Fox News Anchor Gets Real Job With The Onion
In your wistful Wednesday media column: Fox News anchor moves up in the world, layoffs loom at Time Inc. and BusinessWeek, people still say they read newspapers, and Pat Kiernan has a contest, for you.
Ha, the fake Onion News Network has hired yet another real TV journalist, Suzanne Sena of Fox News (joke). Laugh now; they could totally get Lou Dobbs, if they tried.
Keith Kelly says the bulk of Time Inc's editorial layoffs could come next week—as many as 90 at the company's biggest magazines, to make up for the non-outpouring of buyout volunteers. So next week should be as sunny as this week, in media land!
A new study "finds that 74% of adults — nearly 171 million — in the United States read a newspaper in print or online during the past week." This is presented as a positive sign for newspapers. Left unsaid is the fact that 68% of those readers were reading "Family Circus."
Popular hero NY1 newsman Pat Kiernan informs us of this breaking trivia-related development:
For almost two years now, fans of World Series of Pop Culture have been asking me "when is the show coming back?" Since VH1 has set its priorities elsewhere, the short term answer is "I don't know." I'll keep trying.
In the meantime, my love of Pop Culture trivia can be suppressed no longer. Each weekday at 11:30 am ET I'll tweet a question at @patkiernan. I'll post it on the website at the same time at www.patspapers.com/trivia
It's tough to run a true trivia competition online because everybody can just Google the answers. But for those who respond with the correct answer I'll award a prize at random from time to time. Mostly it's just about writing some fun questions and creating a place for WSOPC fans to gather.
He tells us this week's prize is a $25 gift certificate and adds, "I'm taking the first 10 responses in the "Comments" section and choosing one at random, hoping to take away the incentive to obsessively press refresh and then google the answer." Don't fuck around with Pat Kiernan's contest rules.
Also in layoff news: We've been updating our AP Layoff List throughout the day, and tips keep coming in. Check it again if you haven't lately, it's long. And we hear BusinessWeek staffers are finding out about their own layoffs right now. Email us with info.