News Media Guild

Newspaper and TV newsroom mergers could become the next big thing as profit-pressed publishers and broadcasters seek to cut costs and strengthen their digital presence.

Many journalists give former Washington PostPresident and Publisher Philip L. Graham credit for being the first to describe journalism as "the first rough draft of history."

The clock may still be ticking, but at least now there’s more time left on the board. Philadelphia Media Network Inc., which purchased The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com at a bankruptcy auction in April for $139 million, had planned to finalize its purchase of the media outlets Tuesday, when it was scheduled to emerge from bankruptcy.

The office of The Bay Guardian at the bottom of Potrero Hill in San Francisco — the site of one of the last great newspaper wars — was eerily quiet last Thursday morning, with the sounds of a bell at the front desk echoing up into the high ceiling.

Google Inc. will be able to continue posting content from The Associated Press under a new licensing deal the two companies announced Monday after months of sometimes thorny negotiations.

The drivers who deliver The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News voted overwhelmingly Sunday to reject a tentative contract agreement reached between their union, Teamsters Local 628, and Philadelphia Media Network, the newspapers’ new owner.

The Washington Post Company has been much in the news recently, but not because of its flagship paper. It’s making news around its other holdings. It has shed Newsweek, staunching a $30 million annual bleed. More importantly to the company’s finances, its Kaplan "subsidiary" has been much in the spotlight, under investigation by the feds, along with other for-profit educators, for fraud around student loans

Former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael D. Eisner is in discussions that could lead to his return to the media spotlight — as chairman of the now-bankrupt Tribune Co.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is considering the possibility of discontinuing its School of Journalism and Mass Communications "for strategic and budgetary reasons," the state’s flagship university announced Wednesday.

The executive editor of The Washington Times says the owner of the financially troubled newspaper has reached a preliminary agreement to sell the paper to a company affiliated with the Unification Church.

Monterey County Herald management opened contract negotiations with the Guild on Tuesday with requests for several economic concessions, citing the continued slide in advertising revenue. The Guild’s contract with the Herald, owned by MediaNews Group, covering about 90 workers, expires Nov. 16. Guild leaders next week will announce the time and date for a membership meeting to discuss the specifics of management’s proposal and our response.

Back in April, Barron’s said The Washington Post Co. "may be the most undervalued media company in America," with a share price that was "dirt cheap." With the stock having plunged since then, the financial weekly repeated its assessment even more firmly over the weekend.

The Times Union in Albany, N.Y., violated federal labor law in 2009 when it laid off 11 employees without negotiating criteria with their union, an administrative law judge has ruled — and the newspaper has been ordered to reinstate the workers with benefits as well as back pay.

Former Honolulu Advertiser staffers on Monday launched a Website patterned after the Metromix entertainment site at the former Gannett Co. daily.

The Hearst-owned Albany (N.Y.) Times Union broke the law when it removed workers from their jobs when the newspaper was supposed to be negotiating layoff criteria — and broke the law again when declaring impasse in those negotiations, a judge has now ruled. The 11 affected employees should be returned to work and repaid lost wages and benefits.

The Tribune Co.’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy has unraveled in the wake of an independent report concluding that talks leading up to the company’s 2007 leveraged buyout bordered on fraud, attorneys said Friday.

I’m sure curious what Fox News talkers like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck make of the news that their corporate bosses recently contributed $1 million to the re-election drive of Republican governors nationwide. Unfortunately we don’t know what the talkers think of the stunning development because there’s apparently been a news blackout inside Fox News and it appears nobody on staff is allowed to discuss the embarrassing development, let alone try to defend the actions.

Unions representing former employees of the Sun-Times Media Group Inc. are seeking information from the company in a dispute over termination of health insurance benefits.

With Republicans hoping to recapture a number of statehouses in November, the media conglomerate headed by Rupert Murdoch is inserting itself into the races in bold fashion with a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association.

Why has News Corp’s million dollar gift to the Republican Governors Association gotten so much attention? I think there are a few top-of-mind reasons and one — a little paper called the Wall Street Journal — that forms the subtext here.