What Is News Corp Planning for Your Kids?
In your foreboding Monday media column: speculating on News Corp's education business, Associated Content is good for something, NBC Nightly News is now scrounging for any old viewers, Keith Olbermann prepares to talk trash, and a new media blog.
- So what exactly are News Corp's chilling plans for the education business, now that they've hired former NYC schools chief Joel Klein? Nat Ives speculates that "News Corp. will seek possible investments in technology platforms that schools, public or private, can adopt to help students learn — a kind of paid-content business." That makes sense—it's media, which is a natural way for a media company to enter the field. But are we really going to discount the possibility of News Corp-run charter schools, in the near future? They cross-promotional benefits are just too alluring! They could come to absolutely dominate the private school market in Alabama, Mississippi, and Wyoming! Then, on to the private News Corp prisons. We're taking bets.
- Jodi Jill was homeless for a while after being laid off two years ago. Today, she makes nearly $100,000 a year writing linkbait articles for
Associated Content,[Freudian slip! Corrected] Examiner.com which means 100-130 articles per week. She (but maybe not her articles) is clearly the best thing that Examiner.com has ever produced. - NBC Nightly News has an ad urging viewers to Tivo their show, if necessary, to see it. That'll look positively noble next year, when they're running the ad urging you to at least look up Brian Williams' name on HuffPo, once in a while.
- Oh good, Keith Olbermann will be having a SPECIAL COMMENT tonight in which he REBUKES Ted Koppel for insinuating that Keith Olbermann is not the world's topmost journalist. Sounds good, can't wait.
- Yahoo's launched The Cutline, a media blog with Michael Calderone and Joe Pompeo, writing about media things. Should be good! (If you like media crap, which you do judging by the fact that you read to the bottom of this media column here today. Congrats (dork)).