I Post Huckabee?

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The plug is being pulled on the radio talk show of  former GOP Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, but Mediaite.com today reports the failed GOP presidential candidate may be taking a page from Arianna Huffington.

Mediaite cites a Craigslist ad looking for reporters to provide content for the Huckabee Post, which the ad claims has offices in New York and Washington DC. Huckabee has not commented on the possible news aggregate site, but has expressed interest in the 2016 presidential race. Huckabee has trouble separating church from state at times, so "TUOL" suspects he's keeping an eye on the current Pope should that position become available.

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

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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.

Salt Lake Trib Bucks Parent Co.; Remains 'Freebie' to Online Readers

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Digital First Media-owned Salt Lake Tribune, for now, will not follow the path of the other dailies in the media conglomerate's holding by erecting a paywall for readers of its online edition, Poynter.org reported.

The Tribune's managing editor told Poynter that competition in the market from media outlets that offer free online access to news figured in the paper's decision to hold off on establishing a paywall. The Deseret News, which also covers Salt Lake City, does not have a paywall.

BuzzFeed Adds Investigative Unit to Growing Editorial Team

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Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Mark Schoofs will helm an investigative unit of six reporters hired by BuzzFeed, the social media Web site that editorially tracks viral content, The New York Times reported today.

Schoofs, who garnered the award while at the Wall St. Journal for a series of articles on AIDS in Africa, most recently worked for the nonprofit ProPublica. BuzzFeed upped its editorial workforce to 134, having recently hired an equal number of journalists to report on foreign affairs (see "TUOL" post 5/6/13).

Is Brazil Nuts for HuffPo?

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The eighth international edition of news aggregator supreme, The Huffington Post, will soon launch in Brazil, Media Week (www.mediaweek.co.uk) reports.

In expanding operations to its fifth continent, HuffPo, which is owned by AOL, targeted the world's fifth-largest online audience, as Brazil boasts 100 million Internet users, according to Media Week. HuffPo's partner in the deal is the Abril Group, which has 40 editorial Web sites.

Other global editions of HuffPo include the United Kingdom (see "TUOL" post 6/22/11), France (see "TUOL" post 1/23/12), Japan (see "TUOL" post 5/8/13), Spain, Italy, Canada and Maghreb. The World Cup, the Summer Olympics, and Arianna Huffington--it's almost too much for one country to bear.

From Lloyds to Droids

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After 279 years, Lloyd's List, which covers the global shipping industry and boasts of being the world's oldest continuously published newspaper, will become digital-only by year's end, according to owner Informa.

Lloyd's List debuted in 1734 as a notice pinned on the wall of a London coffee shop, according to an article in today's The Guardian. The move was dictated by Lloyd's List's smartphone and tablet-carrying readers. In a June survey conducted by the publication, 97 percent preferred digital access to Lloyd's shipping industry news, which effectively sank the print edition.

AllThingsD, as in Done, with Dow Jones & Co. Affiliation

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AllThingsD (All Things Digital), the six-year-old technology news Web site that was a partnership of Dow Jones & Co. and columnists Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher, is coming to an end, the Wall St. Journal reported this week.

The site, which reviewed new products and reported on the high tech industry, earned high marks under Journal alumna Swisher and Mossberg, who launched a Personal Technology column in 1991. He will depart the Journal at the end of this year, according to the Journal article.

Mossberg & Swisher are looking for another company with which to partner, the Journal reported.

Hyperlocal News Losing the Hype? Boston Globe Sheds Half of Your Town Staff

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The Boston Globe found a rich uncle in soon-to-be-boss, Boston Red Sox owner John Henry, but that didn't prevent the Boston.com Web site from axing roughly half the correspondents for the Your Town hyperlocal news sites.

Six correspondents were pink-slipped, Globe Regional Editor David Dahl told the Boston Business Journal last week, though he didn't identify the unlucky correspondents, the towns affected by the move or the savings realized by the cutbacks.  Dahl was quoted as saying the more than 100 Your Town sites covering Boston neighborhoods and suburban communities, as well as 15 Your Campus sites assisted by local colleges, would remain up and running.

Although articles by staff reporters and freelance writers that appear in the Globe's print edition also provide content for Your Town, simple math suggests some communities are going to get short-shrifted by the remaining six or seven correspondents having to cover a broader area. The Globe, which The New York Times is unloading to Henry for $70 million (see "TUOL" post 8/6/13), has a workforce of 1,600, roughly 350 of whom are newsroom staffers, according to the BBJ article.

The five-year-old, advertising-starved Your Town experiment began inauspiciously when GateHouse Media Inc. sued the Times, alleging copyright infringement concerning content from its Wicked Local hyperlocal news sites. Given the massive staff reduction last month by AOL Patch (see "TUOL" post 8/19/13) and GateHouse Media's slow dance toward pre-packaged bankruptcy (see "TUOL" post 3/27/13), journalism industry prognosticators, who five years ago considered hyperlocal news the greatest thing since sliced bread, may be looking for new sources of "bread."

HuffPo Next Month to Require Commenters to Use Real Names

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Beginning in September, the Huffington Post will require commenters on their posts to use their full given names, founder Arianna Huffington said yesterday.

As reported in The Boston Globe and elsewhere, HuffPo, which claims to have generated more than 260 million comments on its posted stories (& sideboob images of celebs of the Miley Cyrus & Rhianna ilk, no doubt) since its inception in 2005, will no longer allow comments by pseudonymous posters. Presently, the mega-news aggregator employs 40 human monitors and an advanced screening algorithm, but Huffington says more is needed in our ever-coarsening culture.

The Globe story quoted Huffington as saying: "I feel that freedom of expression is given to people who stand up for what they say and not hiding behind anonymity."

The U.S. Supreme Court did not share those sentiments in McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission, 514 U.S. 334, 341-42 (1995). Anonymity, the High Court said, "exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular." In leaving it up to authors to decide whether to identify themselves, the Court wrote: "Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority."

Keep that in mind, Arianna, when you ask followers to add monikers to their reactions to stories such as Jen Aniston Wows in white bikini.

UPDATE: AOL Patch Jettisons 40 Percent of Staff

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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.

IBT Media Acquires Newsweek; Publication to Remain Digital-Only

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Newsweek, an 80-year-old publication that once boasted readership of three million, has become the Christmas fruitcake of publications--a hard-to-swallow confection no one wants that gets recycled from one unlucky recipient to another.

IBT Media, an eight-year-old digital-only company that publishes the International Business Times, has acquired Newsweek from IAC/Interactive for an undisclosed sum, according to press accounts. For readers keeping score, The Washington Post. Co. sold Newsweek to the late audio magnate Sidney Harman for $1 in 2010. Harman, in turn, partnered with IAC's Barry Diller to combine Newsweek with The Daily Beast in 2012, and a digital-only version of the news magazine has very quietly been produced since January 2013 (see "TUOL" post 5/29/13).

The International Business Times globally publishes 10 editions in several languages and claims to reach 7 million readers in the U.S. and 13 million people worldwide monthly. The Daily Beast will continue to produce Newsweek during a 60-day transition period.

In what English majors will recognize both as foreshadowing and irony, IBT, a company on the upswing, during a 2011 expansion moved into New York City offices previously occupied by Newsweek.

Report Predicts 4 More Years of Newspapers Hemorrhaging Ad Revenues

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The good news is that digital versions of newspapers are beginning to attract more readers. The bad news, according to the annual PricewaterhouseCooper's Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report ("GEMO") released this week, is that newspapers' revenues overall will continue to plunge through at least 2017.

According to an Ad Age article about the report, even in the face of climbing circulation figures, declining advertising at a compound annual rate of 4.2 percent means overall newspaper revenues are forecast to drop at a combined annual growth rate of 2.9 percent between 2013-2017.

The Ad Age piece cites Newspaper Association of America 2012 figures showing newspaper Web sites attracted more than 100 million unique visitors. The GEMO report predicts a 9.7 percent compound annual growth rate in digital advertising over the next four years that, unfortunately, will largely be negated by a 7.8 percent compound annual drop-off in print edition ads.

Digital newspaper ads are expected to generate $5.5 billion in revenues by 2017, compared to $12.8 billion in print ads, according to the GEMO study.

AOL Online Media Properties Still Hemorrhaging Money

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America Online-owned The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Patch continued to drag down AOL's financial performance during Q1, according to reports by TheStreet.com and CNBC.com.

Despite overall revenue growth of 2 percent, sales plunged 9 percent at AOL's dial-up online subscription division. The HuffPo/Patch/TechCrunch division was bathed in red ink to the tune of $4.9 million based on First Quarter results.

The media giant's CEO Tim Armstrong maintains a positive attitude toward his acquisitions of the three entities, but on Wall St., AOL stands for Armstrong's Operating Losers.

Online Journalism takes a Tumblr--Storyboard Ends Badly

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After a splashy launch last May, Storyboard, which zeroed in on blogging platform users and organizations, is no more.

Tumblr pulled the plug on the editorial content aggregator of Tumblrs, laying off the four-member staff, Tumblr CEO David Karp announced this week. Pink-slipped were Editor-in-chief Chris Mohny, formerly of Gawker, Executive Editor and Daily Beast alumna Jessica Bennett, along with Editorial Director Christopher Price and Sky Dylan-Robbins, Storyboard's editorial producer, according to articles by Paidcontent.org and Techcrunch.com.

As Tumblr approaches its sixth birthday on the cusp of operating in the black, it decided to jettison the revenue-deprived Storyboard, which offered few tangible benefits to its sponsors.

Sporting News Flirts with U.K. Digital Rights Co. While Paring Staff

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The American City Business Journals Inc. ("ACBJ")-owned Sporting News is teaming up with U.K. digital rights company, Perform, on a near-$6 million venture based in New York, Reuters wire service reported today.

Meanwhile, The Sporting News, a 127-year-old brand that in its print magazine incarnation was known as the "Bible of Baseball" before it expanded its coverage to other sports in the 1960s, is slashing its budget, reportedly trimming a dozen editorial slots, according to Thebiglead.com Web site.  Among the prominent sports journalists axed were former New York Times reporter Clifton Brown, soccer writer Brian Straus and one-time Boston Globe sportswriter Lisa Olson.

According to Reuters, Perform is kicking in $1.4 million to ACBJ's $4.6 million initial investment in their joint venture. Perform Sporting News Limited ("PSNL") will own 65 percent of PSNL, and ACBJ will have a  35 percent stake in the venture, which Perform may acquire for $65 million up to 2017, Reuters reported.

Perform acquires online rights to sporting events and distributes video clips and live content for a price to newspaper Web sites and other groups, including bookmakers. 

Golden Gate Bridge Meets SF Chronicle Paywall

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The Hearst Corp.-owned San Francisco Chronicle has erected a paywall for its digital edition SFChronicle.com, but SFGate.com will remain free to visitors, the daily announced today.

According to a report by Cnet.com, digital-only subscribers will be able to access online content for as little as $12 a month, though for the same price, readers can get online access plus home-delivery of the Sunday paper.  For $3.60 per week, subscribers may have digital access to SFChronicle.com plus Friday through Sunday delivery of the paper edition, and $5 a week will net Monday through Sunday delivery along with online access, Cnet.com reported.

Mark Adkins, president of the Chronicle and SFGate.com, wrote in a letter to readers: 

"Subscribers to the new website will find the newspaper's unrivaled content with brilliant photos, an uncluttered format and the familiar design of the Chronicle. Premium stories and columns will update and change with the news throughout the day. Subscribers also will have full access to the Chronicle's most enduring legacy — its columnists."

Newspaper Trend: More Paywalls, Fewer Freebies

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Internet viewers are finding it harder to freeload as online newspapers have accelerated erecting metered paywalls and paring the number of  "free" articles before subscription rates kick in.

In an online article by The Wrap about Press +,  an e-commerce platform boasting more than 400 publishers whom it assists in creating online subscription options,  it was reported that 35 percent of Press + affiliates now offer five or fewer articles per month to newspaper Web site visitors before demanding payment, while 77 percent allow 10 or fewer free articles before a subscription is called for.

The Wrap article quoted Press + figures indicating since July 2011, a 40 percent jump in the average price of a monthly digital subscription, though over the past six months, the increase was only 5 percent.

Metered paywalls, which are a frequent subject of this blog, are still a Brave New World for the staid newspaper industry whose paper editions have been bleeding ad revenues and circulation losses for years. The Wall St. Journal and The New York Times are among only a handful of  digital edition success stories.

Will Rare Be Well Done?

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Atlanta-based media conglomerate Cox Enterprises, Inc., whose holdings include 14 tv stations, numerous radio outlets and the flagship Atlanta Journal Constitution among its two dozen newspapers, is preparing to launch within the next few months a conservative counterpart to Internet news aggregator, the Huffington Post.

According to an online article by Creative Loafing Atlanta (www.clatl.com), Cox is searching for an editor to helm Rare, whose purported tagline is "Red is the center," as in the middle ground. Creative Loafing claims that Cox already has registered the domain name rare.us.

If Rare plans to mirror the successful HuffPo except for its place on the political spectrum, besides providing another non-paying outlet for freelance journalists to be published,  its editors are going to have to overcome any reservations about limiting the use of the words blasts, slams, shocking and smacks down in headlines.

The red-blooded "TUOL" staff can't wait for Rare to publish side-boob and wardrobe malfunction photos of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Elizabeth Hasselbeck.

(Hard) Financial Times: Biz News Buyouts Help to Enlarge Digital Footprint

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In an email this week to staffers, Lionel Barber, Editor of the Pearson PLC-owned Financial Times ("FT"), outlined plans to bolster FT's digital presence while expressing hope that offered buyouts might negate the need for layoffs.

According to a report on the paidcontent.org site, FT hopes 35 staffers will accept buyouts to enable the business news giant to save 1.6 million pounds ($2,534,732) so that layoffs could be avoided.  Barber said the organization plans to increase its digital side workforce by 10. FT's mobile now accounts purportedly constitute a quarter of FT's digital traffic.

Part of  FT's plan to emphasize its digital platform over its print version, the paidcontent.org post said, involves streamlining its international presence.

Atlantic Sinks to New Low

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Washington, D.C.-based Atlantic Media Co. ["AMC"], publisher of the venerable The Atlantic magazine, has issued an apology and pulled an advertorial from its Web site that embraced the controversial Church of Scientoloty, the  reported.

David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year, read the headline on the Church-sponsored content that appeared on The Atlantic site. The 52-year-old Miscavige is the religious and ecclesiastical leader of the  Church of Scientology, the religion founded by the late pulp fiction writer L.Ron Hubbard.

The Atlantic has since taken down the advertorial and posted the following statement: "We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way."

All well and good, but AMC should conduct a seance so that company executives can apologize to the stellar founders of The Atlantic Monthly, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.