
Another week, another media scandal involving alleged plagiarism -- this one at the New York Times.
The Los Angeles Times is losing its Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive columnist, Dan Neil, to the Wall Street Journal.
With the ongoing shrinking of the Times' news hole and reconfiguring of sections, Neil's column has been bounced around the paper.
Also, he played a part in a high-profile employee lawsuit against Times owner Sam Zell and the Tribune Co.
WSJ deputy managing editor Michael Miller sent the following memo to Journal staff:
From: Miller, Mike
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 4:37 PM
To: WSJ ALL Bureau Chiefs
Subject: Dan Neil
I'm pleased to announce that Dan Neil will be joining the Wall Street Journal as our automotive columnist.
Dan is the nation's preeminent car columnist, whose deep knowledge, wit, writerly flair and insight have made him must-reading for everyone who cares about cars and many who don't. He joins us from the Los Angeles Times, where his car reviews won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2004. Before that he worked at the Raleigh News & Observer and Car and Driver magazine, among other publications. He will start writing for us in print and online this spring.
Cheers, Mike
The L.A. Times announced Thursday that breaking news was going to have to take a hit in its print edition because of the closure of an Orange County printing plant.
That’s bad enough -- late-breaking news will be relegated to a back section and 80 more people will lose their jobs. But that’s not the full story.
The full scoop is that the Times has sold the late-night print run to the Wall Street Journal.
Sony Corp. said on Thursday that its e-reader will offer electronic subscriptions to Dow Jones/News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal and New York Post.
In addition to electronic additions of the Journal and Post, Sony will also offer its e-reader users news summaries by Marketwatch.com – another Dow Jones-owned property.
We haven’t had a good ol’ fashioned media smackdown in awhile, so I must say this is quite refreshing.
The Wall Street Journal plans to assemble a local news staff in New York, continuing to expand beyond its historic focus on business news by adding traditional city desk beats like courthouses, City Hall and the state capital.
The push into metropolitan news is part of WSJ’s effort to create a New York edition, probably beginning early next year, which was first reported last summer as a project focused mostly on increased arts coverage.
Read more from the New York Times.
The debate over paid content continues to heat up, and here’s the latest flare.
While the New York Times is busy slashing headcount in the newsroom – and sifting through readers’ comments demanding it start charging for its website, the Wall Street Journal is squeezing blood from a stone in another way: it’s launching a “professional edition” of its Web site.