Morning Reading List, 10.26.07

Good morning Washington. You guys are old school. You have a landline at home. An NBC release announced, "According to Nielsen Media Research data, 'Meet the Press with Tim Russert' was the No. 1 Sunday morning public affairs program, winning the week ending Sunday, October 21 in all categories across the nation and in Washington, D.C." Comcast announced, "John Conwell Named Regional Vice President of Government Affairs for Comcast's Potomac Region." Also, David Lucoff is the new regional vice president of sales and marketing for its Potomac Region covering parts of MD, DC and VA. New York Times reports, "In the summer of 2006, as Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon were clashing, Bob Woodruff desperately wished to fly there to report for ABC News. Never mind that it had been less than six months since a roadside explosion in Iraq pocked his brain with shrapnel and other debris, almost killing him." "FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA" "FCC's Copps Calls for News Corp.-Wall Street Journal Inquiry" "FNC Demands McCain Pull Ad" "Swezey makes all-time money list on 'Jeopardy!'" "Mainstream Blogs Open Floodgates for Political Coverage" "Swelling Portfolio: Mag's Ads Are Gaining While Editorial Is Waning" Tom DeFrank looks back on the Nixon years. Forbes reports, "Dow Jones changed hands faster than anyone might have imagined. Could The New York Times be next on the takeover list? Forbes editor Matt Miller asked the four investors on the private equity panel at Forbes 2nd annual MEET conference whether they felt that The New York Times Co. was ripe for a takeover. Three out of four said yes." Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro reports, "Now many Comcast customers are anxious after reading the Associated Press report last week that the cable-modem service interferes with the BitTorrent file-sharing program. The news has put the Philadelphia-based corporation in an awkward spot and brought the network neutrality debate back to life, just when it seemed that the issue was dead in Washington." New York Daily News reports, "Whether or not Howard Stern is the king of all media, he's definitely king of satellite radio. Arbitron has released its first-ever ratings for XM and Sirius, covering April-June 2007, and they show that in an average week, 1,225,000 listeners at some point heard Stern." Street Sense reports, "So our trusty intern reporter Melanie Lidman was out covering Mayor Fenty's announcement of the closing of DC Village, a family emergency shelter, yesterday. The Washington Post reporter next to her had forgotten her camera. So Melanie, generous soul that she is, agreed to have her photographs used by the Post for its own story. The Post, however? Not so generous. There was no money in the budget to pay Melanie for the photo, she was told. So Melanie made the best call she could. As she put it, "Not getting paid for your freelance work: negative $50. Seeing your grandmother's face when she opens the newspaper: priceless :)." Salon offers Sidney Blumenthal's afterword for a reissue of Walter Lippman's 'Liberty and the News,' to be published this month by Princeton University Press. Wired reports, "Against market trends, Dzanc Books is a small publisher poised to succeed, hiring staff and expanding quickly. And that may be because it sprouted from a blog rather than a traditional printing press, and it is certainly web-savvy." Washington Post reports, "What Hollywood is calling 'the Judith Miller movie' is now filming on location here, but prepare yourselves: Some changes are being made to the story inspired by the outing of a CIA agent. For starters, in the movie Judith Miller is no longer Judith Miller of the New York Times, but Rachel Armstrong of the Washington Capital Sun. And while the real Judith Miller may be remembered as a stylish, slightly scary reporter of 59, headed off to jail in a quilted black jacket and tortoise-frame sunglasses, in the movie she is a sizzling Kate Beckinsale, 34, dressed in a, shall we say, form-fitting skirt." The Idaho Stateman reports, "Four months before his arrest in a men's room sex sting, Sen. Larry Craig hired a criminal lawyer for advice on whether he could sue the Idaho Statesman over its investigation into longstanding rumors that he engaged in gay sex, a spokesman said Wednesday." E&P reports, "A press conference was held at 1:30 this afternoon at the Philadelphia Inquirer to announce that it has added former Sen. Rick Santorum to its stable of columnists." According to The Hollywood Reporter, "In a wide-ranging presentation Wednesday, Robert Iger said the best way to fight digital piracy is to go on the offensive and that big media companies are undervalued on Wall Street." The Associated Press reports, "Parents have become more ambivalent about the Internet, with a new study finding fewer of them considering it good for their children." Info World reports, "More than half of U.S. residents want the government to regulate Internet video in some way, according to a poll released Wednesday." Reuters reports, "Two U.S. senators on Wednesday threatened to introduce bipartisan legislation that would block the U.S. Federal Communication Commission from acting quickly to ease rules governing media ownership." Bloomberg reports, "Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable-television company, fell the most in five years in Nasdaq trading after adding fewer phone and Internet subscribers than analysts estimated amid a slump in home sales." The Hollywood Reporter reports, "Former entertainment mogul Barry Diller said Wednesday that when it comes to the disruptive power of the Internet, incumbent media companies still "don't get it," with the possible exception of News Corp." Fortune reports, "Merrill Lynch all but hung a 'For Sale' sign today on its 20 percent holding of Bloomberg LP, the financial information company." Smart Money reports, "Tribune Co. said it agreed to sell two Connecticut newspapers, the Greenwich Time and the Advocate of Stamford, to Hearst Corp. for $62.4 million. The sale, expected to close in the next few weeks, comes five months after the Chicago-based media company's $73 million deal to sell the papers to Gannett Co. (GCI) was scrapped following an arbitrator's ruling that the sale of the Advocate would have violated a union contract." "The Vanity Fair Oscar-night party, held at Mortons for the past 14 years, is changing its venue to Craft in Century City," reports Variety. The Guardian unveiled a new MediaGuardian website. "Breaking media news remains at the heart of what we do, as it has done for the seven years since the MediaGuardian website launched, on September 5 2000." Stars and Stripes reports, "Stars and Stripes served as a conduit for money to promote America Supports You, but the newspaper did not spend any of its own funds on the program, a Stripes official confirmed on Tuesday." PJNet reports, "Will Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News columnist, has been on a two-year journey to figure out the fate of journalism. At first it was out of self-preservation, but now he has come to see the future of journalism -- and he is very optimistic." The Pew Weekly News Interest Index shows, "News about the dangers of an antibiotic-resistant staph infection (MRSA) caught the publicâ€™s attention last week. More than a quarter of Americans paid very close attention to this story and 18% listed it as the news story they followed most closely -- placing it at the top of the weekly news interest index. Women were particularly interested in the story. The national news media covered the MRSA story, but overall coverage lagged behind public interest." Washingtonian reports, "The 150 most influential people in business, culture, real estate, religion, education, law, and more. Plusâ€”Washington's hidden power, stars of tomorrow, and places where powerful people live, play, and eat." The Associated Press reports, "XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. said Thursday its third-quarter loss widened as sales through retail outlets slowed and the company faced increased costs related to its planned acquisition by smaller rival Sirius Satellite Radio Inc." Ad Age reports on, "The Nine Lives of Newspapers" Jobs Hanley Wood, LLC is looking for a Senior Marketing Manager. InterMedia Survey Institute is looking for an Online Managing Editor. Examiner Newspapers is looking for a Designer with eye for fashion. SNL Financial, LC is looking for an Insurance News Reporter. Congressional Quarterly is looking for a Schedules Researcher. InterMedia Survey Institute is looking for an Online Managing Editor. Hat Tips: DCRTV, TVNewser, IWantMedia, Romenesko, MediaBistro, JournalismJobs, JournalismNext

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Morning Reading List, 10.26.07

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