September 18, 2014

mediawiremorningGood morning. Here are 10 media stories.

  1. Politico gets a new boss: Politico Magazine Editor Susan Glasser is now the editor of Politico, Dylan Byers reports. John Harris will remain editor-in-chief. “She will appoint a new Executive Editor to oversee day-to-day newsroom operations, the leadership said. That person will replace Rick Berke, who resigned earlier this month.” (Politico) | Glasser will still oversee Politico Magazine, but will hire some senior editors in the next weeks. “Susan has plans to sharpen the editorial structure, bring in even more talent, upgrade our digital properties and bring more clarity and efficiency — and individual ownership — to our workflow,” CEO Jim VandeHei says in a memo to staff. | “One of the issues that led to Mr. Berke’s resignation, according to people with knowledge of the situation, was his lack of authority to make the moves he thought necessary, including autonomy over staffing — precisely the power Ms. Glasser will now have.” (NYT)
  2. Dean Baquet set to announce masthead: It’s a “likely scenario” that the NYT executive editor “will promote four existing members of the masthead to serve as a team of top deputies beneath him,” Joe Pompeo reports. “Susan Chira would oversee news; Ian Fisher would oversee digital; Matt Purdy would oversee enterprise; and Janet Elder would oversee newsroom administration. Elder currently serves as a deputy managing editor; the rest are assistant managing editors.” The structure “would also leave Baquet, who was previously managing editor, without an obvious successor.” (Capital)
  3. Aye or Naw: A couple of explainers for today’s Scottish independence referendum: A Q&A from USA Today. A good video explainer “for non-Brits” from the Guardian. | Here’s my Twitter list of journalists covering the referendum. | Some journalists there report threats from supporters of both sides. (The Guardian) | Important media news: Reuters has reporters named Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout on the scene. (@moorehn)
  4. BBC cameraman attacked in Ukraine: While reporting on the death of Konstantin Kuzmin, a BBC cameraman was “knocked to the ground and beaten,” Steven Rosenberg reports. “The attackers grabbed the BBC camera, smashed it on the road and took it away in their getaway car,” and the crew “spent more than four hours at the police station being questioned by investigators.” They also found the “hard drive of our main computer and several memory cards had been wiped clean.” (BBC News) | “The BBC has lodged a formal protest with Russia over the incident and called for an investigation.” (BBC News)
  5. Press secretary dogged by question: “There was one guy, Les Kinsolving [of WorldNetDaily], who asked about bestiality,” Jay Carney tells Marisa Guthrie, who asked him to name the worst question he got as press secretary. (The Hollywood Reporter, via Mediaite)
  6. Huffington Post plans Greek edition: HuffPost Greece, a collaboration with 24MEDIA, is scheduled to launch in November. “For me personally, it’s the ultimate homecoming, not only because of my Greek heritage, but because HuffPost is, not coincidentally, very much rooted in a Greek tradition of bringing people together and facilitating interesting conversations,” Arianna Huffington says in a press release.
  7. Times public editor on president’s off-the-record meetings with journalists: “Mr. Obama didn’t invent these off-the-record sessions,” Margaret Sullivan writes. But “Readers are right to be troubled about the implications.” (NYT) | Erik Wemple: “When you sit down with a group of people in Washington, especially journalists, nothing is going to stay off the record for long. Might as well just let the tape recorders run.” (WP)
  8. Media critic misses pop culture reference: Mark Finkelstein slammed Chris Hayes for using “some decidedly un-PC language” when he referred to “a kind of girl talk mash-up of the fear about the border and the fear about terrorism being fused together.” (Newsbusters) | Hayes was in fact referring to the popular band Girl Talk, which combines sounds from other artists’ records to make new compositions. (Gawker) | “I’d surmise that, like me, most Hayes viewers didn’t get the cultural reference and took “girl talk” at face value,” Finkelstein says in an “update.”
  9. Front pages of the day, selected by Kristen Hare: Some U.K. front pages Thursday, via Nick Sutton.

  10. Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin: Susan Glasser is now the editor of Politico. Previously, she was editor of Politico Magazine. (Politico) | Lindy West is now a pop culture writer for GQ. Previously, she covered pop culture for Jezebel. (Lindywest.net) | Megan Sowder-Staley is now vice president for product strategy at Roll Call. She was formerly director of product strategy there. (Fishbowl DC) | Chris Peck is now president of the American Society of News Editors. He is associate editor at the Riverton (Wyoming) Ranger (ASNE) | Kristen Donnelly has joined the DC bureau of NBC News. Previously, she was a senior producer at MSNBC. (TV Newser) | Job of the day: The Minneapolis Star Tribune is looking for interns. Get your résumés in! (Journalism Jobs) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org

Suggestions? Criticisms? Would like me to send you this roundup each morning? Please email me: abeaujon@poynter.org.

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Andrew Beaujon reported on the media for Poynter from 2012 to 2015. He was previously arts editor at TBD.com and managing editor of Washington City…
Andrew Beaujon

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