Archives: July 2006

Forget The Band. Just Make The T-Shirt.

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 31

Rob Walker has an excellent piece in yesterday’s New York Times magazine, concerning what he calls the “brand underground”--a consumer counterculture as practiced by the sort of hipsters who once...

Newspapers and Search Engines: The Sequel, But Not The Last One

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 31

The San Jose Mercury News’s Elise Ackerman has an interesting story here about newspapers and search engines reworking some aspects of their relationship, in ways that look to allay some...

Sign Of The Times, Department of Popular Music

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 28

The good news is, there is one musical act that reliably delivers platinum CD sales with a minumum of promotion. The bad news, as Slate's Jody Rosen points out, is...

Street-Level Reporting At Its Finest. Or Not.

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 27

A few days ago I was walking in midtown Manhattan, and I caught sight of someone I know who's in a reasonably high-level position at National Geographic. Under ordinary circumstances...

The Incredible Shrinking Teen Category: Teen People Pulls An Elle Girl

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 25

Time Inc.’s Teen People shutting down as a magazine after its September issue; TeenPeople.com will live on. If this sounds familiar, well, it should, since Hachette’s Elle Girl did the...

George W. Bush and a Unified Theory of Open Mikes

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 25

A pal sends an email about the whole Bush/Blair/caught-on-open-mike to-do. Said friend smells a set-up. If this were an episode of the West Wing, he says, you’d have a debriefing...

This Just In: Grandiosity, Back-Stabbing Found At Prominent Conde Nast Magazine

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 21

The New York Post's Keith Kelly comes up with one for the archives today, in a tighly-wound tale of recriminations and slashing ripostes at Vanity Fair. Worth reading in full...

Insert Joke About Layers Of The Onion

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 20

It's not entirely reassuring when a site bases a report around what it terms an "unconfirmed rumor." After a few phone calls and emails this week, though, I didn't get...

Wall Street Journal Breaks With Tradition. It's Just Unclear Which One.

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 18

The Wall Street Journal will put an ad on its front page, beginning the third quarter of this year. (In other words: Soon.) Size, in this case, matters, but Gordon...

Yet Another Elaborate, Stealth Attempt To Create 'Edgy' Virality For A Marketing Campaign

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 17

This blog would be more believable if this billboard in lower Manhattan wasn't simultaneously appearing in Los Angeles on Sunset. (Shoutouts to BoiFromTroy and, especially, the commenters at Gawker who've...

Journalism Ethics Can Be Funny! Santa Barbara Saga Continues

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 14

The recurring phrase "former food writer" herein totally cracks me up, in part because it's a pretty hilarious putdown, and in part because it double-underlines the letter's high-handed tone. The...

More Angst at Tribune

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 14

A not-great earnings call yesterday; more job cuts at the Chicago Tribune announced today. (On yesterday's call, Chairman-CEO Dennis FitzSimons had very little to say about the Chandler situation.)...

Steve Newhouse on Wired and Wired News

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 12

Just had a chance to chat with Steve Newhouse, who as chairman of Advance.net heads up all internet operations for Conde Nast and Advance Newspapers, and who sounds legitimately excited...

Massive Layoffs At Vibe

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 11

Nat Ives of Ad Age confirms what we heard was slated to go down at 1 PM today: Twenty or so staffers of Vibe fired by the new management. On...

The Downside of Local Newspaper Ownership: A Cautionary Tale

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 06

Wendy McCaw, ex-wife of cell-phone tycoon Craig McCaw, bought her local paper--the Santa Barbara News-Press--in 2000 from the New York Times Co. Of late, things have gotten very colorful. LAObserved...

Great Moments In Public Relations, Part 3,724

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 06

The following was sent to a BusinessWeek colleague and the veracity of it was confirmed with the sender by another editor here, Deborah Stead. (Emphasis mine on the below. What...

This Is Just An Excuse To Link 'Us Weekly' And 'FBI Investigation' In The Same Headline

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 05

Forget the New York Times and the Bush Administration; forget the words slung between the Times and the Wall Street Journal. Jossip is onto the real story: Who hacked into...