Contempt for NYT Public Editor Reaches New Heights
In your resplendent Monday media column: an NYT ombud feud, News Corp loses its education contract, NY1 rules, government spending can't save print media, and the world's oldest grudge against Romenesko.
- Bwahaha: New York Times staff vs. ombud feud alert! Yesterday, fusty current ombudsman Arthur Brisbane spent his column wringing his hands over whether the NYT's investment in DealBook "meant forgoing an opportunity to strengthen reporting elsewhere"—in big-picture economics and business reporting, specifically. So today Biz editor Larry Ingrassia sent out a memo basically calling Brisbane an incompetent fool. He is a pretty bad public editor, let's be honest! It's the old "I didn't read all those boring stories when they came out and then later down the road I complain about how the paper never covers those same topics" problem.
- The News Corp phone hacking scandal has cost the company a $27 million contract that one of its affiliate and totally unrelated companies had with the New York Department of Education. Which is rather nonsensical, but still, good final outcome! All is well!
- Everybody knows that NY1 is the only cable news channel in America worth watching. If you don't watch NY1, what the hell is wrong with you? Oh, you don't live in New York.
- A new study of media and government spending in various countries finds that there is "no correlation" between government subsidies for the media and levels of print readership. People read things however the fuck they want no matter what you do. Might as well just write interesting stuff and hope for the best.
- Everybody loves Romenesko, right? Well, yes, except for Time Out Chicago media blogger Robert Feder, who's still mad about what Romenesko said about a column he wrote in 2003. Two thousand and three. Two zero zero three. Even if you're right, Robert, get over it. That's an order.
[Photo of New York Times HQ via AP, photo of Brisbane via NYT]