Magazine News: Update Roundup

A roundup of notes and some updates on previous posts here:

Old New Republic: If they can bring back George Clooney to ER, then why can't Martin Peretz buy back his magazine? Yep, Marty Peretz has bought back control of his baby, The New Republic magazine. As previously reported here (and here), Peretz used to own the li'l political magazine before selling it (in phases) to Canadian firm Canwest Global Communications.

In or out, in or out: Folio: reports that Penton is in the midst of layoffs and changing some print mags to online-only. But it is finding resources to launch one new print magazine, Chief Marketer.


Daily dilemma: The San Francisco Chronicle might not be killed off or sold after all. But I suspect I'm correct, as I wrote here earlier, that it'll be too weak to be a great newspaper, after it cuts hours, wages, and staff.

Last man standing: Magazine distributor Source Interlink continues to mop up its legal mess with competitors and competition, again according to Folio:. Background on this ridiculous battle here and here, and info on why traditional print distributors are whistling in the dark here.

We spit in the general direction of so-called bankruptcy: Mastehead Online reports that Reader's Digest Association President/CEO Mary Berner says phooey to speculation that the company was planning a bankruptcy, just because it had hired a law firm that is known for its work on bankruptcy cases. Still, it can't be good.


Logo tastes: In my notice about the new web site by science fiction media magazine Starlog, I asked whether the site's use of the magazine's old logo instead of the new one unveiled a few months ago was a mistake, just a placeholder, or a sign that they were abandoning the new logo. My source tells me it was none of the above. Just the preference of the web page creator.

And that's all the news that is, um, news of updated news. I'll have to work on a new closing line...

San Francisco Soon to Be Chronicle-free?

The word today is that Hearst may sell or close the San Francisco Chronicle if it can't drastically cut costs over the next few weeks. So discussion among the media set is that San Francisco could become the first major U.S. city without a real daily paper.

But essentially that's what we've got. Whether the paper goes through a Sam Zell-like shrinking in stature and status, or it closes up shop altogether, the show's over. The amount of staff reduction would have to be so large (up to 47 percent, according to Newsosaur) that the paper that would remain would be a shell of its current self. Which ain't exactly a grand paper to begin with.

The "city without a paper" isn't quite true, of course. SF has the Examiner, a small daily that is distributed free. It is not a paper to revive one's faith in journalism. There are also free dailies down the peninsula, as well as free weeklies and a slew of online news and opinion sources.

What we might get -- and a tip of the hat to my Commonwealth Club news intern, Steve Tavares, here -- is a multiplicity of small, localized news publications, in print and online. The good news is that it would multiply the voices represented, as well as give dedicated reporting for certain locales that aren't adequately covered by the giant newspapers we've all grown up with. But I think the downside is that we'll lose those deep pockets of the news giants, the huge budgets that allowed them to do long-term investigative reporting, to take on controversial subjects and withstand the backlash, and to enforce standards of professional conduct.

Show's over. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Ted Turner on Old Media, Plus Economic Troubles

CNN founder Ted Turner spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle's Phil Bronstein at a Commonwealth Club program today. They covered a wide range of topics; the clip above has him talking about why newspapers "are gone."He also talks about the current financial crisis.