Free Republic

NEW YORK – Circulation continues to drop severely at U.S. newspapers, though the rate of decline slowed from the previous six-month reporting period. Figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show average weekday circulation fell 8.7 percent in the six months that ended March 31, compared with the same period a year earlier. Sunday circulation fell 6.5 percent. That's a slight improvement from April through September of last year, when average weekday circulation dropped 10.6 percent from a year earlier and Sunday circulation fell 7.5 percent. Even so, the top 25 newspapers in the country showed some huge...

Nearly half of US newspaper and broadcast TV news executives believe their organizations will fold within 10 years unless they find new revenue streams, according to a survey released on Monday. Forty-six percent of the executives surveyed by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism said they could remain solvent for more than 10 years. Seventeen percent said they could go out of business within a decade without "significant new funds, revenue streams or partnerships" while 24 percent put their life-span at three to five years.

The Hate Man is probably the most colorfully oddball homeless person on Berkeley's famously oddball Telegraph Avenue. Known as Mark Hawthorne when he was a New York Times news reporter from 1961 to 1970, Hate Man has lived mostly on the streets in Berkeley since opting out of normal society in 1986. For a man whose penchant for wearing cast-off women's clothes and eating garbage seems a tad feral, the 73-year-old Hate Man is a surprisingly gentle, lucid conversationalist about most anything - particularly his philosophy that everyone must acknowledge that they really hate each other. He went over the...

With buyouts and layoffs in progress, the mood at ABC News can’t be good — and it was not likely enhanced by the ratings report for the first quarter of the year, which showed that the network’s evening newscast, “World News” had sunk to the lowest numbers the program had seen in a first quarter since the People Meter was introduced by Nielsen in 1987. The same story prevailed at CBS, where the “Evening News” also hit a new low for the months of January through March. So what’s happening? Is this a signal that viewers are abandoning network newscasts...

Murdoch has decided to block the 20m online readers of The Times from accessing the paper free of charge on the internet. From June, anyone wanting to read The Times or The Sunday Times online will have to pay £1 a day or £2 a week for the privilege. Those who subscribe to the printed edition will be able to access the paper’s planned thetimes.co.uk and thesundaytimes.co.uk websites as part of their subscription. Analysts warned that The Times risks losing “almost all” of its online readers when it erects the so-called “pay walls”. Rebekah Brooks, a former editor of The...

Let's document here the numerous death threats the Left has made against us and right-wing politicians. A few that come to my mind immediately: The movie "Death of a President" (2006) by British film makers Gabriel Range and Simon Finch Cindy Sheehan's Book: "Peace Mom" in which she fantasizes about going back in time and killing the infant George W. Bush. Alec Baldwin's suggestion on the David Letterman show that Henry Hyde and his family should be dragged into the street and stoned to death. Nicholson Baker's " Checkpoint," a novella conversation between two people about the advisability of assassinating...

Conventional wisdom on the right and left has been that President Obama and the Democrats will pay a heavy price in the November mid-term elections for passing the deeply unpopular health care reform bill. But Fox Business Network's Charlie Gasparino isn't so sure. Gasparino appeared on the network's "Imus in the Morning" on March 25. "They can all get even in November then," Imus said of conservatives and Republicans. But Gasparino pointed out the indispensable weapon liberals have their side: the "cheerleading" news media. "You know, listen - there's not a lot of good reporting on this stuff, and that's...

Fox News CEO Roger Ailes stopped by the D.C. bureau for an impromptu visit as he was in town for tonight’s Radio Television Correspondents Association Dinner. Sources tell Mediaite he talked about the success of the bureau and the network as a whole – but also addressed the recent Washington Post Glenn Beck profile. Sources present at the time tell us that Ailes said he was “very proud of this bureau” and “they used to come to us after the news event…now they come to us for the news event as well…I really just want to congratulate you and thank...

The latest AP poll seems like it has great news for Barack Obama. After all, it puts his approval rating at 53%, even while scorn for Congress increases. But how exactly did the AP poll come up with an approval rating ten points above today’s Rasmussen result? The answer lies in both the survey type and the sample: The latest Associated Press-GfK poll found that fewer people approve of Congress than at any point in Obama’s presidency. Support has dropped significantly since January to a dismal 22 percent as the health care debate has roiled Capitol Hill. Neither Republicans nor...

“Hello? Daily Planet? I think you should get a photographer over here to North Berkeley because there is a UFO hovering over Solano, and you need to report on it.” “The city is chopping down this really beautiful tree on my street and the neighbors are all out here in tears, and we want the Planet to stop the buzz saws.” “There are some really nasty-smelling barrels that someone dumped on the corner and they kind of look toxic, so can you figure out how to get rid of them?” This last request to the Daily Planet newsroom phone was...

ABC News has begun the process of eliminating 300 to 400 positions at the news division by asking employees to participate in a buyout of their services. In a move that has been rumored for weeks, and coming on the heels of layoffs at CBS News, ABC's cuts are a combination of union and non-union jobs affecting all areas of ABC News. Developing...

The declining (or is it dying?) newspaper industry has suffered another blow to its image as punctilious skeptic. So much for the motto, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” It turns out a pile of American newspapers can’t manage to check out the most basic information about people who are flat-out using their pages to push political agendas. A person with the name of “Ellie Light” has been successfully published with the same letter in at least 68 newspapers defending President Obama – defrauding the editors by using local addresses. Reports have “her” published in two...

SAN JOSE (CBS 5 / AP) ― The holding company for newspaper publisher MediaNews Group filed for Chapter 11 protection Friday and expects to emerge from bankruptcy in a month or two. Affiliated Media Inc., the privately held parent company for the owner of 54 daily newspapers including the San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times and Marin Independent Journal, had said Jan. 15 it would be making the move. The company said it had a deal with creditors that will cut its debt to $165 million from $930 million. Lenders led by Bank of America would get...

Several reactions to Sarah Palin’s facebook post: Chris Cillizza at WaPo: We've noted before in this space that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is using Facebook to serve as a sort of shadow president, a constant counter to President Obama on nearly every issue. Palin's latest missive came late Tuesday when she decried Obama's approach to terrorism as "fatally flawed" because the administration sees the issue through a law enforcement lens rather than a national security one. Palin's Facebook riffs allow her to speak directly to those who share her worldview without having to wade through questions from the news...

Climategate is a global household name. No cat has ever emancipated itself more completely from the bag. It is a world-wide scandal – thanks to the internet. Yet, as its ramifications proliferate and dominoes continue to fall, the most repeatedly asked question online is: how can the mainstream media ignore this? Well, we know the answer to that: the MSM are in thrall to the leftist consensus. End of story. But let me pose a follow-up question that may be becoming more imminently relevant. Are the mainstream media capable of surviving their sidelining of the number one global scoop? Are...

Concerned that “casual” and “irregular” so-called journalists are “confusing” the American people. Senators Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have introduced legislation that attempts to “draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate purveyors of news.” The legislation, Senate Bill 448, would define a legitimate journalist as a person working as a salaried employee of, or independent contractor for, a recognized publisher or broadcaster of news. Those falling outside this definition would be denied the privileges granted to established news media under freedom of the press. “The American people need to be protected from being misled by unauthorized sources,” Feinstein...

BY JOHN LAIRD THE COLUMBIAN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Tea party patrons, rejoice! Unite! Or for some of you, I suppose, to arms! Your grass-roots movement has gained such momentum as to warrant a national blue-ribbon, round-table, fact-finding, rootin' tootin' hoedown! The first National Tea Party Convention is set for Feb. 4-6 at Nashville's Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center. For details, visit the Web site www.nationalteapartyconvention.com. Hurry, and get an early discount on registration: $558.95 (excluding hotel) to show up and protest excessive spending by the government. Headline speakers will include the electrifying and eloquent Sarah Palin, a renowned expert...

Gay newspapers in several U.S. cities, including the Washington Blade, shut down on Monday, as the company that owned them, Window Media, abruptly went out of business. Window Media had been in serious financial trouble, but employees said they had expected a reorganization or sale, not a liquidation. “We found out when two of the corporate officers were waiting for us when we got to work this morning,” said Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, a 40-year-old paper that was one of the most important publications written for a gay audience. “It’s not a complete surprise. The abruptness of it...

Sept. 1, 1939 Nazis Invade Poland Overcrowding in Germany Cited Sept. 2, 1939 For Nazis, a Hard Time To Be Europeans Neighbors’ Suspicions Caused Stress, Resentment Sept. 3, 1939 In Central Europe, Other Countries Invade Their Neighbors, Too Sept. 4, 1939 When Fuhrers Snap Rallies, Pogroms Took Toll on Leader

Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli found himself in the middle of an altercation Friday evening between Style reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia and editor Henry Allen, but will not say whether the two have been reprimanded by the paper. “We take this incident seriously and will address it appropriately,” Brauchli told POLITICO, declining to comment further. Reports that Allen punched Roig-Franzia surfaced Monday morning on FishbowlDC, Washingtonian and City Paper (which reported Brauchli was traveling). Multiple Post sources independently confirmed to POLITICO that Roig-Franzia got hit while defending colleague Monica Hesse from harsh criticism leveled by her editor, Allen. Allen, according to...