Yesterday was a bad day for Sports on Earth, USA Today and MLB Advanced Media’s highbrow sports blog. Rumors began swirling, following the announcement that USA Today owner Gannett (GCI) was spinning off the print side, that the site was shutting down. “All right, since someone needs to say it: @SportsonEarth is not shutting down. There are some changes going on. But it is not shutting down,” senior editor Will Leitch tweeted in response. Sadly, those changes meant that a lot of staffers lost their jobs, and many of them found out on Twitter. “Today has been a lousy day. Many people whose work I absolutely adore lost their gigs at Sports On Earth today. This was a surprise to me, to say the least,” later Mr. Leitch wrote in a heartfelt note on his Tumblr about the layoffs. (Deadspin)
Former CBS News president Edward M. Joyce, who ran what had been known as the “Tiffany network” “during era of cost-cutting,” has died at age 81. “Mr. Joyce eliminated 125 news positions, 74 of which were dismissals. The layoffs shocked the industry. But more were to follow,” the story notes, doing double duty as an obituary for network news and for the man who led a major news network at the beginning of the industry’s decline. (The New York Times)
Time Warner exceeded the analyst expectations for its second quarter earnings, which is the upside to low expectations. The earnings news came a day after Rupert Murdoch withdrew his unwanted offer to buy Time Warner. (The New York Times)
But maybe journalists shouldn’t really depend on the goodwill of benevolent media moguls, writes Heidi Moore. (The Guardian)
“There is no greater story in the industry than of BuzzFeed (BZFD) and social advertising,” BuzzFeed’s new president, Greg Coleman, said in an announcement of the hire yesterday. Mr. Coleman, a former president of Criteo and Huffington Post, is charged with ramping up digital advertising and business development.