BusinessWeek Magazine is apparently a big mess. Media gossip website Gawker describes it as a “hellhole” riven by “internal backstabbing, sniping, and intra-office gossip wars.”
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Because we’re of the belief that financial journalism can never have enough pretty girls, we’re happy to bring you this video of an ambitious young girl called Brenna Hartwidth. She describes herself as a “financial service professional” and apparently wants to be the next Maria Bartiromo.
Video after the jump.
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The Transformation of The Wall Street Journal: Now With Less Wall Street
By John Carney
The announcement last night that key Murdoch aide Robert J. Thomson, who had been charged with selecting the next top editor of The Wall Street Journal , had pulled a Dick Cheney and selected himself, will have many speculating about the future of the Journal.
But why speculate when the evidence is right on the front page of the Wall Street Journal? Today’s front page shows that the worst fears of Journal watchers–turning the Journal into the New York Post or even the Sun–haven’t come to pass. But there does seem to be a shift in focus. Newspapers communicate their image of what is important with their front pages. And the front page story is a prized win for reporters, conveying prestige among colleagues. A few months ago the news desk at the Journal was split between general news and business news, and business news seems to be losing some of its grip on the paper.
Take a look at what’s on the Journal’s front page. Today there are six stories. The top billing is giving to the story of Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor. The two other above the fold stories are about the quake in China and the US military. Below the fold we have a story about doping scandals in the Olympics. Of these, only the military story–they plan to use more alternate fuels–has a solid business angle. The rest are general news stories. Murdoch, who is said to favor more general news more prominently placed in the Journal, must be pleased.
The “What’s News” section continues to lead with business and finance news shorts. For now.
It is well known that smart people—particularly the subset of the intelligent sometimes called intellectuals—tend to overrate the role of intelligence in providing solutions to social problems. This was on display in lurid colors in Gretchen Morgenson’s Sunday column in the New York Times lamenting the lack of “an intelligent and comprehensive plan for dealing with mass foreclosures and the economic consequences associated with the [credit crash] debacle.”
Morgenson goes to great lengths to draw comparisons to New York City’s bankruptcy crisis in the midseventies—which, as she says, was avoided in part by a cabal of government officials and bankers conspiring to refinance the city’s teetering debt structure. But she goes too far in reading a greater lesson into this story. It becomes almost a fairy tale of intellectualism, in which well intentioned intellectuals swoop in from their glass and steel perches to rescue capitalism from its tendency toward anarchy. The idea that no rescue plan outside of permitting market processes to operate is available is reduced to “doing nothing.” A better way must be available because “America is full of smart and caring people!”
We’re second to no one in our appreciation of the smart and caring—we’re not supposed to call them the “best and the brightest” anymore—Inhabiting these Untied States. Unfortunately, we have stubborn memories that insist on recalling the fact that the mortgage crisis that set off the broader credit crisis has its origins in the plans of the smart and caring to expand homeownership beyond the levels established through market processes. Perhaps its time to give “doing nothing” a chance.
Big Rescues Can Work. Just Ask New York. [New York Times]
Bianna Golodryga is apparently Washington DC’s favorite “money honey.” The former CNBC reporter moved over to ABC last year. But her appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is garnering her a lot of attention. “She’s smoking,” a Bush administration official tells Paul Bedard, who writes the Washington Whispers gossip column for US News & World Report.
“I was walking around with her, and all the big shots were coming up and introducing themselves. They were gaga over her,” a “financial industry source” tells Bedard.
The New TV Money Honey [US News]
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Volatility Is The Friend of Business News: Is Fox Making New Friends?
By Bess LevinThis week may be the first real test for the Fox Business Network, TV Decoder’s Brian Stelter points out today. Market turmoil tends to drive up viewership for television business news, and FBN is running hard to catch the wave of attention directed at the rocky markets.
While CNBC was basically shut down yesterday, FBN carried the news of yesterday’s global meltdown live. CNBC, however, is responding with a two hour “Market Survival Guide” special that will air tonight from 7-9 PM. Because, see, CNBC is quick and nimble—like the Fed.
CNBC pulled out all the stops this morning, throwing Cramer on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to echo the sentiment of some traders that the Fed should cut another 50 basis points. Charlie Gasparino got a little rough, declaring that “deleveraging is a bitch.”
We asked Bess what Fox did this morning and she replied, “I didn’t go to Burger King.”
Stocks Down, Interest In Business News Up [TVDecoder]
We never quite understood how it was that Rupert Murdoch was supposed to ruin the Wall Street Journal. Or why he would risk throwing away the credibility of a newspaper for which he just paid $5 billion. A look at the capital spending of News Corp actually points in the opposite direction. Against conventional wisdom—and in the face of much analyst carping—News Corp has been lavishing spending on slow and slowing news outlets. Capital expenditures in the newspaper division have doubled since 2004—and that’s not counting the Dow Jones purchase. This isn’t a company or a chief executive who is out to destroy newspapers.
Or, at least, not newspapers he owns. There’s been some speculation that the hiring of chief neoconservative Bill Kristol by the New York Times—a move that has left many liberal readers howling with outrage—may be a move to ward off a more muscular Wall Street Journal, where the editorial page has long been a stronghold of the right. So could Rupert Murdoch’s perceived conservative politics actually be influencing not the paper he owns but its competitor?
If that’s the case, there are some who think that the strategy might backfire. Some Times readers don’t exactly love encountering “columns written by those with whom they disagree,” according to Steve Boriss. He goes on to explain that the liberal backlash against the Times could outweigh the growth in conservative readership.
“But for Times readers who can easily avoid daily exposure to conservative views, Bill Kristol will not only seem wrong, but also selfish, mean-spirited, and morally deficient,” Boriss writes.
How pissed off are the liberals over Kristol? Very. Over at City Journal, Harry Stein surveys some of the reactions. He quotes from one Huffington Poster who says: “I will never, ever, buy another issue of the newspaper, I will never again be a subscriber to your newspaper and I will do my level best to avoid any purchases from any NY Times advertiser.”
Murdoch gives the NY Times a Trojan Horse for Christmas: Bill Kristol’s new weekly column [Steve Boriss]
No Conservatives, Dammit!! [City Journal]
It’s that time of the year. And by that time we mean the beginning. But also the time of year when the lack of business news means the business media turns to lists to generate stories. The top 7 business stories of 2007. Best 8 investment ideas of 2008. The worst 20 things on Wall Street.
We’re hardly above this type of artificial story generation. Indeed, we’re busy as, well, bees at the height of honey season (whenever that is) putting together our list of top stories from the last year. (Send your nominations to tips@dealbreaker.com with the subject line: “Top Stories.”) We’re also going to put together a couple other special features to make up for the lack of stories other than “oil is, like, totally close to $100 a barrel.”
But in the meantime, we’re keeping our eyes on everyone else’s lists and other “of the year” features. Let’s start with Business Week’s “Business Person of the Year.”
After the jump, we reveal BW’s winner and why we think Jamie Dimon was totally robbed.
Is our beloved New York Post business section falling apart?
While the hoity-toity media mavens fretted that Rupert Murdoch would do something awful to their beloved Wall Street Journal—exactly what he was going to do or why he would buy a newspaper just to destroy it was never clear—the more enlightened among us worried about the fate of the business section of the New York Post. Would News Corp cannibalize the Post’s business section to bolster the Journal’s staff? Would they have an interest in keeping afloat two competing business news staffs?
The offices of the Wall Street Journal have been swirling with rumors as the paper gets ready for Rupert Murdoch to officially take control of its parent company, Dow Jones, next week. One persistent rumor has it that the Journal is going to abandon it’s downtown offices in the World Financial Center for a location in midtown. But perhaps the most talked about rumors have been possible changes in the executive suites of Dow Jones.
Now Newsweek is reporting that it looks like Dow Jones Chief Executive Richard Zannino is leaving. According to Newsweek, Mr. Z is expected to announce his resignation sometime this afternoon. The move is a bit surprising since Zannino reportedly helped spark Murdoch’s campaign to purchase the company over a lunch last spring. So what happened?
“Murdoch apparently couldn’t, or wouldn’t, carve out a role to fit the ambitions of Zannino, a former fashion industry and retailing executive. But Zannino, the first nonjournalist ever at Dow Jones’s helm, will exit with a severance package worth at least $30 million,” Newsweek writes.
The rumor mill also says that Robert Thomson, editor of Murdoch-owned Times of London, may be named to replace Zannino.
Update: It’s official. Here’s the short and sweet official statement: “Dow Jones & Company (NYSE: DJ) announced today that Richard F. Zannino, chief executive officer, plans to leave the Company after the closing of the acquisition of Dow Jones by News Corporation (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS,).”
Update II: Journal now reporting on itself: News Corp. is expected to name News International executive chairman Les Hinton as CEO of Dow Jones, succeeding Rich Zannino, who announced his resignation earlier Thursday. Times of London editor Robert Thomson will become publisher of The Wall Street Journal.”
Shakeup at Dow Jones [Newsweek]
