Category Archives: Media

Welcome Andrew Clavell

After writing yesterday’s post about the coupon on Citi’s mandatory convertible, I stuck around Andrew Clavell’s new blog, Financial Crookery, to see what else he’d written. And boy is this guy excellent: I’ve already added him to the blogroll, despite … Continue reading

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Consumers Should be Able to Choose Their TV Channels

Joe Nocera had a provocative column in the NYT on Saturday, headlined "Bland Menu if Cable Goes à la Carte". We shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose the TV channels we want to watch, he says: that would be … Continue reading

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Welcome Colin Barr

As part of the relaunched Fortune.com, Colin Barr has now joined the ranks of MSM finance bloggers. His blog is called Daily Briefing, and it looks to be a useful resource. I’ve already added him to the blogroll.

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WSJ Admits its Merrill Story was False

Do you remember those heady days at the beginning of November when the WSJ went on the warpath? First there was the failed take-down of Jimmy Cayne (he plays golf!), and then, the next day, came a front-page article by … Continue reading

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Will Traders Ever Get News From Websites?

When was the last time you saw a trader using a web browser? I ask because there seems to be some worry that if WSJ.com goes free, that might mean fewer people subscribing to Dow Jones Newswires. I also believe … Continue reading

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Why Advertisers Won’t Desert a Free WSJ.com

In the wake of the latest news about WSJ.com going free, the old arguments against such a move have been emerging from people who think they’re smarter than Rupert Murdoch. They’re not. The main argument is summed up by Barry … Continue reading

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Why Newspapers Should Ignore Stock-Market Volatility

I get very irritated when newspapers splash one-day stock-market movements all over their front page for no good reason. Every time the Dow drops 300 points or more, it seems, there’s some kind of rule saying that big panicky headlines … Continue reading

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Murdoch’s WSJ.com Ambitions

Does Rupert Murdoch think he can double or even treble the number of visitors to WSJ.com if when he makes the site free? Don’t be silly. He’s much more ambitious than that: Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the News Corporation, … Continue reading

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The Economics of Broken Deadlines

Why were the second and third Matrix films shot at the same time? Why are TV series shot all at once? Simple: economies of scale. You can shoot all your scenes at a given location at the same time, rather … Continue reading

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Counting Foreign Students

Dani Rodrik gives the NYT a slap on the wrist today for its article saying that foreign students "added to the economy" to the tune of $14.5 billion last year. The article was based on a press release from the … Continue reading

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Secrecy in Book Publishing

Between the issues dated January 8 and November 12, nothing by Malcom Gladwell appeared in the New Yorker, and nothing appeared on his blog, either. Gladwell finally broke his silence on Monday: I took a little break from blogging, to … Continue reading

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WSJ Circulation: A Correction

I was wrong about the WSJ’s circulation on Tuesday; I got confused by some slightly misleading language in the New York Times. If and when WSJ.com goes free, the newspaper will still have a huge circulation lead over all other … Continue reading

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PageRank: WaPo Up, Forbes Down, Portfolio beats WSJ

Remember the Great PageRank Massacre, when the Washington Post saw its Google PageRank drop from 7 to 5 overnight? Well, the good news is that WaPo is back, and stronger than ever – it now has a PageRank of 8! … Continue reading

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NYT-Bartiromo: The Comedy of Errors Continues

The NYT has corrected its Bartiromo story from yesterday – the one which invented not only a new Citigroup executive called William Rose, but also an "international investment firm" with $60 billion called "Cutter Associates". But they still don’t have … Continue reading

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WSJ to Lose its Circulation Bragging Rights

Update: I got this wrong. See the correction here. Did you see the pretty charts in the NYT NYT and the WSJ WSJ this morning, showing the total paid circulation of America’s biggest newspapers? There are two clear leaders, USA … Continue reading

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Citi: Prince’s Ouster Ungags Bartiromo

Maria Bartiromo waited until Chuck Prince had left the building to start criticizing him on the record for his role in bad-mouthing her earlier this year. (You might recall no little innuendo about her relationship with the head of Citi’s … Continue reading

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TV vs Blogs, Jargon Edition

The lack of interactivity on television seems to be haunting Bloomberg. Paul Kedrosky is watching TV: Bloomberg TV is apparently watching Fox Business News. The same way that Fox is making a point of trying to force guests and host … Continue reading

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Merrill: The Latest Victim of a WSJ Attack

There’s definitely a sensationalist edge to the WSJ these days. It’s banging the Jimmy Cayne drum for the second day running, with a story misleadingly headlined "CEO of Crisis-Hit Bear Denies He Used Marijuana": for one thing, the Bear Stearns … Continue reading

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Blogonomics: When Blogs Become Books

Scott Adams, the multimillionaire creator of the Dilbert comic strip, doesn’t like doing anything which doesn’t make him money. This conflicted with his blogging, the income from which was very small. Fortunately, he was famous enough that a publisher offered … Continue reading

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The Best Newspaper Owner

Jon Binder in Chicago writes with a question: What is the best way for newspaper media companies to structure their ownership so they can still generate sustainable profit and inform the public on issues of importance? [public, private, ownership by … Continue reading

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The Market for Online Business Opinion

John Koblin has the scoop: Slate is planning to launch a new site next year, "devoted exclusively to business news and opinion". Slate editor David Plotz is quite right to say that "there’s an opening for a really smart, analytical, … Continue reading

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Pearson Should Sell the Financial Times

On what the news stories all insist on calling the "sidelines" of the Future of Business Media conference I had a very interesting conversation with Ien Cheng, the publisher of FT.com. I told him he should start blogging; he told … Continue reading

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The Future of the WSJ

Gordon Crovitz, the publisher of the WSJ, appeared at the Future of Business Media conference and did a reasonably good job of mumbling noncommitally about Dow Jones’s future within News Corp: he clearly hasn’t yet signed on to the Rupert … Continue reading

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How the Economist Thrives in the Age of New Media

I’m attending the Future of Business Media conference in Manhattan, and probably the most surprising thing so far is how impressive Susan Clark was, on a panel about business magazines. Clark is the global marketing director of the Economist, and … Continue reading

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Why Magazine Circulations Are Like Credit Ratings

If we’ve learned one thing from the CDO fiasco, it’s that in many cases investment banks put products together with more of an eye on the credit rating they could achieve than they had on real financial safety or viability. … Continue reading

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