Murdoch Won’t Go Any Higher on ‘Newsday’ BidAlso, Microsoft gives up on Yahoo, Berkshire Hathaway’s profits tank briefly, and Buzz Bissinger apologizes to Will Leitch, all in our daily industry roundup.
NBC Throws a ChangeupThe Peacock network is the first to ditch the traditional notion of television “seasons.” That, and more news from the city’s media, finance, law and real-estate industries.
in other news
James Dolan and Mort Zuckerman Join Murdoch in Scramble for ‘Newsday’Turns out it’s not just Rupert Murdoch who’s interested in buying Newsday; Mort Zuckerman, the real-estate magnate who owns the Daily News, and James Dolan, whose family owns Cablevision, Madison Square Garden, and the Knicks, are making bids as well.
ink-stained wretches
Rupert Murdoch Making a Bid for ‘Newsday’?According to Crain’s, Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. might be plotting to buy Long Island tabloid Newsday. The news comes shortly after the release of the quarterly results of the Tribune Company (Newsday’s owner), which showed an $78 million loss in its continuing operations at the end of 2007.
in other news
Reacting to Eliot’s Mess
Eliot Spitzer is still holed up in his apartment in New York, where he and his wife, Silda, have been conferring with advisers since last night. He’s weighing his options, and deciding whether to resign. Meanwhile, on the outside, the politicians and the media have descended into exactly the kind of feeding frenzy you would expect:
• The Post reports that State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno held back from reveling in his great rival’s fall: “I feel very badly for the governor’s wife, for his children,” he said. “The important thing for the people of New York State is that people in office do the right thing.”
• According to CNN, Republican state senators and assemblymen (and some Democrats) are aggressively calling for his resignation. So is the Republican Governors Association.
• If Spitzer doesn’t resign before a deadline set by state Republicans, they’ve vowed to begin impeachment proceedings, reports WCBS.
company town
Morgy Says, ‘I’m Too Old to Retire!’LAW
• Robert Morgenthau called a press conference in response to a “Page Six” item about him stepping down after 33 years: “I’m too old to retire.” The man is 88! [NYT]
• Big-time Mayer Brown partner Joseph Collins, who maintains offices in both New York and Chicago, has been indicted for fraud in the Refco case. [Above the Law]
• Which court is the worst “judicial hellhole” in the country? [Law Blog/WSJ]
in other news
‘Post’ Wins in Brit-Bash BattleWe’re not sure why other newspapers in this city even try. Scanning this morning’s articles about Britney Spear’s zombie-like performance at the MTV Video Music Awards last night, we saw that New York’s ink-stained wretches made an effort to be mean. “Spears looked bleary and unprepared,” quoth Newsday. “She looked embarrassingly out of shape.” The Times was a little more explicit, saying, “she was awful. Visibly nervous, she tottered around the stage, dancing tentatively and doing nothing that sounded or looked like real live singing.” And the Daily News took a couple of swings: “Glassy-eyed and out of step, Britney seemed lost in a sea of pole-dancers and overmuscled male models who groped her so much she wasn’t even mouthing the words.” Nice try guys. But this story belongs to the Post. In the print edition of the tab, critic Dan Aquilante says that the “ditzy disaster” was “stuffed into a spangled bra and hotpants” and “danced like she had a pantload.” Sensing that perhaps this wasn’t enough, editors added this online headline early in the morning: “PORKY POP–TARD BORES AND JIGGLES LIKE JELL-O.” See guys? That’s how it’s done.
For MTV, the Best May Have Been Off-Camera [NYT]
VMAs bounce back after Britney bombs [Newsday]
Brit Gives ‘Em Less [NYDN]
Britney a Bust [NYP]
it just happened
Pulitzers Announced; ‘Times’ Only Wins OneThe Pulitzer Prizes were announced about a half-hour ago, and let’s put it this way: It’s a good day for Hassan Elmasry. The Times snagged only one award this year, in the Feature Writing category. That’s the same total as the Daily News and Newsday — and for that matter, the Oregonian, the Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times — which all also won one prize, but without the pesky dual-class ownership that Elmasry so dislikes and we’d all like to argue protects the paper’s superior journalism. Then again, it was a year without any big winners, and the only paper to win two prizes — the Wall Street Journal, with Public Service and International Reporting — is a dual-class paper, too. Congratulations, Bancrofts.
The Pulitzer Prizes 2007 [Pulitzer.org]
