At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Eric Holder said he supports the idea of a shield law that would allow journalists to protect secret sources by refusing to testify before courts and grand juries. The legislation has been stalled due to protests from the Bush administration Justice Department. Holder also said he would work to reverse the Bush administration policy of withholding federal records from the public if there is any plausible reason to do so. He said he favors a Clinton administration policy to release documents unless there is evidence that disclosure would harm a government agency or the public.
Average pre-roll ad rates for online video in the fourth quarter dropped 25 percent from the year-earlier period and 12.5 percent from the prior quarter, according to a report from ad network BrightRoll. But the report notes that the drop in prices isn't all bad. "Fundamentally, online video ad inventory has been (and continues to be) overpriced," the report says. "There has been significant pressure (and success) in pushing online video CPMs to converge with rates paid on television. We believe this is good for the category, as it will bring significantly more total dollars into the medium."
Matt Bors and Tom Tomorrow both report that they have lost several papers in the last few months.
The LA Weekly has eliminated its theater editor position and laid off film critic Ella Taylor, while LA CityBeat also axed its film critic, Andy Klein. MORE: Current and former staffers from both papers weigh in on the situation.
A survey of 1,142 independent retailers by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that holiday sales among the indies declined by an average of five percent in 2008, far less than the loss of holiday business suffered by chain stores. The survey also found that independent retailers in cities with active "Buy Local" campaigns, such as the organized efforts that more than 70 AAN members took part in this year, reported much stronger holiday sales than indies in non-"Buy Local" cities.
"For the first time we don't have an owner who's making story suggestions and occasionally writing a column about a favorite cause. But it's understood, more than ever before, that we'd better make a living with this," associate editor Jack Neely says of life under EW Scripps. "I don't mean to suggest that corporate ownership is better. I do miss boasting that we're locally owned, even when it seemed mainly a theoretical thing. But it's good, for the first time, to have dental insurance."
Rebecca Wakefield, who worked at the paper earlier in the decade, has signed on as manager for Maria "Beba" Sardina Mann's campaign for Miami city commissioner. "The journalism world is dying a horrible, hacking death," Wakefield says. "No one's paying me any more to snarkily opine on the local circus, so when Beba asked me to consider running her campaign, I thought I might as well grab a cigar and find out what's really going on in the smoke-filled rooms."
