Friday, February 1, 2008

Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion for Yahoo


Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion in a cash and share deal, a move designed to help both companies compete against industry leader Google. Yahoo said it will "evaluate this proposal carefully and promptly." Yahoo shares soared nearly 50%. [Click for MORE]
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Jacob Soboroff Videoblogs the Dem Debate

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Taking Over the N.Y. Times -- Gently

Morgan Stanley couldn't depose the Sulzberger family, but a new, friendlier group of activist investors may yet gain influence at the media company.

By
Devin Leonard,
Senior Writer, Fortune

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of the New York Times Co., has had his hands full lately. Last year, he warded off a campaign by a Morgan Stanley fund manager to abolish the newspaper publisher's two-tiered shareholder structure. Then on January 27, a new group of dissident investors informed him that they, too, were mounting an effort to shake things up at the company. [Click for MORE]

> The embattled newspaper industry witnessed many significant developments in 2007. Sphere: Related Content

Tribune Sells KTLA Studio, Set to Buy L.A. Times Building


The original Warner Bros. studio in Hollywood, now home to KTLA-TV Channel 5 and other Tribune Co. entertainment companies, was sold for $125 million Wednesday to a Los Angeles real estate investment firm.

Hudson Capital, which owns Sunset Gower Studios a few blocks away, completed the expected purchase from Tribune, Hudson managing partner Victor Coleman said. Chicago-based Tribune owns KTLA, the Los Angeles Times and other media outlets.

It was the first major sale of Tribune property since Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell took over the company last month.

Tribune said it would use the money from Wednesday's sale, plus an additional $50 million from other sales, to buy six other properties, including the downtown Los Angeles headquarters of The Times, for a total of $175 million. [Click for MORE]
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Telling the Truth: The Best in Broadcast Journalism



KLCS: Wednesday, January 30, 9 p.m.
KCET: Wednesday, January 30, 10 p.m.

Winners of the Alfred I. duPont Awards for excellence in television and radio journalism talk about covering major breaking news; hosted by Christiane Amanpour. Sphere: Related Content

Herald Examiner Reunion Planned for March 13


A Los Angeles Herald Examiner editorial reunion is planned for March 13, in association with the L.A. Press Club, according to Alex Ben Block, a HerEx alum and Hollywood industry columnist.

There is going to be a time to reunite and talk both before and after the program, which is expected to feature former HerEx Editor Jim Bellows. The program may be recorded for broadcast as well, Block said.

The Herald Examiner ceased publication in 1989. Recall the days before the Internet when the HerEx kept readers informed and other local media, the L.A. Times and TV stations, hopping. More details to come. Meanwhile, read about the last days of the HerEx HERE.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

'Do Not Deliver' List Would Bar Papers

Connie Finch doesn't read a newspaper, but she picks up plenty each morning. At least one free newspaper is dropped at the end of her driveway each day, and she picks up more newspapers left by her neighbors.

All of them end up in the garbage.

"We're not asking for it," Finch said. "And it's just littering our streets." [Click for MORE]

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Is This the Future of Newspapers?



This is a demonstration of Mobile PressDisplay.com which runs on smart mobile devices and Blackberrys. Sphere: Related Content

Monday, January 28, 2008

Wall St. Journal’s New Directions May Take It to Midtown

The Wall Street Journal miles away from Wall Street? Covering sports?

Yes, the paper that has chronicled business from Lower Manhattan for 119 years is making plans to start a sports page and move to the Midtown offices of its corporate parent, the News Corporation, according to people briefed on the matters.

Seven weeks after taking over The Journal, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of the News Corporation, is making good on his plans to integrate it with his media empire and to broaden the paper’s interests and appeal. [Click for MORE]

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Cutbacks Silence Journalists

By Bill Boyarsky

At the USC conference on news and the criminal justice system, a luncheon companion, an Iranian, asked me if journalists were jailed as political prisoners in the United States.

No, I answered. They don't have to be put in prison to be silenced. Economics are silencing them. Big corporations control the major media. They are slashing costs and dumping journalists. The survivors don't want to lose their health insurance. Who needs government to silence journalists? [Click for MORE]

> The Times and the gang epidemic Sphere: Related Content

Assignment for Jan. 30

Assignment for Jan. 30

1) Rewrite: Finish your rewrite of the Bank Robber story. Email it to your instructor if you want an early critique.

2) Review: Continue your study of the AP Stylebook. Finish the alphabet and be prepared for an open-book quiz.

4) Consider: Have you thought about the two-part California Primary assignment? Bring your questions and problems to class.

5) Extra Credit No.1: Write a story about tonight's "State of the Union" speech. If you can't view it live, it will be repeated on C-SPAN and almost all the news channels.

6) Extra Credit No.2: Write a story about the"Paving Paradise" presentation scheduled for 7 p.m. this evening in the Performing Arts building.

7) Read: If you aren't current in the text, you need to catch up immediately. Sphere: Related Content

Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Capa Cache

Falling Soldier, iconic Spanish Civil War photo by Robert Capa.

To the small group of photography experts aware of its existence, it was known simply as “the Mexican suitcase.” And in the pantheon of lost modern cultural treasures, it was surrounded by the same mythical aura as Hemingway’s early manuscripts, which vanished from a train station in 1922.

The suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — contained thousands of negatives of pictures that Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom.

Capa assumed that the work had been lost during the Nazi invasion, and he died in 1954 on assignment in Vietnam still thinking so. [Click for MORE]

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