News Corp. Will Make You Regret Ever Buying an iPad
In your musty Monday media column: paywalls infest the iPad, The Onion wants a Pulitzer, Ed Henry goes to Fox News, Spin magazine fires its editor, mommy bloggers get their own talent agency, and reporters are harassed in Egypt.
- The New York Post has erected a paywall of sorts for iPad users, to try to force them to purchase the "app" in order to read the paper on the iPad. They would never put up an actual paywall on the internet, because the paper is not so good that very many people on the internet at large would pay for it. Of course, this could be some sort of ploy by News Corp. to get people to purchase the iPad-only "The Daily," which they invented to be the future of journalism. But that also is not very good. So I guess the moral of the story is, you're dumb for buying an iPad.
- The Onion would like a Pulitzer. Since (next to a handful of magazines and The New York Times) The Onion has been the most consistently high-quality publication in journalism for more than a decade, I'd say they deserve it.
- CNN's Ed Henry is leaving for Fox News, where he should fit right in. Let's just leave it at that.
- Spin magazine has fired Doug Brod, its editor, and Malcolm Campbell, its publisher. Why? I'm guessing they're "going in a new direction," but I couldn't say for sure.
- It's a banner day in the history of "mommy bloggers:" there's now a dedicated talent agency, for mommy bloggers. To help them sell out more efficiently, no doubt. Man, I remember when it was all about the mommyin'. We never thought about cash in those days.
- Reporters Without Borders says that two Egyptian journalists are being prosecuted by the Egyptian military for writing a story about the military that the military did not like. We do not support that.
[Photo: Getty]