Nine Questions on Newsweek’s Future: Beltway Blues, Semi-Wonkiness and ‘What Would Arianna Do’?

Isn't it time to get a little interactive? Take Conventional Wisdom Watch (major riff on conventional wisdom over at New Republic), an enduring editorial classic measuring the political zeitgeist. It's iconic -- and readers could play along submitting their own, crowdsourcing, inventing and ...

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Happy Birthday, HuffPo. (Hint: Give Money)

Still: a dollar per unique compared to 12 cents a unique. As in all things web, we could say, HuffPo is being underpaid or we can say the Times is being overpaid. Whatever, that's a delta worth knowing and exploring.

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The Newsonomics of Content Arbitrage

Is there a danger in content arbitrage? It’s value-neutral; it’s all in how you do it. Let’s remember that journalism is essentially a manufacturing process, with as much or as little value added as we want.

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The Number

That's what Arianna Huffington is saying the Huffington Post has been valued at by investors. $100 million for the fastest-growing upstart start-up news site. Nice change in a way, but tells how little news is worth these days, all around.

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Pocantico Signals New Networked Future for “Watchdog” News Sites

$128 million is a significant number – but it may be just a drop in the bucket of what’s to come. Sources tell me that major foundations – some that have previously considered “news and information” to be fairly far afield from their philanthropic mandates – are talking about the large sums of ...

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What’s the Boston Globe Worth? A Buck, More or Less

Now, an announced price may well vary from a simple dollar; it's better optics for the Times. For instance, the new owner could put more dollars into the buy, if the Times agrees to keep current Globe pension obligations, for instance. There are all kinds of content, advertising and technology ...

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Google and Newspapers: Fairplay, Fair Share and Fair Use

I think it's time we get beyond this tired storyline and confront the realities of the moment. Just as God didn't ordain that newspapers should drive 25%+ profits from their daily monopolies, God didn't set the pay-out rules that drives current web business models. It's time to re-boot the ...

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Huffing and Puffing on the Door of Local

# Is Huff Post more than a national brand? Does it really have much resonance around local for its readers? Smart aggregation certainly makes sense in concept, but news aggregators have seen relatively slow audience growth. People are busy and not hungrily looking for new sources or pointers to ...

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Slate’s New SAGA Points to The Big Money

     Ask Jim Ledbetter about his new site’s driving idea, and he’ll tell you that, in part, it really just comes down to four companies. It’s the “SAGA manifesto" approach to business journalism, a term Ledbetter, editor of Slate’s new The Big Money site came up with, ...

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Time for New Blood in Newspaper Boardrooms: A Slate

The New Barbarians are about to enter the boardroom, as the New York Times expands its governing body by two, "welcoming" Firebrand’s Scott Galloway and Kohlberg & Co.’s James Kohlberg. It’s a big deal — the first time in the 41-year-old public company ...

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