New York Times

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 10:02am on Monday, February 8th, 2010

February 6, 2010 -- Ombudsman for NY Times Says Paper's Jerusalem Chief Should Be Reassigned:

"Late last month, a Web site called the Electronic Intifada reported that Ethan Bronner, the Jerusalem bureau chief of The Times, has a son in the Israeli military. Others, including Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a liberal media watchdog group, demanded to know if it was true and, if so, why it did not create an unacceptable conflict of interest for Bronner and The Times.

Bill Keller, the executive editor, confirmed that Bronner’s son enlisted in the Israeli Defense Forces and said, “He’s a 20-year-old who makes his own decisions.” Bronner told me his son joined in late December for roughly a year of training and six months of active duty before he returns to the United States for college. Bronner said he had alerted his editors, as the paper’s ethics guidelines require. Keller said the editors discussed the situation “and see no reason to change his status as bureau chief.”

Bronner occupies one of journalism’s hottest seats, covering the intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. As the top correspondent for America’s most influential newspaper, everything he writes is examined microscopically for signs of bias. Web sites like the Angry Arab News Service have called him a propagandist for Israel. I have received hundreds of messages heatedly contending the opposite: that his coverage is slanted against Israel. Sometimes the “evidence” is a single word in one news article. Sometimes it is his “failure” to show how one side or the other is solely to blame for what is happening."

The full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07pubed.html

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 10:04am on Friday, February 5th, 2010

Apple's Steve Jobs Met Secretly with NY Times Execs

New York magazine reported on February 4, 2010:

"When Apple recently booked the cellar dining room at Pranna for a talk with 50 top executives from the New York Times, even restaurant higher-ups didn’t know who their VIP guest would be. But last night, [Steve] Jobs came strolling in wearing what our source calls “a very funny hat — a big top hat kind of thing.” Jobs, who is recovering from a liver transplant last year, requested a mango lassi and penne (neither of which are on the Southern Asian restaurant’s menu, but with a shiny new iPad maybe in it for him, it’s not like the chef was going to say no). Our source says Jobs, who sat at the head of the "intimate, family-style gathering" with Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, demonstrated the iPad and its functions, and spoke about how it could serve the future of media."

The full story:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/steve_jobs_in_secret_new_york.html

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 10:38am on Friday, January 29th, 2010

NY Times Adds 1,100 Bay Area Subscribers After Launching New Section

San Francisco Business Times reported on January 28, 2010:

"The New York Times has nabbed an extra 1,100 Bay Area subscribers after launching its San Francisco Bay Area section last fall, according to Jim Schachter, a senior Times executive.

"Single-copy sales are up too," Schachter told the San Francisco Business Times Thursday. "We're delighted at the reception we're getting from Bay Area readers for the pages that Felicity Barringer is editing, and for our Bay Area blog," he said, including coverage by bureau chief Jesse McKinley and his team of San Francisco-based tech reporters.

A report late Wednesday by "FeedBlitz," an electronic newsletter published by the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club reported that the Times had picked up 1,000 new subscribers after introducing its Bay Area news section in mid-October.

Previously, FeedBlitz reported, the Times had 40,080 daily subscribers in the region and 57,514 on Sunday."

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 10:24am on Friday, January 29th, 2010

News Corp. Pulled Plug on Talks with NY Times to Print NY Post

Editor & Publisher reported on January 28, 2010:

"News Corp. is no longer talking with The New York Times about printing the New York Post while work continues to enable the Post's plant to take over The Wall Street Journal printing from the Dow Jones plant in South Brunswick, N.J.

In today's Times, Richard-Pérez-Peña quotes Times President Scott Heekin-Canedy saying, "We are in discussions with News Corp. to allow them to make use of our presses" and calling it "an advantageous business transaction and nothing more."

Asked to confirm that his organization approached Times, Joe Vincent, Post and Dow Jones Senior Vice President of Operations, said, "We did, but we couldn't work out a deal."

Vincent also challenged the Times report on the reason for seeking a printer and the duration of the work. "We didn't need to do it because the project's late," he told E&P. "We wanted to build in a bigger buffer." The outsourced printing, he added, was to last two weeks, not the two months that the Times reported, he added.

The Times' unnamed sources were contradicted on one further point: "We never spoke to the Daily News" about printing the Journal, Vincent insisted.

The Daily News is the Post's principal tabloid competitor, and the Journal aims to compete more directly with Times when it debuts its New York metro section in spring. Vincent said its launch date, as yet unspecified, has not changed."