Steven A. Smith was considered to be one of the most innovative newspaper editors in the country, Webcasting his morning news meetings, building a radio sound studio and shifting staff and focus to the online edition of his paper, the Spokane, Washington Spokesman-Review. So of course the self-destructing newspaper industry had to go and ruin that, by asking Smith to fire most new online people less than a year after he hacked away 25 percent of the overall staff. Smith naturally resigned, an event that was covered by NPR. Some old newspaper hands are grumbling that Smith should have toughed it out, but up-and-coming print journalists will be looking at his decision and reaching the opposite conclusion: If this guy, of all people, can't deliver newspapers safely to the future, it's probably time to leave. (Photo via NPR)

Hey, the New York Sun is dead. Sad! It was a newspaper, and we all love newspapers. Their editorial stance was despicable, but they had a great sports section. We've been through all this already. No point in dredging up old fights. But! There are still stories about Sun founder and editor Seth Lipsky that are maybe worth your attention. Like did you know he stole everyone's lunch?

Everybody knows that the L.A. Times has been in trouble lately, with shrinking ad sales and dealing with the outbursts of their eccentric billionaire CEO and threatening to suing their staff memo-leakers. But LA Observed reminds us that back in the day, the paper was so big that it killed a dog:

Lee Abrams is back—in memo form! The most high innovative exec at Tribune Co., Abrams' job is just to sit around and compose memos full of CAPITALIZATION and deep thoughts on the newspaper industry. Which are classics! His new memo includes the following things: his thoughts on redesigns; one of his old blog posts, in its entirety; a list of the top-grossing music acts of 2008; and a disquisition on old and ratty hotels. After the jump, enlightment:

It should not be such a surprise that the New York Times is planning unprecedentedly brutal cuts to its editorial staff for 2009. After all, the newspaper has the most heavily-staffed newsroom in the country, with some 1,200 employees. Advertising revenues have declined at double-digit rates. And—after the recent economic swoon—the business won't be rebounding any time soon. But here's the funny thing about the rumor we're hearing:

Newspapers have always been selfish when it comes to giving credit to anybody else for anything. Good reporters are always conscientious about noting when someone else broke a story, but as a rule of thumb, the more self-important a news outlet is, the less likely they are to credit a competitor (or anyone else) for a scoop. But everything has changed now! Thanks to the internet and how it is beating the shit out of newspapers. Are you ready for a revolution in how you consume your news? Click through for a glimpse of the future of information! Newspapers—the forward-thinking beacons of journalism—have invented something totally new. Imagine this: you read the New York Times' website, and, abracadabra, you see a "link." This "link" sends you to a site that is not owned by the New York Times, where you can read information on a certain topic. NBC and the Washington Post are about to start doing it too! This could be big!

Lies! Today, they spread everywhere instantly thanks to the internet, that wondrous web of computers full of lies. That's how a fake rumor about Steve Jobs having a heart attack can momentarily cost Apple billions of dollars in market cap. But don't blame the internet—blame the inherently wicked hearts of mankind. Because people have been running these same types of media scams to manipulate financial markets for at least 144 years:

Here's a bright ray of sunshine piercing through the dark skies of the newspaper industry: Bingo Gossip. It's thriving! Could Missy Mouser, the 26-year-old founder of this free bimonthly tabloid chronicling the lighter side of the Texas bingo world hold the answers for what ails the publishing business? YES, if the predilections of elderly Texas bingo fans are any indication!:

Newspapers continue their march to non-profit and extension-of-J-schools status: the Philadelphia Inquirer just announced that it can't afford to pay its interns. So just offer unpaid slave-internships, right? Wrong—those pesky unions (bless them) don't allow people to work for free, in the grand media tradition. Whatever will they do? "The Inquirer now is asking journalism schools to pay the newspaper a stipend to support the internships. Each school that agrees to do so will have one guaranteed internship."

Newspapers are freaking out left and right. They can't hire anyone. They can barely afford to cover anything. And some of them are so paranoid they're looking to sue their own employees. Like an alcoholic dad who beats his kids and blames the god damn factory that just laid him off, newspapers' problem is that they just can't make any dang money, because the internet ate up their market. Their only real hope: increasing web revenue to make up for what they've lost in print ads. The problem: their web revenue is now stalling. The solution: Batman. Ha, no really it's just "more death":

The LA Times is considering a redesign. One of their most prominent proposed changes: changing bylines from "Times Staff Writer" To "By (Person), Reporting From (location)," as shown. The sad, likely reason for this change: the fact that Lee Abrams, Tribune's "Innovation" officer and maker of comical pronouncements about newspapers, came into his job not even understanding what bylines and datelines mean: From an Atlantic interview with Abrams via LAObserved:

"The largest newspaper in New Jersey, The Star-Ledger, will not change hands or go out of business — at least not for a while — its owners said on Wednesday, after employees agreed to buyouts and concessions." [Times, Previously]

It's just so perfect. Tribune Co. already boasts gnomish asshole CEO Sam Zell, who cusses out his own employees in public, and "Chief Innovation Officer" (ha) Lee Abrams, the dumbest guy in the newspaper industry. And now Eddy Hartenstein (pictured), who Tribune hired as the new publisher of the doomed LA Times last month, is telling LAT reporters that leaking memos to blogs is "treason":

You have to give credit to the people who have the unenviable job of selling enough online ads to keep the New York Times afloat. At least they're brainstorming! Already this year they've experimented with creative strategies like selling the entire top of the homepage to Apple. And today, we see, they've come up with yet another space that can be "sponsored": The archives! The CBS show Eleventh Hour has a "sponsored archive" of free NYT stories about cloning humans and stuff, which presumably is a topic related to Eleventh Hour. It might grate on traditionalists, but we can't hate on things like this too much. Better to sell new online ads than, say, start plastering the front page of the print edition with ads. Besides, Thomas Friedman's mustache wax ain't free.

Once upon a time, back in the days when H.L. Mencken was prowling the metaphorical streets of journalism, drinking bourbon for breakfast and smoking cigars in theaters and making women do laundry for weeks on end, a reporter could dream of nothing better than being assigned to cover the State Capitol. He'd go on up there and sit around drinking bourbon and smoking cigars and subjugating women and occasionally filing stories, after which he would go out and engage in scandalous behavior with the politicians he covered. Life was sweet. But now guess what: penniless newspapers can't even afford the meager salaries of statehouse reporters any more! The number of reporters covering the NY state government in Albany has dropped from 59 to 42 in the last quarter century. And one count says there are just over 400 full time statehouse reporters in the whole country. The glorious days are gone!

Sharon Waxman is a former NYT reporter who quit the paper to go to LA and make her way on the wild World Wide Web, which has "endlessly rich tools to pursue our craft," etc. She sent out an email today to her Trusted Friends and Colleagues telling them that The Wrap News, "which will have a fresh approach on reporting news in the entertainment industry" (!) and will be a "multi-platform source," etc., is all set to launch in January, and by the way please take a survey. And who will the world have to thank for Waxman's new "news and community resource for entertainment professionals?" Heartless Gawker, which made her quit her real job, allegedly!: Waxman's schadenfreude on our recent layoffs:

Sure, it's "wrong" to date a source you quoted in 24 articles and/or a married man (and vice versa), but that very wrongness is what makes it seem romantic—until everything blows up in your face. Ex-Miami Herald and Boston Globe reporter, 27-year-old Tania deLuzuriaga, had a reported affair with a source, new Miami-Dade schools superintendent Alberto Carvalho, 44. It was uncovered when two dozen embarrassing e-mails ("don't shave") were anonymously delivered to media outlets across town. Carvalho's weaselly denials might cost him his new job—the school board has yet to vote on his contract. deLuzuriaga already resigned from the Globe, shortly after the e-mails were leaked. Now there are new e-mails!Sadly, they aren't as juicy as "Don't shave. Wanna are [sic] it." They say "I love and miss you too" and other boring crap like that. Oh, and this: "Keep texting. Keep clean as my daughter keeps lunging for it with those Carvalho quick reflexes.'' Almost as quick as the Carvalho denial-reflexes. [Miami Herald via Romenesko]

So. The McCain campaign oddly decided to run against the media this year. It's not that odd, because Republicans have been doing it quite successfully since 1968, but this is the first year they've had a candidate who started off beloved by the media. And they just sorta pissed that away. Then in running against the media, they pissed off the media, and suddenly John McCain can't get any favorable coverage anywhere, and then they push back againt the media even more, and then Times executive editor Bill Keller says: “My first tendency when they do that is to find the toughest McCain story we’ve got and put it on the front page, just to show them that they can’t get away with it.” Sorta giving the game away! So that explains the gambling story. But those terrible old standards of make-believe "fairness" are what then led the Times to enable the insane and vicious tone the campaign suddenly took this week. The Times put that gambling story on the front page even though there didn't seem to be that much to it. Now Keller admits, basically, that they did it because the McCain campaign was bothering them. So, obviously, then they had to be fair and put some sort of theoretically damaging Obama story on the front page a week later! And they did, with Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths, the story of how goofy '60s Weatherman Bill Ayers cleaned up and went legit and eventually served on a non-profit board with Barack Obama, which means Obama is a terrorist. Like, seriously, this is what they concluded:

"[Marcus] Brauchli said that the paper can't be expected to cover every national story, such as a tornado in Oklahoma, indicating that services like the AP can provide that content to Post readers. " [Politico]

You may recall that extinct neoconservative vanity paper New York Sun used to run a little telemarketing scam in which it claimed to be a "snapshot" or "smaller version" of the Times. Misleading and dishonest, right? But there was a clue this was coming: The original incarnation of the Sun, which the new Sun zealously aped (save for certain inconvenient political positions), also scammed people. This fact was lost to history until a summer 1944 Sun sales rep described the setup, which involved the Lost & Found ads traditionally used to find pets and wedding rings and so forth. From a letter to the editor in the Times: