Who: Nicholas Lemann, Stephen B. Shepard, moderated by Myron Kandel
What: “More than Money with Myron Kandel: The Business of Money”
Where: JCC of Manhattan
When: October 5, 2011
Thumbs: Up

Data is a source. We are building smarter tools to get answers from it. Which leaves only one problem: who knows what questions to ask?

Wow. Well welcome to the new, new journalism where even the New York Times editorial board is forced to go meta. Seriously meta. Apparently, the rumors about a Paterson, fueled in equal parts by the blogosphere and the venerable New York City tabloids, got so out of hand the Times felt they had to push back in a editorial blog post. They went straight to the source.

The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan, international foundation dedicated to the promotion of free speech, and its Newseum, in Washington D.C., chronicles five centuries of news history.

Yet while journalism flounders to stay in the black, executives at the Freedom Forum are raking in the big bucks.

Who says there’s no such thing as a little shoe-leather reporting these days? Headline-happy tabloid the New York Post is reporting today that Yankees captain Derek Jeter is set to marry his girlfriend, the actress Minka Kelly, on November 5th. But it wasn’t an insider tip or publicist leak that got them the story — it was good old-fashioned deception: a Post reporter merely posed as “a bride-to-be seeking to book a wedding!”

If the media were a politician who had to answer the question every incumbent party dreads “are you better off now than you were eight years ago?” it would be in for a sweeping defeat. And in fact, the media, or the media as we knew it at the beginning of this decade has suffered a sweeping defeat — will we even have newspapers in ten years? Doubtful.

We’ve mentioned a couple of times on this blog before the New York Times reporter Nazila Fathi, who during the protests over the Iran election this past June was often the only reporter on the ground reporting for the Times. Now she too has departed.

It looks like yesterday’s Glenn Beck show, during which Beck labeled Nadil Hasan a “Muslim, extremist, terrorist. End of story” may just have been an early sign of what’s to come. This week’s Time takes a similar, if not quite as strident tone, managing to slip a question mark in at end of the ‘terrorist’ label.

How journalists approach Twitter, and whether they should (or even want to) is still a matter that’s up for debate in some circles (ahem, Washington Post!). But what’s becoming increasingly clear, is that when used correctly twittering can often add to the power (i.e. readership) of a journalist.

The New York Times Magazine, in its search for a temporary reprieve from the Internet, for once(!) actually accurately describes the Way We ALL DO LIVE NOW. See South Park‘s version after the jump.

Perhaps Anita Dunn should consider taking some of the smart advice Glenn Beck offered up during his show last night: Don’t pick a fight with the news business. Between the magic coin tricks and the carrier pigeon impressions Beck produced some sharp little nuggets of wisdom.

Yesterday afternoon the New York Times announced it would be cutting 100 newsroom jobs, about 8% total, by the end of the year. The layoff announcement reportedly took the newsroom by surprise it also apparently put the scare into NYT.com readers, who quickly turned the comments section into an online petition of sorts.

What’s the deal with the eerie silence emanating from the White House press corp. with regards to the West Wing’s war on Fox News? Shouldn’t a move by the government to delegitimize an entire news operation be cause for concern? Perhaps not. Or perhaps the press is suffering the same malady as Washington in general: partisanship.

Ruth Reichl did a Q&A in this Sunday’s NYT Magazine and talked briefly about the loss of her magazine. Reichl revealed that Si Newhouse informed her “not on email” (snap!) about Gourmet‘s “stunning” demise, and also discussed why she feels The New Yorker will remain “untouched” forever.

At some point the New York daily tabloids are going to become a luxury instead of a necessity. That day has apparently arrived at the New York Times Metro Desk. The NYO is reporting that the Metro Desk has been informed that, as of today, if you want the paper you now gots to pay for it.

The Monday morning Gourmet quarterbacking continues a week after Condé Nast decided to shutter the much-loved foodie mag along with three others. Now that the initial dust has settled from the first round and the much of the magazine world is waiting for the second shoe to drop, a number of folks are taking a peak behind the curtain at the wizard himself. It ain’t pretty.

As the internet gets more tech savvy, the progression of online ads is feeling increasingly intrusive and at times infuriating. NYT.com and Politico we are looking at you! Maybe instead of paying for content online publications should consider providing a (walking, talking) advertisement-free reader experience. For a fee, of course.

Say what you will about Google destroying newspapers and infringing on literary copyrights, they have just come up with a genius idea. Actually it’s two ideas. And it may not only be the future of publishing but also of newspapers.

After years of being accused of playing the role of all four horsemen in the apocalypse of tradition media, Google has just whipped up a feature that may prove to be the answer to paid content newspapers have been desperate for.

Online advertising, for a variety of reasons, does not generate the same revenue that print advertising has traditionally done. To make up for the lack, publishers have been considering any manner of income generators. However according to an piece on Forbes.com today, the solution may be as simple as getting readers to cough up a whole lot of personal information.

James Warren (formerly managing editor and Washington bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune) took a trip across the pond recently and discovered, much to his amazement, that the British know how to have more fun than we do! Or more fun with their newspapers, anyway.

Rupert Murdoch is not scared to take your money! While the New York Times continues to be all willy-nilly about whether or not to charge for content, Rupe, whose WSJ has been behind a paid firewall since the start, is going to charge for everything!

The obvious question remains: will people pay?

President Obama is dominating the press so thoroughly and alarmingly — what if he “cheapens his words, erodes his mystique” ! — that the press can’t seem to resist devoting as much space as possible to talking about it. So much so, it’s hard not to wonder if this is just a way to avoid parsing health care, which is the reason (initially, at least) that Obama has been “saturating” the airwaves. Whose “strategy” is this, anyway?

Is this evidence of McKinsey at work?! Mediaite was just forwarded this internal memo from Conde Nast to all employees regarding new expense guidelines. And by extraneous expenses we, of course mean newspapers. No more free newspapers! None. Unless you can’t find them online (which more or less includes the entire Conde offering) or in the Conde Library, at which point you may be allowed to expense. Full memo after the jump.

The newest addition to the raging debate over “how can we save media!” is Michael Arrington’s suggestion today that the New York Times top journos should wise up, depart the (sinking) mother-ship and launch their own Politico-esqu news organization. But isn’t he missing the point?