Michael Wolff to Lead Adweek Magazines

Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, go to private equity consortium

(NEWSER) - Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews will shut down after the Nielsen Company today sold off most of its other magazine properties—including Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter—to a new media consortium. Nielsen spun the move as a chance “to strengthen investment in our core businesses,” reports Business Insider . But the loss of the prominent trade publications shook the publishing industry. More»

...and founder Michael Wolff is in jail

(NEWSER) - The year is 2012, and Michael Wolff is in prison. He’s the first high-profile conviction under 2011’s anti-aggregation law, the draconian act that’s allowed newspapers to duck behind ever-pricier paywalls. These days, a New York Times subscription will run you $7,000, and “the cultural divide between the news-haves and news-have-nots is just depressing,” writes Simon Dumenco for Advertising Age. More»

Lawyer's letter complains that source links are not 'prominent' enough

(NEWSER) - The Wrap ratcheted up its feud with Newser yesterday, firing off a "cease and desist" letter demanding that we stop using the Wrap as a source for Newser stories. In her blog , Sharon Waxman quotes from the letter, which charges Newser with "intentionally misleading consumers/users at the expense of The Wrap" because our links to the source—under the bright red SOURCE button next to every story—aren't "prominent" enough. More»

It may be painful to long-form writers, but Newser is 'a smart idea'

(NEWSER) - Jack Shafer doesn't like Michael Wolff—he really, really doesn't like him—but he has to admit that in the battle of Wolff (for Newser) vs Sharon Waxman (for the Wrap), he's on Wolff's side. That's because Newser has something to teach Waxman and other news purists, he writes on Slate : "The mattresses of words that journalists rest their stories on aren't always as precious as we think they are. Sometimes shorter is better." More»

(NEWSER) - Is media darling Tina Brown headed for another disaster? That's what the Observer is asking, noting that traffic to the celebrity editor's website dropped 17% after its glitzy launch last fall. Despite a start-up budget said to be as high as $18 million, and a staff of 24, the Daily Beast is now enticing fewer visitors than its far leaner rival—your very own Newser. More»