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Washington Post Event Has #Hashtag Name Just to Be #Cool

Hamilton Nolan · 03/13/12 02:19PM

Put on your thinking caps, go into active listening mode, and stretch out your inside voices, Washington Post employees: it's time for a good old-fashioned in-house daylong corporate brainstorming session. No idea is too wacky to win the $1,000 prize! Looking at you, Hipness Desk. So remember to RSVP for this big event, #PostDisrupt. Is it on Twitter? No, there's just a hash tag in the name. For reasons of #Disrupt #Journalism #Hipness #BobWoodwardIsDoneAndWeNeedSomethingBig. The full email is below.

Rebekah Brooks Arrested Again

Hamilton Nolan · 03/13/12 08:16AM

It looks like the biggest guillotine thus far has fallen (again) in the News Corp phone hacking scandal: British police have reportedly arrested Rebekah Brooks—former editor of the tabloids News of the World and The Sun, as well as former CEO of News International, News Corp's UK newspaper division, and a close friend and confidante of the Murdoch family. Brooks resigned from News International last year and was arrested last summer in the earlier stages of the phone hacking investigation. She was given a hefty going-away package last year.

Young Sulzberger Is Coming Home to the Big City

Hamilton Nolan · 03/06/12 03:28PM

A.G. "Baller of a New Generation" Sulzberger—son of NYT publisher Pinch Sulzberger, heir to the throne of the Times empire, and natural wisenheimer—has completed his exile in Middle America, where he helmed the Kansas City desk and was forced to endure prolonged periods of subpar vegetarian cooking. He's coming home... TO RULE. To work on the Metro Desk, we mean. Don't fool yourselves; he'll be ruling soon enough.

Let's Check In On the Future of Newspapers

Hamilton Nolan · 03/05/12 12:11PM

As this whole "internet" thing has grown more popular over the past, oh, 15 years or so, the newspaper industry has declined. That's because the newspaper industry, at some point in the past, decided to give away its product for free on the internet. They figured that somehow, someday, this would make them money. It did not. Now, we can put a figure on just how badly this bet has failed.

The Pulitzer Prizes Are Worthless

John Cook · 01/20/12 09:43AM

The nomination deadline for the 2012 Pulitzer Prizes is five days away. Newspaper editors around the county are busy crafting nomination letters, putting together elaborate packages showcasing their best work, and forking over $50 entry fees for a shot at winning journalism's most prestigious prize later this Spring. No one will care.

Tax on Newspaper Sales Is America's Worst Tax Idea

Hamilton Nolan · 01/12/12 09:19AM

Oklahoma state senator Jim Wilson has a bright idea about how to raise $17 million for his state: put a sales tax back on newspapers and periodicals. Because levying taxes on an industry locked in an economic death spiral is always a good way... destroy that industry more quickly. Also a good way to get a newspaper to stop talking bad about a certain politician who may have an important vote on the state's tax policy. Everybody wins!

Piers Morgan Doesn't Remember Anything

John Cook · 12/20/11 04:20PM

Bloated starfucker Piers Morgan finally gave his long-awaited testimony before a British commission investigating phone hacking today. While there were no Perry Mason moments trapping Morgan in one of his numerous transparent lies about his tenures at the News of the World and Daily Mirror, he was at least exposed as having a conveniently spotty memory.

L.A. Times Editor Finally Quits His Hellish Job

Hamilton Nolan · 12/13/11 05:10PM

Russ Stanton is stepping down as editor of the LA Times, a job he's held for the past four years, through some of the shittiest layoff-plagued times in the history of the newspaper industry, and under the ownership of the thoroughly incompetent Tribune Co. He'll be replaced by Managing Editor Davan Maharaj. Perhaps the biggest story here is how small of a story this is, in 2012.

News Corp. Did Not Do the Horrible Thing It Basically Admitted Doing

John Cook · 12/13/11 12:32PM

Whoops! Remember when Rupert Murdoch's News of the World was revealed to have illegally listened to the voicemails of teen murder victim Milly Dowler? And how the bastards actually erased the voicemails, leading Dowler's family to falsely believe that their little girl was still alive and checking her messages? And how Murdoch killed off NOTW in shame and a panicked attempt to avert scandal when it all came out? Well, there's a slight wrinkle.