Washington Post cries foul on pew study: You may recall this research report by Pew, which claimed that Drudge Report (which, content aside, looks a lot like a Geocities page we made for a middle school project in the mid-90s) drove 15% of the Washington Post’s online traffic. David Carr even wrote a piece on the thing which feted Drudge. The folks at WaPo have responded, calling the report inaccurate and citing their own numbers, which credit 2.5% of their total traffic to Drudge. Pew used Nielsen data from three months in 2010, but three different companies working for WaPo failed to measure a percentage that cracked double digits over the same three months. source
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Today’s front page: Great to see the Washington Post doing this. It reminds us of an old friend of ours.
The newspaper is doing OK right now. Not great, just OK. In the past six months, that gray newsprint behemoth did OK, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, with the top two papers gaining some ground and most of the top five staying roughly in the same order. However, the way that the group analyzed the data changed this time around — deciding, instead of focusing just on paid circulation, to emphasize “average circulation,” which includes separate editions under the umbrella of a certain brand. The numbers caused one paper to rocket into the top five and one to fall out. See if you can guess by the numbers below:
» A few things of note: If you guessed that the San Jose Mercury News benefited greatly from the change in data, you’re correct — MediaNews treats each newspaper on this page as an “edition” of the Mercury News (which seems a little number-inflating). Other notes: This data covers the daily circulation for the past six months — a period which only includes a tiny bit of the New York Times’ post-paywall circulation (so come back in six months to see if it was a success). But e-editions are doing quite well, especially for the Wall Street Journal and Detroit Free Press. One last thing: The numbers only cover paid newspapers, not free ones. (photo by Brent D. Payne)
And in case you were wondering, the government hasn’t exactly been kind to the concept, claiming that students are dropping out of the company’s Kaplan Higher Education, aren’t getting what they paid for, and default on their loans. How did a newspaper company get involved in this mess? Read on.
David S. Broder, dead at 81: The legendary Washington Post political reporter passed away today. A veteran of cataclysmic American news stories, not least of all the Watergate scandal, Broder was a deeply respected and revered figure in print news, and had last contributed a column to the Post on February 6th. I think most everybody understands the dream of loving your work so much that you want to just keep doing it, even into your 80s. That Broder knew this joy, and showed this industriousness, is a credit both to himself and the people who surrounded him. source
If the president said, ‘Okay, John Boehner, you bet, now that you’re in power, as soon as you pass a version that covers the same number of people for less, I’ll be happy to put my approach aside and cut a deal,’ he’d remind Americans about the discussion Republicans refuse to have.Washington Post opinion writer Matt Miller • Arguing that Obama should frame the debate around health care not in terms of what the Republicans are claiming to do (save money), but in terms of what they as of yet have been unwilling to do – find a comprehensive approach to insuring 30 million Americans that saves more money than Obama’s plan, which he says is imperfect but still important. “Back in the universe in which we actually live, Obamacare was a historic first step. We need to mend it, not end it.” What do you guys think? source (via • follow)
bitshare said: I am not surprised by the NY Post front page because they are always a bit TMZish to me. However, I was taken back when I saw the NY Times front page and how they covered his image large on the front page. I thought it was very distasteful.
» We say: Obviously it’s matter of preference, but we actually thought that the NY Times played it the way it should’ve been played. Let’s face it – this photo ranks up there with similar shots of cultural monsters like Charles Manson and the Unabomber, and will be remembered decades from now, unfortunately. As the Times has a paper-of-record role going on, the truth is, that shot is what everyone will be talking about, and none of the other photos on the wires had a tenth of its power. Many other papers gave it similar play. As for the other papers we mentioned, we clearly don’t recommend emulating the NY Post, and the Washington Post felt timid. Either way, it’s fascinating to see, in situations like this one, how different papers handle the same story.
Whatever the explanation, there appears to be more life in the Obama brand than the pundits might think, and than the Republicans might hope.Policy superdude Ezra Klein • Reacting to a recent poll which suggests that Obama has stronger post-midterm stock than his two predecessors. While people trusted the other party to solve problems more than the president after the unsuccessful midterms for both Clinton (in 1994) and Bush (in 2006), Obama still has a little bit of an advantage over the GOP this time around. “There’s been a lot of criticism of Obama’s communication skills lately,” Klein notes, “but if you look at the polls, he’s doing a far better job than his predecessors did preserving his brand within an unfriendly political environment.” source (via • follow)
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
You know Ben Bradlee? He knows the score on the iPad. Bob Woodward goes to him for advice on how to use it. To newspapers: This is how you advertise your iPad app. That’s right. Turn your most grizzled journalists into pitchmen.
Within a few hours of Tuesdays announcement, a Politico reporter told me she was working on a second-day story. And by late afternoon, media columnists were already drawing up lists of who might replace me at The Post. I was old news, just like that.Howard “quitting after 29 years” Kurtz • In his “I’m leaving” announcement on his Washington Post blog this morning. Kurtz was in disbelief that his departure actually led to his name briefly becoming a trending topic on Twitter yesterday “without even popping off, Rick Sanchez-style.” He claimed that he was departing because he found the ability to help mold the new-media landscape “irresistible.” We’ll see what the dude can do with The Daily Beast’s Washington bureau. It might be cool. source (via)
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