Newsonomics: A Coast-to-Coast Newspaper Shuffle Is Taking Shape

From coast to coast, the spring scent of newspaper transactions hangs in the air. The big one — Apollo Global Management’s purchase of Digital First Media — is nearing completion. Meanwhile, sellers from New York City to southern California test the mettle (and wallets) of would-be buyers. ...

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Newsonomics: BuzzFeed and The New York Times Play Facebook’s Ubiquity Game

Intellectually, we all knew that the Internet was so big as to be virtually infinite. But it’s hard to know what to do with that squishy concept. Then BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti outlined his all-in approach in front of a couple thousand nerds at SXSW Interactive last week. He was both ...

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What Are They Thinking? Apollo’s Acquisition of Digital First Media

Apollo Global Management has almost won its two-horse race with Cerberus Capital Management to acquire Digital First Media’s 75 daily newspapers and more than 100 non-dailies, or as DFM likes to put it “800 multi-platform products reach 64 million Americans each month across 14 states.” The two ...

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Newsonomics: Quartz Expands Into Africa, With A Twofer Strategy

Boko Haram. Ebola. Child soldiers. These are the sort of tales of woe that many western readers associate with Africa, home to 1.1 billion, a sixth of the world’s population. Relatively few American or European reporters are based there. As foreign reporting staffs have been cut over the past ...

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Newsonomics: Single-copy Newspaper Sales Are Collapsing, and It’s Largely a Self-Inflicted Wound

Have you bought a lonely single copy of a newspaper lately, from a newsstand or a newspaper box? Probably not. Neither are many other people. Single-copy newspaper sales — which not that long ago made up as much as 15 to 25 percent of sales — are obsolescent, dropping in double digits per year ...

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What Are They Thinking? Tribune in Final Bidding to Buy U-T San Diego

Tribune Publishing is one of three final bidders on the acquisition of U-T San Diego, the entity formerly known as the San Diego Union-Tribune, according to several confidential sources. For Tribune Publishing, spun off from Tribune Broadcasting six months ago, San Diego—California’s second ...

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Newsonomics: Tribune Publishing is Busy Playing Catch-Up

Throughout this morning’s earnings call, the thought reoccurred: Jack Griffin’s new Tribune Publishing Company is playing catch-up. Then, toward the end of the call, one a little more informative than average, the CEO said it plainly, and more honestly than what we usually expect to hear on ...

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What Are They Thinking? Bloomberg’s Justin Smith Sees a Window in Shakeup of Digital Reader Habits

Justin Smith pronounces himself happy with Bloomberg’s month-old redesign. The C.E.O. of Bloomberg Media has been watched closely since he assumed the job a year and a half ago, coming over from a much-acclaimed stint rebuilding Atlantic Media. Now he can finally point to something very ...

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Newsonomics: The Financial Times Triples Its Profits and Swaps Champagne Flutes for Martini Glasses

Even as the Financial Times announces excellent bottom-line numbers, the heat it’s feeling from the diverse and growing competition in business news is palpable. The FT may be 127 years old and roundly and rightfully respected for its journalism. But it doesn’t even break into the top 25 ...

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Newsonomics: Bill Keller’s Marshall Project Finds Its Legs

The Marshall Project is off to a fast start. Ten thousand people a day now receive its daily summary of the latest news in criminal justice, linking up the best reporting and writing on topics from law enforcement to courts to corrections. It’s already published collaborations with The ...

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