2013 Can't End Soon Enough for AOL: Editor-in-Chief Said Soon to Be Out the Door

Image via CrunchBase

Seven months after AOL haled her arrival, Editor-in-Chief Cyndi Stivers is on her way out, according to an article in the New York Post.

No official word from AOL, according to the Post, about Stivers, who left a position as editor of the Columbia Journalism Review to join AOL (see "TUOL" post 5/13/13). Her departure would  be a blow to AOL, which this year eliminated 40 percent of its hyperlocal news AOL Patch editorial staff (see "TUOL" post 8/19/13) and reduced the number of Patch sites from 900 to 14, the Post reported.

Time Staffers Miffed at Old Lang's Sign-Off & Payout

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A 15-month job tenure yields a $19 million payout over four years. Nice work if you can get it.

Staffers at Time, Inc., however, are not happy that Laura Lang, hired in 2012 as CEO of the company for a four-year term, but who announced her intended departure in March 2013, is netting a sweet payout, according to a column in today's New York Post.

The Post piece reports that Lang, who oversaw layoffs of 500 employees and a salary freeze (see "TUOL" posts 1/11/13 & 1/31/13), received a $1 million salary in 2012--her one full year on the job--and close to $1 million for her brief stay this year.  With stock value and bonus, her 2012 earnings reached $7.6 million. Additionally, the Post reported she received a $2.5 million separation bonus this year, and is expected to reap a $2.3 million "transaction bonus" next year over the splitting off of Time, Inc. from Time Warner, which mostly was overseen by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes.

Lang announced in March she would step down as soon as a replacement was found, which was in August, though her contract carried through last month. Meanwhile, according to the Post, Time, Inc. managers lost their stock option grants with the Time Warner spinoffs.

Well, at least some people are finding magazine journalism profitable nowadays.

No Need to Stay Up Late With Alec Baldwin Anymore; MSNBC Show Cancelled

(Photo credit: Talk Radio News Service)

Paltry ratings, alleged diva-esque behavior and a two-week suspension over a purported homophobic rant against a New York Post photographer has led to MSNBC cancelling the weekly Up Late With Alec Baldwin gabfest after only four episodes, the Post reported yesterday.

Baldwin, whose acting ability on Tina Fey's 30 Rock sitcom and in films such as Glengarry Glen Ross has made him a fan fave of "TUOL," drew only 395,000 viewers for his interview of actress Debra Winger on what proved to be his final MSNBC show after complaints from gay rights advocates and others led MSNBC to suspend him for two weeks after his run-in with the Post photog who was snapping pics of Baldwin's wife and child.

Unnamed sources at MSNBC claimed Baldwin was difficult to work with, and made numerous unreasonable demands, such as his own make-up room. "TUOL" sheds only crocodile tears for MSNBC over the failed Baldwin talk show, because this blog prefers talk show hosts who are journalists discussing matters of substance over infotainment vanity yakfests.

Closer Opens with a Splash; Will It Sink or Swim?

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hamburg, Germany-based Bauer Media Group is going all-out in its debut of Closer magazine, ordering a print run of two million and an inaugural newsstand price of 25 cents, the New York Post reported today.

The magazine targets the oft-neglected demographic of women aged 40 and older, and will fill its pages with celebrity profiles, health, fashion and diet news, so, no heavy-lifting here. That goes for the premiere issue, featuring Valerie "Rhoda" Harper on the cover, which weighs in at 76 pages, but ominously, only 17 ad pages, according to the Post article.

Future issues (which is not to say that Closer has a solid future) will sell for $3.99 on newsstands, the Post reported. At least it promises to be a Miley Cyrus-free zone.

New York: City May Never Sleep, but Magazine May Come Out Only Bi-weekly

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Flat circulation and dwindling ad revenues may force New York, the weekly magazine that Clay Felker debuted in 1968, to publish only biweekly in 2014, the New York Post reports.

New York CEO Anup Bagaria acknowledged that printing less frequently is one option being weighed. Like much of the industry, New York has been hurt by fewer ad pages in its print edition, suffering a 12 percent drop-off in 2008 from a peak 3,343 ad pages in 2007 and a 27 percent plunge in 2009. Meanwhile, circulation has stagnated at around 400,000 for the print version.

Digital ads account for half the journal's ad revenues, according to the Post article.

USA Today Ponders Paywall as Newsstand Price Set to Double

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

USA Today President and Publisher Larry Kramer today clarified his comments that appeared in the New York Post that the national newspaper was considering erecting a paywall to charge online readers, telling Poynter.org that  "no plan exists" for the Gannett Co.-owned flagship daily to charge digital readers.

Paywalls already are in place at national dailies, The New York Times and Wall St. Journal, not to mention Gannett's 80 other daily newspapers (see "TUOL" post 2/23/12). With a combined digital and print readership of 1,674,306 that makes it the nation's third largest newspaper, USA Today suffered a 12 percent drop-off in circulation revenue during the Second Quarter of 2013, according to the Post article.

USA Today is days away from doubling its single-copy price to $2 from $1, the first price hike in six years. The increase, necessitated by sagging circulation and ad revenues, is prompting Gannett to remove many of its iconic white, tv-shaped newspaper boxes. Rather than expect faithful followers to jingle as they walk down the street with a pocketful of quarters, Gannett instead has hammered out deals with Starbucks and the Duane Reade pharmacy chain to serve as outlets where the daily may be purchased.

In an attempt to inject new life into the brand, a section including articles from the Life, Money and News sections of USA Today will begin to appear in Gannett-owned dailies in Indianapolis, Appleton (Wis.), Fort Myers and Rochester. Gannett has dubbed the experiment Project Butterfly for reasons unclear to "TUOL," except perhaps that the insect and the paper weigh about the same nowadays and both are more likely to face a gaining net than net gains.

Accidental Model Sues Photo Agency

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A 25-year-old Brooklyn woman last week sued Getty Images photo agency and plans to go after the New York State Division of Human Rights ("DHR") as well regarding a photo of her that appeared in an amNew York ad, according to accounts in The New York Post and New York Daily News.

The photo at issue of Ireland native Avril Nolan, who works in public relations, allegedly appeared two years ago in an online fashion spread. The image by photographer, Jena Cumbo, whom the Daily News article said knows Nolan in passing, wound up in the stable of Getty Images, which sold it to DHR. From there, Nolan's visage wound up in an ad that appeared in the April 3 edition of amNew York, only it was accompanied by the message: "I am positive (+) [and] I have rights."

Problem is that Nolan is not HIV positive and did not sign a release with Cumbo or Getty Images or otherwise give her permission for the photo to be used, according to Nolan's attorney, who is quoted in the Daily News article. That's bad news for Getty, which has been sued for $450,000 in Manhattan Supreme Court by Nolan, and soon will be a headache for DHR, which Nolan's attorney said will be sued for defamation and civil rights violations for creating the impression that Nolan is an HIV victim.

Bloggers and photo editors everywhere are involuntarily shivering a bit. It's serious business when a person depicted in an image taken out of context is cast in a false light.

Boston Marathon Bombing 'Bag Men' Front Page Photo Sparks Libel Suit Against NY Post

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A defamation suit against the News Corp.-owned tabloid New York Post has been filed in Suffolk County (Mass.) Superior Court by two men who appeared in a page one photo at the peak of the police manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers.

According to articles by Reuters and the National Law Journal, 24-year-old Yassine Zaime and 16-year-old Salheddin Barhoum are suing the Post for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The two Moroccan emigres, avid running enthusiasts, watched participants near the finish line in the Boston Marathon in April, but left two hours before rigged pressure cooker explosive devices detonated, killing three and wounding hundreds of spectators.

According to the plaintiffs' complaint, the two men voluntarily went to their respective local police stations to answer questions about their presence at the race after learning that a photo of them was circulating on various social media sites. The complaint states that on April 18, the same day police purportedly exonerated them, a photo of the two men appeared on page 1 of the Post with the headline: "Bag Men: Feds seek this duo pictured at Boston Marathon."

The lead sentence of the Post story that day began: "Investigators probing the deadly Boston marathon bombings are circulating photos of two men spotted chatting near the packed finish line, the Post has learned."  Inside pages depicted two more photos of the plaintiffs, in one of which, a plaintiff's head was circled in red and captioned: "Cops are seeking these two men (above) who were spotted near the site of the Boston blasts."

Later that same day, the FBI released photos of  two Chechen brothers authorities identified as suspects in the bombing, Tamarlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the former of whom died in a firefight with police and the latter of whom remains in custody.

"The plaintiffs were not suspects and were not being sought by law enforcement," the complaint alleges. "The Post had no basis whatsoever to suggest that they were, especially in light of a warning on Wednesday to news media, by federal authorities, to exercise caution in reporting about this very matter."

The complaint further alleges: "The front page would lead a reasonable reader to believe that plaintiffs had bombs in their bags, that they were involved in causing the Boston Marathon bombing."

For its part, the Post maintains it never identified the two men as "suspects," but rather, as two men whom police wanted to find. Included in the Post story on April 18 was a sentence that read: "It was not immediately clear if the men in the law-enforcement photos are the same men in the surveillance videos."  The Post has not published an apology to Zaime or Barhoum.

Sext in the City

l (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The 53-year-old head of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication has resigned over a sexting scandal involving a stripper, the New York Post reported this week.

Scott Sassa, who oversaw Hearst's interests in ESPN, Lifetime and other entities, stepped down after steamy messages he purportedly exchanged with a Los Angeles ecdysiast were forwarded to Hearst executives. The Post reported that the exotic dancer and her boyfriend sent the raunchy material, which included explicit images, because Sassa, a single parent, refused their payoff demands.

Sassa, whose resume includes high-ranking posts with Fox, NBC and Marvel Entertainment, was reportedly shown the door by Hearst leadership, including CEO Frank Bennack, Jr. and David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines. The Post article characterized the company once headed by the iconic William Randolph Hearst as conservative and strait-laced and, therefore, shocked by Sassa's alleged transgression.

From the "what-happens-in-Los Angeles-stays-in-Los Angeles" perspective of  the "TUOL" staff, however, it seems as if Sassa employed technology to satisfy his prurient interests, whereas William Randolph Hearst used the technology of his day to push the nation into the Spanish-American War. Terms of Sassa's severance package were not disclosed in the article, but "TUOL" suspects he'll have enough discretionary income to cover any lap dance expenditures.

'So Long Dad' O'Brien: Anchor Expected to Leave CNN

 (Photo credit: jdlasica)

Soledad is Spanish for solitude. The New York Post is reporting that CNN morning anchor Soledad O'Brien may soon have plenty of "alone time" as she appears on her way out at CNN as part of the cable news network's personnel shake-up under new boss Jeff Zucker.

O'Brien, who has hosted Starting Point in the a.m. since January 2012, is being supplanted by Erin Burnett, who will take her place alongside recent CNN arrival Chris Cuomo, according to the Post article. O'Brien, who left NBC for CNN in 2003, has helmed documentaries such as Black in America and formerly hosted American Morning.

The Post indicated O'Brien's departure, in part, stems from her being miffed about not receiving a long-promised Prime Time slot on CNN. The network did not respond to the Post article.

Time (Inc.) Is A Wastin'

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Looking to trim $100 million in an uncertain climate marked by sinking ad revenues and declining readership, Time, Inc. may pink-slip 500 to 700 staffers next month, according to an exclusive story yesterday by New York Post columnist Kevin Kelly.

The Post article noted that Time, Inc. CEO Laura Lang put the kibosh on pay raises for an 8,000-strong workforce. Time, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, and People are among the publications in the media conglomerate's stable.

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.

CNN Zucker-Punched

 (Photo credit: david_shankbone)

Jeff Zucker, 47, is the incoming president of CNN Worldwide, a new chapter in a career that has included stints as executive producer of  NBC's Today Show at age 26, head of NBC Universal and executive producer and co-owner of "Katie," Katie Couric's talkfest syndicated by Disney.

Zucker will take the helm of CNN in January, succeeding Jim Walton, who completes a nine-year run in the position. CNN, CNN International and HNL are among the entities Zucker will oversee, according to accounts in the New York Post, Bloomberg News and CNN. CNN reaches a 100 million U.S. households, but its prime-time programming attracts fewer than a third of the viewers who watch Fox News. Zucker will disassociate himself from "Katie," though don't be surprised if he tries to lure Her Royal Perkiness to CNN's Prime-time schedule.

He is an accomplished broadcasting executive, though during his five-year reign as NBC Universal's Majordomo, NBC has finished fourth in network ratings, trailing CBS, ABC, FOX and just edging out the Emergency Broadcast Signal. When Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice is a bright light of one's oeuvre, it's ok to feel a bit jumpy if you're a CNN shareholder.

Zucker will be right at home at CNN, which currently languishes in third place behind cable rivals Fox and MSNBC. It remains to be seen whether moves such as enlisting chef Anthony Bourdain to host a program will reverse CNN's recent series of missteps, that include Piers Morgan and  Parker & Spitzer.

Conde Nast Resurrects M Magazine for Rich Guys

 (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

M magazine, published by Conde Nast's Fairchild division, has risen from the ashes of its economic recession-fueled extinction in the early '90s and hits newsstands next week, the New York Post's "Media Ink" column reports.

The quarterly periodical is targeting men who earn $200k and above and is eying circulation figures of 75,000, according to the Post column. Editorial Director Peter Kaplan said the hoped-for audience consists of "affluent trailblazers who want to look under the hood." Yeah, people in the publishing industry  talk like that.

Hollywood actor and under-the-hood-looker Bradley Cooper, star of such trailblazing films as The A-Team and The Hangover, will grace the cover of M's premiere issue.

Newhouses Advance on Trimming Dailies to Tri-Weeklies

The Star-Ledger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Newhouse family-owned Advance Publications is embracing the model that converts daily newspapers to thrice-weekly publications, with The Syracuse Post Standard next in line and several northeastern papers in peril, The New York Post "Media Ink" column reports.

Beginning January 1, 2013, a new entity, the Syracuse Media Group, will oversee Syracuse.com and a Post Standard that will publish Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, according to the Media Ink column. The Newhouse media conglomerate would not confirm whether a similar fate awaits some of its Northeast dailies, including the (Newark) Star Ledger, Trenton Times, Jersey Journal and Staten Island Advance. Entrenched Star Ledger  union contracts with pressmen and truckers may slow, but not stop, the three-times-the-charm publishing juggurnaut.

The Star Ledger was "TUOL"'s morning read during the devoted staff's formative middle school and high school years, so stay tuned for updates on whether the Ledger will suffer the same fate as the New Orleans Times Picayune.

The Weekly Reader Is Kaput--Run, Spot, Run!

(Photo credit: mahlness)Scholastic-owned The Weekly Reader ("TWR"), the Pre-K to 12th grade classroom magazine whose roots date back to 1902, is no more, The New York Post reports.

All but five of the White Plains, N.Y.-based TWR staffers will be pink-slipped, as its owner plans to fold the journal into its own Scholastic News, according to the Post article. What evolved from Current Events (1902) into My Weekly Reader (1928) (to which the literate staff of "TUOL" once eagerly subscribed) fell on hard times as it never entered the digital age.

The publication once boasted 13 million subscribers, but by 1990 was down to one million, and the Post article suggests its current readership was only a third of that. Scholastic bought TWR from the Readers Digest Assn. in February 2012, for somewhere between $10 million and $20 million.

The "TUOL" staff is heartbroken by the news and wonders where it will go to try to find the spoon, hair brush and banana in the Hidden Picture.

TV Guide Buyer Looking for Variety?

Variety (magazine) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The New York Post reported today that Los Angeles-based private equity investor Open Gate Capital LLC, which paid $1 to purchase a distressed TV Guide in 2008 (see "TUOL" post 6/3/10), may now have Variety, the entertainment industry bible owned by Dutch media conglomerate Reed Elsevier, in its sights.

Reed Elsevier in March offered the troubled Hollywood trade paper for sale. A year ago, Detroit Internet media mogul Jay Penske was rumored to be in line to acquire Variety (see "TUOL" post 4/29/11). The Post story reports Variety's price tag could range from $10 million to $30 million.

Open Gate Capital apparently has pulled out of the running to acquire the TV Guide cable channel from the Lionsgate movie studio and co-owner One Equity Partners. The Post article suggests Discovery Communications may have an interest in buying the TV Guide Channel.

Check your listings for updates on this story.

AP Targets Aggregator Meltwater News in Copyright Infringement Suit

Image via CrunchBaseWire and wire clippers are natural foes, which explains the 41-page copyright infringement complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York yesterday by The Associated Press, the 166-year-old news agency, against 11-year-old Meltwater News, a San-Francisco-based news clipping service.

As reported by Reuters, the New York Post, the Above the Law blog and elsewhere, AP, a New York nonprofit corporation, sued Meltwater, a Delaware corporation that digitally clips news stories to enable clients to track their own press coverage, in a six-count complaint that includes claims for copyright infringement and hot news misappropriation.

AP alleges the defendant is stealing its copyrighted content and selling the information to Meltwater clients without paying AP a licensing fee.  There's no love lost here, as AP President and CEO Tom Curley released a statement branding Meltwater "a parasitic distribution service that competes directly with traditional news sources without paying license fees to cover the costs of creating those stories." The lawsuit seeks damages and injunctive relief.

AP last July, partnered with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more than two dozen other news organizations to launch NewsRight, a licensing service that monitors the use of copyrighted content on Internet outlets, including blogs and Websites.

Will Reality Fans Be Able to Track Kardashians' Periodical Monthly?

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe tabloid New York Post reports today that the omnipresent Kardashian clan is negotiating with National Enquirer owner American Media, Inc. to produce a glossy (not as in "brilliant") magazine about the celebrity family.

The fanzine may be on newsstands as early as spring, the Post reports, though neither side would confirm the story. No details were offered about the content of the Kardashian magazine, but "TUOL" suspects articles about the latest achievements of Kourtney, Kim and the rest of the klan, er, clan, will be augmented by columns featuring wedding announcements and NBA scores.

Look for the back of the book to be full and heavy with advertisements.

Mgt. to NY Daily News Staffers: 'Drop Dead'

Image via WikipediaIn fairness, the tone of the poor economy-based staff reductions announced at the New York Daily News do not match the tabloid's famous Ford to City: Drop Dead headline regarding a 1975 speech delivered by President Gerald Ford in which he opposed bailing out New York from an imminent bankruptcy.

Still, the nation's fourth-largest selling daily newspaper, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, has laid off 10 newsroom staffers, according to reports in The New York Post and the Capitalnewyork.com blog. Among those pink-slipped were veteran political reporter Frank Lombardi, City Hall scribe Kate Lucadamo, photog John Roca and 43-year News veteran Bob Kappstatter, the Deputy Police Bureau Chief.

The News would not confirm the staff shake-up, which comes on the heels of the October 14 departure of  managing editor Stuart Marques. No doubt, Joseph Medill Patterson, who founded the Daily News in 1919, is turning over in his grave.