Harper's Magazine's turn to huff and puff

Editorial Shake-Up as Harper's Tries to Stabilize in a Downturn

Just before noon last Wednesday, John R. MacArthur, the president, publisher and chief benefactor of Harper's Magazine, joined his editorial staff after its monthly meeting.

 "We are going through a crisis," Mr. MacArthur, who goes by Rick, told them in a crowded conference room, where the business employees had joined them. Bound volumes dating from 1850 reminded everyone of Harper's

News will survive; newspapers may Not

Dont' miss the last two paras.

How a new communications technology disrupted America's newspaper industry in 1845

CHANGE is in the air. A new communications technology threatens a dramatic upheaval in America's newspaper industry, disrupting the business model that has served the industry for years. This "great revolution", warns one editor, will mean that some publications "must submit to destiny, and go out of existence." With many American papers declaring bankruptcy in the past few months, their readers and advertisers

Sad news: Only 39% of netizens seek news

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Devices like Apple's iPad may help newspapers and traditional publishers, but only significant evolution will save them, Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, said in a talk with journalism students at UC Berkeley.

Mr. Varian said he has been studying data on news publishing, ad revenue and circulation figures from the Newspaper Association of America, the Pew Research Center and other sources. His conclusion: Digital distribution will be a boon to newspaper publishers if they can also radically

Scottish papers gasp, as public notices go online

Scottish ministers are under intense pressure to drop plans to allow councils to shift all their public notices online, after opposition parties warned it could destroy the local newspaper industry and damage local democracy.

The Scottish Labour party is expected to win a vote in the Scottish parliament today opposing proposals to lift the legal duty on local councils and other public bodies to publish statutory and public notices in the press.

The measure is expected to save £6m for local authorities, which are facing

Funeral cortege: Print media, phone booths, landlines, phone books ...

The days of the phone book – along with print media, phone booths and landline telephones – are numbered.

Leland Yee, one of San Francisco's state senators, is responsible for much worthwhile immigration and domestic violence legislation, as well as mandatory ski helmets for children. This month he's planning to introduce a bill prohibiting telephone companies from sending customers unsolicited white pages. White pages are residential listings, yellow pages commercial: neither name is protected by copyright so

After Music Cos, now Media Cos' Surrender to Apple

SAN FRANCISCO — With the widely anticipated introduction of a tablet computer at an event here on Wednesday morning, Apple may be giving the media industry a kind of time machine — a chance to undo mistakes of the past

Almost all media companies have run aground in the Internet Age as they gave away their print and video content on the Web and watched paying customers drift away as a result. People who have seen the tablet say

Redundancy drumbeat for edit staff at Guardian

Around 40 editorial staff are understood to have taken voluntary redundancy at Guardian News & Media this week.

GNM, which publishes the Guardain, the Observer and the guardian.co.uk website network which includes MediaGuardian.co.uk, is looking to reduce its headcount in the light of losses that are running at around £100,000 a day.

Voluntary redundancies include

Home delivery of papers? Sweet dreams!

Times Newspapers is curtailing its free home delivery service.

The service won't be abandoned – but if you want it you have to sign up for an entire year (previously it was open ended). Either that or accept a 30p per day (£2 a week) delivery fee. And if you want to keep getting a paper statement, that will be £1 a pop.

The Times Direct Delivery Service was a great deal when it launched in 2008, weeks after the Independent launched a paid-for home delivery service. You could sign up for free home delivery of the

Air America goes off air as media blues spread

It's a tough week for liberals… Barely a day after the Democrats lost a crucial Senate seat, lefty radio station Air America is calling it quits. In an unsigned announcement on its website, the company says it will cease live broadcasts and will soon file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The news comes a month after Michael Bassik, the station's first chief digital officer, resigned. At the time, Air America immediately said that he would not be replaced.

This is part of what Air America has posted to its home page. All other links to the site are

Nasty news from Naspers: More staff to go

Naspers has offered some editorial staff in its print media business Media24 voluntary severance packages as its performance deteriorates further.

According to an internal e-mail sent to staff on Monday the chief executive of FinMedia24, Timothy Spira, told staff the company's performance had necessitated that it reviewed its cost structures to ensure that "we are able to navigate the difficult months ahead and emerge from the current downturn a leaner and more streamlined organisation".