Major Newspapers

The newspaper that appears to be on a mission to become Manhattan's quaint little alternative daily is considering a move that would cheer those who prefer fair and balanced reporting accompanied by intellectually honest editorials and op-eds. That publication, the New York Times, is considering a return to fee-based content -- and this time, it might go for the whole enchilada. Times Executive…

Here are the January 2009 results (source articles - Detroit Free Press, Associated Press; December 2008 results on the right are from this USA Today report [scroll to bottom left at article]): General Motors - Down 48.9%Ford - Down 40.3%Chrysler - Down 54.8%Toyota - Down 31.7%Honda - Down 27.9%Nissan - Down 29.7%Relatively minor players Subaru and Hyundai posted gains (that's right) of 8% and…

Your newspaper's comic page isn't even immune to the news of economic hardship the country is experiencing - iconic cartoon character Dilbert was let go from his job. Dilbert creator Scott Adams appeared on the Feb. 2 "CNBC Reports" to explain why. "Well, you know his company was slowing down just like everybody else's company has been slowing down and he didn't have much to do, so he started…

Former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle (picture at right is part of a Getty Images pic at a related New York Times story) has just upped the ante in Washington's tax-avoiding/evading game of "Can you top this?" Whereas recently confirmed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "only" $40,000 in back taxes and interest, principally relating to unpaid Social Security and Medicare taxes (with a dash of…

Reporting on his January 29 State of the State Address in which Maryland's liberal Democratic governor promised new government spending programs and the continuance of a costly state college tuition freeze, the Baltimore Sun headlined the story  "O'Malley Sets a Leaner Course for Maryland."Yet as Sun reporters Laura Smitherman and Gadi Dechter made clear, O'Malley has made clear he hopes to avoid…

In mid-December, the Washington Post decided it would feature a special classifieds section on Inauguration Day in which readers could, for a fee, offer a special message to the new president. Buried within the announcement was this requirement: "All ads must be congratulatory in nature. The Washington Post reserves the right to reject any notice." However, bizarre and oddly stilted messages…

Sometimes you learn a lot from commenters. I was going through the comments tonight at my Pajamas Media column about the Geithner nomination that went up earlier today, and came across this at Comment 39 from "Mike M": The deduction he took for the summer camp as a day care expense is EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED IN THE IRS CODE! That’s out and out tax fraud. Even Leona Helmsly (sic) is jealous in her…

Far be it from me to sow discord in MSNBC ranks, to stir up old animosities between colleagues there.  But if Joe Scarborough is going to do a mocking imitation of Keith Olbermann in full Special Comment rant, well then, blogging ethics compel me to report it.The jumping-off point on Morning Joe today was Eugene Robinson's current WaPo column. After claiming that he didn't want to kick the…

When historians look back in wonder at how a long-established publication like the New York Times could have declined from its virtual king-of-the-world status in mid-2002 to its Bush-deranged, 85%-devalued shadow of its former self, they will surely make a few stops at Maureen Dowd's twice-weekly, lost-in-another-world columns (the Dowd picture is from the Times's web site).Today's offering from…

Update, Jan. 12: Debunked, per Anatreptic, which leaves questions as to the motivation of Alex Wissner-Gross.(begin original post) Are we witnessing the beginning of the demonization of Google?The Internet search and service behemoth's reputation has largely survived co-operating with censorship in mainland China and inconsistent YouTube censorship that seems to lean towards protecting terrorists…

Nobel laureate on arcane trade matters, former Enron adviser, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is at it again. In his latest Times column ("The Obama Gap"), he chides President-elect Barack Obama for not being ambitious enough in his stimulus plan, and, heaven forbid, for including tax cuts in the mix. He complains that Obama is only committing to much less than half of what's necessary…

Here's something you don't see every day. A video report about last night's riot in Oakland related to the shooting death of an unarmed man at the hands of a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer actually calls it .... a riot. What's more, the reporter notes, as is really often the case in situations such as these, how people he characterized as "professional protesters" egged others on…

Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print . . . But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May? It’s certainly plausible.  -- End Times, by Michael Hirschorn, The…

A link to a story in the New London (CT) Day (story will be available for only a few days) arrived in my e-mail yesterday thanks to a Google alert:Deed Gives NL Building A New AddressItalian Dramatic Club outlived street it used to be on in fort areaThe story stands as a bitter reminder of the blatant favoritism that took place during the sad saga of Susette Kelo and her neighbors in the Ft.…