It’s been a long week, but it’s almost the weekend, yay! Two days to get wasted and pretend everything is still okay in media. Except if you’re a writer and you’ve started getting an avalanche of Valentine’s Day pitches from brain-dead publicists …
• The L.A. Times is cutting its California section. Now it’s just like every other newspaper, but with a better tan. [Romenesko]
• “M-I-C … see ya later! K-E-Y … why? Because we’re cutting back!” Because Disney’s television division will officially cut 400 jobs. So that nightmare you once had about your Mickey Mouse doll coming to life and turning into a serial killer is not that far off. [NYT]
• Plus, coming soon: layoffs at The Wall Street Journal. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• The New York Times ran a fake quote from a source that could not be verified. Well, now they’re just phoning it in. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
• Kimmel vs. McFadden: Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show may replace ABC’s Nightline. [NYT]
• Reporters at Indiana’s South Bend Tribune have been reduced to fourth-graders: The staffers must now turn in daily memos that detail their productivity. [Romenesko]
• After finding out that Bush spied on members of the Fourth Estate, journalists say “Meh.” Maybe hope and change got them so excited they forgot about the last eight years. [Politico]
• It would cost the Times about half as much money to send every single one of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead of a physical newspaper each day. [Tags:
