The Sunday Sun starts tweeting; new Sunday edition will act as a replacement for News of the World

Ready to take over its Sunday spot from the News of the World, The Sun on Sunday is already tweeting, having created a new Twitter account.

So what is The Sun saying on Twitter?

The_Sunday_Sun Sun On Sunday
Arrest made in News of the World scandal: British Prime Minister David Cameron called Friday for full inqu... http://bit.ly/qNvnHa

Yep, they've begun covering the scandal, as well as football news and the usual.

Tribune Company announces that it is moving page design for the Hardford Courant to Chicago

This is an incredibly stupid idea: the Tribune Company today said that it is eliminating jobs at the Hartford Courant and moving page design to Chicago. The jobs cuts are bad enough and inevitable when you are being run by a company that has no new ideas, but the decision to move page design is absurd.

"Collectively, the changes we've implemented will reduce expenses and position CT1 Media to capitalize on marketplace opportunities," The Courant reported its publisher Rich Graziano as stating in an e-mail to employees Thursday.

Let me tell you why this is a bad idea:

I served as a publisher at McGraw-Hill in the nineties and was fortunate, at the time I was brought on board, to have a large and highly skilled production staff. Fully trained, this staff not only was able to produce our daily trade newspaper, but had plenty time left over to train me in desktop publishing (thank you).

But I recognized immediately that the production staff was as much a resource to the success of the San Francisco unit as the editorial or sales staff. As a result we soon launched a monthly magazine and custom publishing ventures.

But then McGraw-Hill brought in a new division president who love this book, and neither my unit nor the division as a whole ever recovered. The decision was made to move page design out of San Francisco, which meant depending on corporate services for production of the magazine and the various custom publishing projects we had sold.

To make a long story short I soon left the company to publish another magazine that competed directly against McGraw-Hill, the magazine was shuttered and all the custom publishing contracts were eventually lost.

Just as bad, the San Francisco unit had had its legs cut off, its ability to create new products, to respond to the market.

The writing is truly on the wall for The Hartford Courant.

The media and government oversight: have no fear, the fox has been placed there to take care of the chickens

As Richard Nixon would tell, if he could, it's not the crime that will bring you down, but the cover-up. In the case of the phone hacking scandal in the U.K., one distressing fact is that the cover-up has been perpetrated not just by News Corp. but by Scotland Yard and even the Press Complaints Commission, the entity that is supposed to be the self-regulating authority for the media.

As word spreads that News Corp. has been involved in the deleting of evidence, and that Scotland Yard has now raided the offices of The Daily Star, one has to wonder whether the public can depend on their elected officials and those empowered to enforce the law to actually conduct an effective investigation – especially when many of those same officials owe their positions to the same media company being investigated.

Like a mafia don that has the police on their payroll, News International paid money to the police for information, and to others in the form of hush money.

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The financial impact of this scandal is growing every day for News Corp. Today, Renault, the French car maker (remember them?) has come and announced that they will not be advertising in any News International newspapers "despite the publisher's decision to close the News of the World," reported Brand Republic.

"As a result of the seriousness of the continued allegations of phone hacking by News of the World, Renault is reviewing its media advertising plans, pending the formal investigations," the company said in a statement. "We currently have no advertising planned in any News International press titles in the immediate future."

AdWeek yesterday, its new headline font designed to be read from 50 feet away, said that ad buyers here in the U.S. are expressing concern over the phone hacking scandal. (Shouldn't Michael Wolf buy new contacts rather than have the rest of us have to deal with one sentence web pages?)

But reading the story one can see that there is no "there" there. Each ad agency person quoted in the story expresses minor concerns but none said they are pulling any advertising, and some even come right and state that they believe there should no concern about News Corp. properties. The same company that proclaimed that there were death panels in the new health care law is apparently a very legitimate place to place their advertiser's money.

News of the World iPad app pulled from the App Store

Lost in all the news about the closing of News International's News of the World was the fate of the paper's iPad edition. Would this be used as a lifeboat for the brand? Nope.

Today the News of the World for iPad app was pulled from the App Store. (A Google cache of the iTunes page can be found here.)

As News Corp. offers up sacrificial lambs in its effort to save its BSkyB deal, the media giant will be launching a Sunday edition of its other British tabloid The Sun.

The Sun already has its own tablet edition ready to go. The Sun for iPad is a free app that offers readers the first 30 days of content for free, then charges readers £4.99 per month.

While this morning's Sun reports on the closing of the News of the World, its website is strangely silent on the news that two former editors, Andy Coulson and Clive Goodman, have done the perp walk this morning for the Metropolitan Police. Guess it doesn't do the morale of the newsroom much good to report what happens when get caught doing "journalism" for News International. Or maybe the editors were too busy listening to the conversations of celebrities, politicians or the victims of crime?

The newspaper is, of course, a typical News Corp. product by may have to sleeze up a bit if it is to full the hole created by the demise of News of the World. I have great faith the folks at News will be able to do it.

National Union of Journalists says editors have walked out at The Sun to protest News of the World sackings

The National Union of Journalists is reporting that sub-editors at The Sun newspaper, a News International property, have walked out in protest over the sacking of the entire staff at the News of the World.

Now I hate passing on reports like this without confirmation, though these kinds of rumors seem to be the lifeblood of the tech sites. So I would be cautious, but the source should be credible.

From the union's website:

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: “This outrageous manipulation of the legal right to be consulted about redundancies shows the contempt that the Murdoch empire has for its loyal staff. True to form, he believes he can buy his way out of his obligations. This is an act of damage limitation to salvage Murdoch’s reputation and that of News International – both of which are now tarnished beyond repair.”

Update: Well, it appears that the editors at The Sun were not going to risk getting replaced and have returned to work. This only goes to prove that my initial thought, that I should just ignore the story as minor, was probably correct.

U.K. online news commenters smell a different agenda in 'News of the World' closing announcement

I noticed it in the comments of UK online readers immediately: many were speculating that News International decided to close the 168 year old newspaper as a way of resurrecting the paper later, but without its unions.

Now The Guardian has caught on, quoting a spokesman for the National Union of Journalists as stating that "all 200 News of the World staff are to be made redundant, although they will be invited to apply for other jobs in the company." Lovely, no?

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet is quoted by www.journalism.co.uk as stating "Closing the title and sacking over 200 staff in the UK and Ireland, and putting scores more freelances and casuals out of a job, is an act of utter cynical opportunism."

No word from the paper's staff as it appears the company has blocked Internet access, or at least access to Twitter.

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The News of the World website announces its own closing. But don't count on it staying closed.

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It seems uttering improbable to me that News International would so quickly throw away the News of the World brand, and that Rupert Murdoch himself would approve the closing of the paper he worked so hard to acquire back in 1969. But it does seem typical of News Corp. that it would take advantage of the situation to both protect management while at the same time severely trim costs. In any case, News International has already announced a Sunday edition of the Sun.

I also find it interesting that this phone hacking case is raising so much anger in the U.K. while revelations that Fox News was handing out position papers, or that it has kept so many of the announced Republican candidates for President on its payrolls has not generated much of a buzz at all here in the States.

Guess if it doesn't involve sex Americans simply don't care about media corruption and scandal. Funny how the Brits are so old fashioned about these things.

Update 1: Excellent video recap of the scandal by Nick Davies of The Guardian. Very well done.

Update 2: The Guardian is reporting that Andy Coulson, formerly the Tory government's director of communications, was asked today to present himself to police on Friday, along with a second former senior News of the World journalist.