Making Money from Online News

Good piece in DM News today about the economics of online news publishing. The WSJ says its revenues are split 60:40 between circulation and advertising. The obvious quote: “The key to building a sustainable [online news] business is the diversity of revenue,” said Michael Zimbalist, president of the Online Publishers Association, New York. Kinda like […]

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And They’re Off

It’s safe to go back to Saratoga Springs. If you live near Albany, NY (as I used to), you quickly learn to stay away from the charming town of Saratoga Springs while the track is open in August. Way too many tourists wearing clothes you can see from 50 miles away. If your weirdness tolerance […]

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Getting on the same page

Getting on the same page It’s not quite a bulletin that large companies frequently have trouble making sure that one division doesn’t step on another. (This is a major plot point in the movie “The Solid Gold Cadillac.”) I saw a particularly egregious example the other day. On the side of a Manhattan payphone kiosk […]

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Jayson Stark, of espn.com, is

Jayson Stark, of espn.com, is one of my favorite sports writers. Here’s one reason why. The first two items are particularly good, but the rest of the piece ain’t bad, neither.

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You Are Number Six. Channel

You Are Number Six. Channel 13 in New York is showing The Prisoner right now. What a trippy show; hard to imagine that it ever got on the air to begin with.

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The Freedom Writers

The coming of civil rights to Alabama was one of the most physically dangerous stories that a reporter could cover. We sometimes forget that the right to vote in the United States in the middle of the 20th century was pursued at the cost of lives. A writer who went down to Selma or Montgomery literally took […]

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Has bin Laden been found?

The much-maligned and anemic UPI has this scoop, if that’s what it is. de Borchgrave doesn’t have the greatest reputation these days, but he’s got significant and long-standing contacts in that part of the world. Hope Rumsfeld is reading.

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Introduction

What’s all this then, amen? (–Monty Python, “The Dead Bishop Sketch“) Twice or thrice upon a time, I had a column. I liked having a column. I like writing them. I liked that people read them, and I loved that complete strangers would cite them in the oddest places. Lots of people read the columns. Some, […]

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Free Ice Cream

Come and get it!!! On April 22, Ben & Jerry’s will feed you for free. Show up at any of their stores anywhere in the world between noon and 8pm, and you get a free ice cream cone. No catch — except you’re likely to confront a looooong line. (And no, this isn’t another of those […]

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Didn’t Feel a Thing

New Yorkers are used to feeling things rumble underground. It’s not usually the ground itself. At about a quarter to 7 this morning, a 5.1-Richter earthquake hit about 15 miles south of Plattsburgh — near the Canadian border and roughly 400 miles north of here. Even at that distance, many around here claim to have […]

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