts of the staff reduction by BusinessInsider.com, JimRomanesko.com and the Associated Press. In a brief 9-minute call during which he took no questions, Armstrong said 60 percent of Patch sites would continue to operate, 20 percent would consolidate or shut down and 20 percent would seek to operate jointly with other entities.

Patch staffers complained to Romanesko.com that Patch Regional Editors were not consulted before the axing began, and accused AOL of randomly targeting employees based on recommendations by an outside consulting firm, rather than on the unlucky workers' performance.

Murdoch Hacks Off The Daily

 (Photo credit: Scott Beale)

Less than two years after its splashy debut (see "TUOL" post 1/28/11), News Corp.-owned iPad newspaper, The Daily, will cease publication December 15.

According to reports in Fortune, The New York Times and Business Insider, The Daily was losing as much as $30 million annually since it first appeared in February 2011. Its Editor-in-Chief, Jesse Angelo, will become Publisher of the New York Post. News Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch said an undisclosed number of Daily staffers, along with technology and other assets of the electronic paper, also will be folded into the Post.

"We could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long term," Murdoch conceded. Business Insider reports that editorial staffers being jettisoned will receive three-months severance pay. 

The Daily lost a third of its then 170-member workforce last summer because of lagging ad revenue and circulation (see "TUOL" post 8/1/12). Reuters first reported The Daily's imminent demise late last week.

Ranks of Facebook Users Swelling Toward Three-Quarters of a Billion

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeSocialbakers, a blog whose focus is Facebook, claims that 700 million people are using the Palo Alto, Calif.-based social networking service, according to an article on www.BusinessInsider.com.

The boost in Facebook users has been fueled by skyrocketing growth in Indonesia, Brazil and India, BusinessInsider reports. The news is sure to press Mark Zuckerberg's "like" button, though from "TUOL"'s standpoint, never have so many with so much done so little.

Miller Rite

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeFormer New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe Judith Miller is a new staffer at conservative periodical Newsmax, according to www.businessinsider.com.

Miller, who most recently has worked as an on-air commentator and Web site contributor for Fox News, left the Times in 2005 in a swirl of controversy surrounding her coverage of the as-yet-to-be-found Weapons of Mass Destruction allegedly amassed by the late Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein.  The Times later published a mea culpa concerning its erroneous coverage of the WMD lead-up to the Iraq invasion, essentially conceding that  Bush Administration sources had played Miller like a flute.

Miller testified at the trial of White House aide  Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was accused of leaking information about CIA operative Valerie Plame. Miller spent 85 days in jail for civil contempt based on her initial refusal to testify on First Amendment grounds.

The Business Insider reports that Miller's first foray for Newsmax will appear in January 2011, and concern the Mideast drug trade. "TUOL" wonders if she'll discover "SMI"s (Substances of Mass Intoxication).

Favre MVP (Most Valuable Privates)? Gawker Paid $12k for Pix

Image via WikipediaIn a new low for checkbook journalism, Gawker Media coughed up $12,000 for photos of  41-year-old Minnesota Vikings QB Brett Favre's groin that the randy game-caller allegedly sent to a female employee of the New York Jets, Web site Business Insider reports.

Gawker head honcho Nick Denton boasted that the raunchy Favre post has attracted more than 4.9 milion pageviews. The photos of Favre, who apparently was trying to add to his N.F.L. record of most attempted passes in a broader sense, may have added to the value of Gawker's Deadspin Web site, but at the expense of journalistic credibility. Checkbook journalism, long-practiced by The National Enquirer and many so-called traditional news media, promotes lazy journalism, encourages sources to embellish tips for a higher payoff, and divides news outlets into haves (those who can pay) and have nots (those deprived of the "news").

The bought-and-paid-for Favre crotch photos should make everyone in the news business and John Sullivan (the Minnesota Vikings center from whom Favre takes his snaps) uncomfortable.