News Media Guild

At a time when many newsrooms are contracting or consolidating, the BBC is growing its editorial operations with an original news site aimed at the American audience.

Gannett Blog posted on July 13 a note to staff from The Cincinnati Enquirer’s executive editor, Tom Callinan, confirming that Gannett will implement a national page-production network using five hubs for the work.

I’ve always been a faithful disciple, worshipping at the altar of Church and State. (And of the Reverend Al Green, but that’s another story.) I’ve resisted commercial pressures and been party to painful terminations when staffers violated rules bringing the newspaper’s integrity or credibility into question.

After my skeptical post yesterday about Journalism Online’s new Press+ paywall at the Lancaster (Pa.) Online site, a source let me know how easy it was to beat the meter.

Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are redefining the online news experience, but in diverging ways that underscore the evolving identities of the search giants.

Each July, billionaires and mere multimillionaires flock to the shadow of the Pioneer Mountains, and ride in soft-leather comfort along Dollar Road to mingle and be rich and maybe, just maybe, cut a deal.

After two days of talks, we ended up discovering where Chronicle management’s boundaries lie and what we can achieve in this economic climate. The bottom line: Not much. Guild negotiators proposed a two-year contract that would include pay increases, new money to protect health care, retirement gains, more vacation time and a shorter workweek. Management’s idea: An 18-month extension of the current contract, with a new shade of lipstick dabbed here and there. Unit leaders called a membership meeting to air options.

AOL’s Patch is ambitiously adding websites, lately going after MediaNews territory in the East Bay of the Bay Area — San Ramon, Danville, Walnut Creek and Pleasanton — and penetrating SoCal, from Fairfax and West Hollywood to Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach. Hundreds of local reporters are being hired as hundreds of new sites are being replicated from California to Illinois to Maryland to Rhode Island, joining the early sites in Connecticut and New Jersey.

Employee performance reviews should be eliminated, according to UCLA business professor Samuel Culbert. "First, they’re dishonest and fraudulent. And second, they’re just plain bad management," he says

Although the shares of the publicly traded newspaper companies have advanced impressively from their all-time lows 12 months ago, they still are worth on average about a fifth of their value on June 30, 2005.

David Black’s Black Press has bought 11 British Columbia papers from Glacier Media and announced the closing of five of them, including the century-old Nelson Daily News and Prince Rupert Daily News.

The Wall Street Journal has by far the highest e-reader circulation of any newspaper in the U.S., according to Audit Bureau of Circulations data cited in a recent report by the World Association of Newspapers.

Detroit’s two daily newspapers knew they were shoving some readers overboard in an effort to stay afloat when they decided to limit home delivery to just three days a week.

Want to read the cover story of this week’s Time magazine? Whip out your wallet: You can only get all of Steve Brill’s piece on lobbying and financial reform via Time’s print edition or its new iPad app.

Guild negotiators exchanged new contract proposals Wednesday with representatives of the San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com. Management proposed an 18-month extension, including a pay freeze and no extra money for health care — or anything else. The Guild committee continued to press for improvements but focused on some non-money issues where agreements may be in reach. The talks continue Thursday.

Electronics engineer Louis Marious Moyroud, co-inventor of phototypesetting, died at his home in Delray Beach, Fla., June 28 . He was 96.

County lawmakers say promotions resembling news pages harm the paper’s credibility. Publisher Eddy Hartenstein says ads help defray the cost of global coverage.

In the time since Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in December 2008, at least 10 other newspaper publishers have entered and exited bankruptcy. Why is it taking Tribune so long to for Tribune Co. to get to the other side?

Newspaper stocks, which had staged a remarkable rally that began almost exactly a year ago, tumbled again Tuesday along with a Dow alarmed at global and domestic economic news.