Observer » Gabriel Sherman

Media Briefs: Fox News Chief Roger Ailes Looking For a ‘Fair and Balanced’ Salary

Foster Kamer — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:57:42 -0400

I, Roger.

Fox News chief Roger Ailes is trying to get that paper. Elsewhere in News Corp, two locals go all Benedict Arnold on a certain tablet newspaper and a certain tabloid newspaper. What's it like to get an employee evaluation at Reuters? How's that whole Media-and-Race thing going? All that and more in your Thursday Evening Media Briefs.

Roger, Dodger: Fox News chief Roger Ailes is renegotiating his contract according to Fox News' least-favorite journalist, New York contributor Gabriel Sherman (who's working on a book about the network). Some things you probably didn't know:

1. Ailes' personal lawyer appears as a Fox News contributor. Synergy, now!
2. If he were to leave Fox News, Ailes possibly wants to buy the Cleveland Indians, thus fulfilling his destiny as the real-life basis for the villainous owner in the next Major League movie.

And onto the numbers we go (emphasis ours):

One source familiar with the talks speculated that, given Fox's record profits, Ailes could ask for a mega deal, worth more than $30 million per year. But another source close to Ailes explained that, for Ailes, signing a new deal is not only about the money. Ailes has to figure out what he wants to do next. But money is surely a consideration: Ailes is a guy who likes to keep score. And at News Corp., he's the third-highest-paid executive, behind Rupert Murdoch and COO Chase Carey. This week, it was announced Ailes made $21.1 million last year. With Fox News on track to earn $1 billion in profit, it's certain Ailes would want the biggest contract of his life.

Sherman makes an excellent point that—in light of News Corp's restructuring in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal—Fox News is a more crucial piece of the Fox pie now more than ever. Know this: Whatever Ailes' deal ends up being, it's likely going to say far more about how Rupert Murdoch intends leaving this planet than what Roger Ailes has done on it. Sherman's wonderfully juicy report is worth clicking over for the read. Do it. [Daily Intel]

The Murdoch-to-Mort Refugee Trail: Capital New York reports that the thoroughfare of employment between News Corp and the New York Daily News remains trafficked, as always. This week, it's the copy chief at The Daily—Jon Blackwell —who's off to the Daily News as a deputy managing editor for production. Apparently, he was with News Corp for over ten years, much of which was spent on the copy desk at the New York Post. Meanwhile, Don Kaplan—on the Metro desk at the Post, and previously their TV writer—is also off to the Daily News as their new TV writer. [Capital New York]

Media Employment and Race: The More Things Change, Pt. XXVIII. The Atlantic's Ta -Nehisi Coates pens a wonderful thinker on the diversity problem in the media business, which yes, absolutely still exists (to wit: look around you). As he put it:

Magazines have long had a diversity problem, and that diversity problem is inscribed in their DNA. You can add on to this the fact that the traditional way of breaking into magazines involve ways utterly inaccessible to most black people. The unpaid internship was long seen as a right of passage. Very few Americans can afford such a luxury, and fewer still African-Americans can afford it.

To editorialize: Those worried about compromising the quality or meritocracy that ostensibly is our media in favor of out-and-out affirmative action clearly know nothing about the quality or meritocracy of our media as it exists right now. Having a diverse newsroom is crucial to having a diverse set of purviews, which yields a wider net of voices, but more importantly, listeners. Anyone who disagrees likely has some undeserved degree of power they're concerned about preserving. And they should be raked by Reuters' pronoun comb (see below) until they're no longer creating our media. [The Atlantic]

What's It Like To Be Probed/Evaluated For Your Worth at Reuters? Just let this marinate for a moment:

One correspondent was told that he doesn’t use enough pronouns in his writing when they couldn’t find anything else wrong with him.

The only thing less dignified than being taken out back and Old Yeller-ed because you're old is having someone come up with soft euphemisms, and past that, boldfaced lies about why they're doing it. [Jim Romenesko]

The Boys, On The Wrong Bus. Today, in amusing corrections:

An earlier version of this story suggested an earlier report had mentioned a bus tour, which it did not.

[Buzzfeed]

The Boys On The Bender: Resident MSNBC delicate flower Chris Hayes needs sleep. At midnight. [@chrislhayes]

License to Jill: New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson —the first woman in the paper's history to have the job—made some Vanity Fair power list, which is great, except somehow she dropped a ranking and is less important than Jay-Z and Beyonce (who the Times uses in their ads). This reporter remains mystified at the fact that Graydon Carter once had something to do with Spy and also wide-eyed at his reverence towards celebrities, which—we've been here long enough, we shouldn't be surprised—we're slightly ashamed of. [Vanity Fair]

WaPo Wha-Wha? If you can explain what's happening in this Washington Post filing—or at the Washington Post, period—in three sentences or less, The Observer will send you a pastry* of your choosing. [Washington Post]

[*Pastry subject to avaliblity.]

- - -

That's it for tonight. Give us your shady, your sketchy, your salacious media gossip. Or tips on making a paper crane army with very little effort. We're still after that one.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

The Time of Our Times

Matt Haber — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:29:12 -0400

Lots of people seem to be thinking about The New York Times today. Or is it just us?

The future of the country's leading newspaper—which as recently as early January was called into doubt by The Atlantic's Michael Hirschorn—is touched on in this week's Time magazine cover story by Walter Isaacson, which was updated online after it appeared late last week with following:

Currently a few newspapers, most notably the Wall Street Journal, charge for their online editions by requiring a monthly subscription. When Rupert Murdoch acquired the Journal, he ruminated publicly about dropping the fee. But Murdoch is, above all, a smart businessman. He took a look at the economics and decided it was lunacy to forgo the revenue — and that was even before the online ad market began contracting. Now his move looks really smart. Paid subscriptions for the Journal's website were up more than 7% in a very gloomy 2008. Plus, he spooked the New York Times into dropping its own halfhearted attempts to get subscription revenue, which were based on the (I think flawed) premise that it should charge for the paper's punditry rather than for its great reporting. (Author's note: After publication the New York Times vehemently denied that their thinking was influenced by outside considerations; I accept their explanation.)

Today, The Times' Richard Pérez-Peña wrote Resilient Strategy for Times Despite Toll of a Recession, in which he floated out the "'last-man-standing' strategy," which he quotes New York Times Company President and Chief Executive Janet L. Robinson describing as follows: "As other newspapers cut back on international and national coverage, or cease operations, we believe there will be opportunities for The Times to fill that void." Of course, that's not a plot to survive the recession. Rather, it presupposes The Times definitely surviving the recession, so it's really just an argument for why The Times will still be on top after the dust clears.

Over at Jim Romenesko's Poynter Institute-sponsored media blog, there's a memo written by American Lawyer and Brill's Content founder Steve Brill, which was presented to Times Company representatives including Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. Mr. Romenesko calls the memo "Brill's Secret Plan to Save the New York Times and Journalism Itself, but it also might be called TimesSelect II: The Re-Selecting.

Writes Mr. Brill:

The New York Times newspaper website currently has 20 million unique visitors a month. It is a great editorial product and has done an amazing job building an audience. Now, it’s time to go to Step Two and make that work to usher in a bright new age for the world's greatest newspaper.

Getting an average of just $1.00 a month (3.3 cents a day) from each visitor would yield $240m in new annual revenue. This is approximately equal to (it seems, from the Times' financial statements) two thirds to three fourths of all of the company's annual advertising revenue for all of its internet properties combined. And, of course, this online ad revenue would not disappear or even necessarily diminish if readers paid a small amount for online content. [Formatting Brill's.]

Mr. Brill also suggests readers pay $55 a year for all-they-can read nytimes.com access and proposed the WNYC/PBS pledge-drive-ready slogan "An Old-fashioned Tradition is Back: Read the Times for 15 Cents a Day." (Sounds like Bill Murray's old "Listener Supported Radio" skit from National Lampoon's That's Not Funny, That's Sick! to us.)

Observer alum Gabriel Sherman weighs in with a piece on The Big Money called Micro Economics with the subheadline "Why Steve Jobs and micropayments won't save the media." Writes Mr. Sherman:

Unfortunately, with the Internet, newspaper Web sites, no matter how sophisticated, are forced to compete with every other source of news. The fundamental question, then, comes down to why consumers would pay hundreds of dollars upfront and then a subscription fee or micropayment on top of that to access newspapers' content when so much news is still available for free. To replicate the old print model in which newspapers retained pricing power and content remained scarce, all major news organizations would have to adopt the micropayment model en masse. And that would spark cries of collusion. It's not the lack of a cool device that's killing the newspaper industry—it's that competition and consumer tastes have undermined their competitive position. No device or download service will change that.

Meanwhile, in New York magazine, Will Leitch looks at Twitter and finds The Times news-gathering hegemony being pecked at by the ubiquitous blurt-blog platform that some evangelists think can replace traditional journalism (while, Mr. Leitch points out, also failing to make any money):

And then I noticed something on Twitter Search. The first person was 'manolantern,' who, at 12:33 local time, posted, 'I just watched a plane crash into the hudson rive (sic) in manhattan.' After that, the updates were unceasing. Some fifteen minutes before the New York Times had a story on its website (and some fifteen hours before it had one in print), Twitter users who witnessed the crash of US Airways Flight 1549 were giving me updates in real time.

Beating The Times by 15 minutes! (The Times' Lede blog took notice of this, too.) Of course, The Times had all sorts of relevant details, like the fact that U.S. Airways flight 1549 didn't so much crash as land safely with all passengers escaping mostly unharmed (probably something family members of passengers might want to know), but, man, it took The Times 15 whole minutes to get on the story.

So, does that mean manolantern will be "the last man standing"? Glp.

[em]Times[/em]‘ Filkins Lands Book Deal

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 11:50:11 -0400

New York Times Iraq correspondent Dexter Filkins will be writing a book about his experience covering terrorism in the Middle East. Filkins' agent Amanda Urban at ICM completed the deal on June 6 with Knopf.

"It'll be less a reported book than a Dispatches," Urban said by phone of Filkins' proposal, referring to Michael Herr's seminal account of the Vietnam war. "Dexter's book will be more impressionistic. He's covered terrorism in one place or another for nine years. He's watched the Twin Towers fall, he's been in Afghanistan and Iraq. It will be a recounting of those experiences...It's no secret that a lot of Iraq books haven't succeeded. The idea here is to write a book that will be an evergreen, that will rise above just an account of the war."

Filkins was in New York last week meeting with publishers before returning to Iraq on Sunday, three days before American forces killed Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In September, Filkins will leave the Times' Baghdad bureau and begin a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, where he will write his book. Knopf editor Jonathan Segal, who bought the proposal for six figures, didn't return a call seeking comment. Urban declined to comment on the advance.

--Gabriel Sherman

[em]The Atlantic[/em]‘s D.C. Summer: Hot, Yes; Sultry, No

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 10:26:09 -0400

With the onset of the hot, gummy months in Washington, D.C., Atlantic staffers are apparently still adjusting to their new home. So on May 31, the magazine's human-resources department sent out a post-Memorial Day memo to remind everyone of the company's "neat and professional" dress code.

"Our policy is intentionally vague and does not specifically exclude certain articles of clothing or types of shoes," Susan Lavigne, Atlantic director of benefits and compensation wrote. Lavigne then went on to specifically exclude certain articles of clothing and types of shoes: "Flip-flops, crop tops, tank tops, spaghetti-strap tops, and shorts (to name a few) are not appropriate." The full memo follows below:

--Gabriel Sherman

From: Lavigne, Sue
Sent: Wed 5/31/2006 3:35 PM
To: AtlanticMediaCompany
Subject: Reminder - Appropriate Office Attire

As summertime approaches, we wanted to remind staff of our dress code as stated in our Personnel Policy Handbook:

"Atlantic Media Company currently maintains a "business casual" dress code. Employee dress and personal appearance should be in keeping with standards of good business taste, and should be consistent with the requirements of an individual employee's work day. Employees are expected to use their best judgment in choosing business clothing that displays a neat and professional image."

Our policy is intentionally vague and does not specifically exclude certain articles of clothing or types of shoes, but we ask that you consider the spirit of the policy and keep in mind that we work in a professional environment. For example: flip-flops, crop tops, tank tops, spaghetti-strap tops, and shorts (to name a few) are not appropriate.

If you have any questions about our dress code, please let a member of the HR staff know.

Thanks,

Sue

Conde Touts Cafeteria 2.0

Thu, 04 May 2006 18:27:39 -0400

The following missive was delivered to Conde Nast staffers May 2 on a heavy, cream-colored card, nine inches by five inches, with perforated silhouettes of forks, knives, and spoons:

Let's do Lunch. This summer step into the future at the new Conde Nast cafeteria on the second floor at 750 Third Avenue.

Enter through a motion corridor with an incandescent glass wall that leads you to the serving area. 70,000 radiant lights create different atmospheres throughout the course of the day.

Restaurant Associates - whose passion for food and attention for detail are highly commended--will manage our newest cafeteria location as well. Breakfast and lunch will be served daily, and special lunchtime offerings will include a sushi bar, custom salad station, international specials and more.

Beginning this summer, employees will be able to use one common card for building access and food purchase in our cafeteria in 750 Third Avenue and 4 Times Square.

Stay tuned for more details as we approach the grand opening and go to connect to see images of cafeteria

--Gabriel Sherman

Salmon, Sliced Thinner

Tue, 02 May 2006 15:21:20 -0400

On May 3, the New York Observer plans to reduce its trim size. The paper's width will shrink from 13 3/4 inches to 12 1/2 inches, making it as wide as The Washington Post. The length will remain at 22 1/2 inches.

Editor Peter Kaplan said that the paper will continue to run its normal complement of seven stories on its front page, but in a five-column format rather than the current six. The inside pages will remain six columns.

Kaplan said the move should result in "significant savings," cutting around $100,000 in annual newsprint costs.

"It's money that I'd rather allocate elsewhere," Kaplan said. "The vitality and well-being of the paper demands that we don't waste money. I thought this is the best way to allocate resources without hurting the advertising and editorial properties.

"It gave us a face-lift," Kaplan added, "that we needed."

Nancy Butkus designed the new front page. "Nancy Butkus is creating a front page that is strong and decisive, while continuing to evoke the era of The Front Page when New York had 11 dailies," Kaplan said.

Before settling on the current dimensions, Kaplan said, the paper had considered going to the much-hailed Berliner format, the elongated quasi-tabloid size adopted by the Guardian and Le Monde. The only American printer, however, with a Berliner capability is being built in Lafayette, Indiana and will not roll its presses until this August. So the New York Observer will publish the same size as other narrow broadsheets.

"We're not narrow, we're svelte," said Kaplan.

--Gabriel Sherman

[em]Time[/em]‘s M.E. Shopping List: Jacob Weisberg

Mon, 01 May 2006 14:37:05 -0400

According to two sources with knowledge of Time magazine's search for a new managing editor, Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey has approached Slate editor Jacob Weisberg to see if he would be interested in the position.

"I shouldn't say anything about it," Weisberg said by phone. "I love my job and am happy where I am."

Time declined to discuss the subject of a replacement for current managing editor Jim Kelly. "We couldn't be firmer in saying Jim is the guy," Time Inc. spokesperson Dawn Bridges said. "People like to speculate. Jim has the honor of working for the flagship of Time Inc. and Time Warner. The name is on the building, and a lot of things come with that. One of those things is a bigger microscope."

But according to multiple sources with knowledge of the search, Time is actively looking for a new managing editor. One source said that Huey has consulted Michael Kinsley, Slate's founding editor, about candidates to consider. According to another source, Time initially approached Weisberg this spring to discuss Time's Internet strategy. Since then, Huey reached out to Weisberg to discuss the managing-editor position.

--Gabriel Sherman

‘Times’ Goes Critically Shopping; Gets New Thursday Styles Editor

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 17:30:07 -0400

New York Times Style czar Trip Gabriel has a new deputy to helm Thursday Styles. Today, The Times named former deputy regional editor Mary Ann Giordano as the Thursday Styles Deputy Editor. Gabriel said on The Times' internal web site that Giordano, in addition to her Thursday duties, "will have a hand in generating major stories for Sunday Styles and for the front page."
--Gabriel Sherman

[em]Times[/em]‘ Stolberg Takes White House Beat

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 19:12:08 -0400

New York Times Congressional reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg will be moving to cover the White House, filling the paper's last vacancy on that beat. Stolberg will be taking the spot currently held by Elisabeth Bumiller, who is scheduled to go out on book leave in June to spend a year writing a biography of Condoleezza Rice.

"I’m honored the Times thought of me," Stolberg said by phone April 6. "I think I have big shoes to fill."

Earlier this year, White House reporter Richard Stevenson was promoted to deputy Washington bureau chief. His seat was filled by Jim Rutenberg. Times sources said it remains undecided if the Washington bureau will bring in anyone to fill Stolberg's old position. Currently, David Kirkpatrick and Carl Hulse cover Congress.

--Gabriel Sherman

Gonnerman Leaves [em]Village Voice[/em]

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 16:31:59 -0400

Village Voice investigative reporter Jennifer Gonnerman resigned from the paper on Monday, according to Voice sources. Gonnerman, 35, was a Livingston Award winner in 2000 and a National Book Award finalist in 2004. Her 2004 book Life on the Outside chronicled the effects of the Rockefeller drug laws through the story of Elaine Bartlett, a first-time offender sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Gonnerman left to further pursue book writing, Voice sources said. Amid turnover at the Voice, Gonerman was said to have told executives from the paper's new owner, New Times, that they should be tapping into the talent of current staff.

Gonnerman couldn't be reached for comment. Interim editor in chief Ward Harkavy said of her resignation, "I consider that personally and professionally a real loss. I'm saddened by that. Anybody who's worked with her would be saddened by her loss."

--Gabriel Sherman