No New British Editor Yet for New York’s Hometown NewspaperAfter the Post’s to-do today about Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman’s search for a new editor, Portfolio scribe Jeff Bercovici spoke with current editor Martin Dunn about the whole thing (something Kelly, despite a source inside the News, did not manage to do). Bercovici wondered whether the search for a new editor meant anything was going to change for Dunn himself.
“I signed a new contract last year,” [Dunn] says. “We were working on it from last September. There wasn’t a great deal of rush because I wasn’t going anywhere, anyway. So I’m definitely tied in for the next couple of years, at least, and probably longer.”
Dunn also explained that he will remain editor-in-chief of the tabloid, which means that any high-profile British editor (like Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace, who Kelly reports has talked to the News and turned them down thus far) will have to fill a different role. “We’ve got some big announcements coming up in the first part of this year,” Dunn said. “Major announcements, which are going to cause huge amounts of extra work.” Ooh! Like what? Surely not another ill-fated weekly celebrity magazine. Perhaps a new Web presence to compete with PageSix.com? A full-fledged national edition? Ooh, ooh! We know! A Website with live streaming video: AllCopFuneralsAllTheTime.com!
Daily News EIC: Actually, I Have a New Contract [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
MIRROR ON THE WALL [NYP]
in other news
‘Observer’ Jumps on Martin Dunn Pig PileToday’s Observer takes a page from the Post playbook and puts out a hit on Daily News editor-in-chief Martin Dunn. Media writer Michael Calderone tracked down Dean Chang and Mark Mooney, two former news editors who were fired from the tabloid this summer. “I think the Daily News is having a personality crisis,” griped Mooney. “The News’ biggest fault was not embracing what it has been and always should be — a paper for the working class,” agreed Chang. The pink paper also trotted out the usual litany of complaints against features editor Orla Healy, who is a usual target of Post attacks ever since she defected from there to join the News last year. Nearly all sources that were quoted blame the paper’s longterm circulation decline on very recent staff shakeups — which is a little bit like giving Bush credit for the good economy at the beginning of his first term (you know, backward logic). Shouldn’t a slump actually encourage some big changes? We’ll admit to a bias on this one — at least one of us used to work at the News — but when the Observer starts taking its cues from the Post, we get a bit worried. We already lost Weeds to the forces of tawdriness — we can’t handle another blow.
Rocking Deck at ‘Daily News’ [NYO]