Romenesko

wsj.com
Times shares rose as much as 8 percent today on renewed speculation that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim was either looking to buy or raise his stake in the company. He currently owns about 7 percent of NYT's s class A shares. || Editors Weblog: Asked if the Times will kill its print edition in 2015, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. responded: "We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD."

ProPublica.org
Nerd Blog "is meant to be ProPublica's contribution to the growing conversation around news applications (which is also sometimes called 'interactive news,' and 'computational journalism')," writes Scott Klein.

Mediaite | The Wrap
"They increasingly talk about each other," says Larry King replacement Piers Morgan. "Rachel talking about Bill, Bill talking about Keith, Keith talking about Glenn and Bill. It's all a bit of a laugh ...but I wonder how interesting it is to a bigger audience that is potentially getable. I'm interested in the hundreds of millions of Americans who don't watch cable news at all."

The Upshot
"I found a determined seriousness in ABC and Diane Sawyer on all subjects, particularly the war in Afghanistan," says Bob Woodward. His interview with the "World News" anchor airs Sept. 27.

Reuters.com
Once again, there's speculation that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is planning to acquire a bigger stake in the Times. || Slim's spokesman in March: "These rumors are going to be coming and going all the time."

Secrecy News
A memo put out last week asks heads of the Military Services, the Joint Staff and the Combatant Commands "to reinforce to all of their employees to work closely and effectively with their public affairs offices to ensure full situational awareness."

Business Insider
Given the web experience Brandon Holley has honed over the past few years, the hiring makes sense for Lucky parent Conde Nast, which is ramping up its digital efforts, writes Joe Pompeo. Holley replaces Kim France.

Columbia Journalism Review
Also, those ratings firms frequently disagree with each other, notes Lucas Graves. In May, for example, Gannett's properties commanded 37.5 million unique visitors according to comScore, but only 25.6 million according to Nielsen. ComScore gave Washingtonpost.com an audience of 17 million people that month, but Nielsen recorded fewer than 10 million. || Tow Center Report

Daily Finance
Jeff Bercovici checked to see how Arianna Huffington's site handled the Balloon Boy fiasco, and found that it too had "wall-to-wall coverage" of this "non-story."

Romenesko Misc.
Freakonomics Radio programming will include exclusive biweekly features for American Public Media's "Marketplace," and a new podcast exploring "what the hidden side of everything sounds like," released initially as a biweekly offering, then as a weekly offering in early 2011.

New York Times | The Wrap
The name of Piers Morgan's new show wasn't announced by CNN. Larry King's last day is Dec. 16, according to Brian Stelter's tweet. || It's a multi-year deal, reports Hunter Walker.
> Five reasons why Spitzer will flop on CNN

HeatCity.org
The Village Voice Media paper is demanding that Ty Liebig surrender the domain names bestofphoenix2011.com and bestofphoenix2012.com and pay as much as $200,000 in damages for refusing to give up the URLs when asked. The paper claims it has a right to the URLs because it owns the federal trademark for the "Best of Phoenix."

American Journalism Review
"If journalists try to silence the 'haters and hollerers' by banning anonymous comments online, they also will silence the poor, the vulnerable and the dispossessed," writes Bill Reader. "Such a ban would represent a drastic overreaction."

Slate
"The publicity value reaped has not gone to the magazine, which is already too well-known to benefit from this sort of exposure," writes Jack Shafer. "Instead, it's gone into the pockets of the Newsweek Six, all of whom write books." (Jonathan Alter has appeared on MSNBC more than 60 times in the past 12 months.)

New York Times
That's what ex-CBS News president Andrew Heyward tells Bill Carter. If ABC chooses someone with formal corporate training to replace David Westin, that most likely forecasts a decision to manage costs in the short term, says Heyward. Choosing someone with a digital background could signal a radical and more long-term approach. "I think you'll either see someone from Harvard Business School or a Harvard dropout."
> Heyward predicts an ABC outsider will get the job
> Networks must groom a new audience if they're to survive
> What Westin's departure says about the future of TV news

Philly.com
They had previously rejected a contract proposal. Fourteen of the 16 unions now have reached contracts with Philadelphia Media Network Inc., which bought the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com at bankruptcy auction in April.

paidContent.org | SF Weekly
The $3 million local journalism effort has a dozen sites hosted by 14 public radio stations, each zeroing in on a specific topic. (For example, it's local music in Philly, and the military in San Diego.) "NPR wants to show that with the right resources, stations can create beats of value to the community and in turn increase their own audience and value by using the internet as a platform for original content," writes Staci Kramer. || More from Lois Beckett.

Baltimore Sun | You Don't Say
It read: "Opposing votes limn difference in race." A reader tells the Sun: "To put a word like 'limn' in the headline for the lead article on the front page of this newspaper seems to me to be unbelievably arrogant and patronizing." John McIntyre, the paper's grammar guru, says the word "is most commonly found in writing about art, so it may not have been the shrewdest choice for the front page, rather than an arts page." || More from McIntyre.

New York Observer
"I'm a Beast down to my toes," says Daily Beast founder Tina Brown. She's asked where the rumors about her being interested in editing Newsweek came from. "I have to no idea," she tells Zeke Turner.

Bay Citizen | New York Times
Bay Citizen editor Jonathan Weber reacts to Arthur Brisbane's Sunday column: "Journalism today embodies a whole range of styles, some with more point of view and some with less, and while clear labeling of what's what is a good goal, it's not realistic to think that there can be some kind of calorie counter measuring the amount of opinion in a given piece."

About.com
Tony Rogers talks to journalists and educators who wonder if lessons in the fundamentals of newsgathering are being pushed aside in favor of tech-related classes at journalism schools. "If students don't know what a lede is, what difference does it make if they have a video camera in their hands?" asks journalism teacher and former editor Jena Heath.

> Reporter at cafeteria when cashier was shot to death
> The Guardian gives outsiders the power to publish
> Bee's Walters marks 50 years as a newsroom employee
> Yankee magazine in good shape on its 75th birthday
> More layoffs, furloughs at McClatchy's Kansas City Star
> For Utah journalists, a week to take your breath away

The Upshot | New York Times
"Our story speaks for itself and makes clear that the police already have evidence that they have chosen not to pursue," says Times executive editor Bill Keller.

PolitiFact.com | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"We're glad to have a PolitiFact site in Wisconsin," says PolitiFact editor Bill Adair. "The state's politicians are interesting characters who often have an independent streak. They should keep the Truth-O-Meter quite busy." (PolitiFact was started at Poynter's St. Petersburg Times.)

MarketWatch
Spending on newspaper ads declined 5.6 percent in the second quarter, marking the third straight quarter that the decrease has narrowed on a year-over-year basis. || Editor & Publisher: The second-quarter total print ad revenue of $5.694 billion is the lowest Q2 total since 1983.
> Mutter: Online advertising stat is the only bright spot

Daily Beast
ABC president Anne Sweeney looked like the corporate henchwoman even though the make-ABC News-more-profitable mandate came from Disney CEO Bob Iger, report Peter Lauria and Lloyd Grove. Their source says David Westin's resignation "has nothing to do with Sweeney, this is 100 percent Bob. Bob deals with Westin directly."

Twitter.com
They totaled 45 minutes, according to Times-Union local news managing editor Marilyn Young's tweet. "This is a first for me," she says in a second tweet.

Editor & Publisher
The number of buyouts "will depend on who applies and from what departments," says publisher Richard Vezza. (His memo is below.) "After reviewing all the applications, we will make a decision on which buyouts make business sense for us." || July 2008: Star-Ledger announces large-scale buyout offer.

Romenesko Memos
"As we look back over the last two years, we have made progress," says publisher Richard Vezza. "But much more progress is required for The Star-Ledger to be placed on firm footing. There is a lot at stake here."

Romenesko Misc.
Local East Village editor Richard G. Jones calls the site "a significant step forward in pro-am journalism collaborations." The former New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer newsman says "our goal is that as much as half of the content on the site will be produced by our East Village neighbors."

Indiana University release
It's the school's largest gift ever. Marty Anderson spent 33 years reporting news from Indiana for the Associated Press. "My real thought was I'd like to be a foreign correspondent," he says. "Well, I never got any farther away in journalism than Indiana."

Orlando Sentinel
Bob Woodward's new book comes out Sept. 27, and Diane Sawyer's interview with the author starts that night on "ABC World News." Portions of the interview also will be seen on "Nightline" and "Good Morning America."

Washington Post | "On the Media" | CNN.com
"It's about fabrication, which is indefensible, even if done in jest," writes Andrew Alexander. "Our business is truth. A journalist's falsehood on Twitter is the same as a falsehood in the paper." || Mike Wise explains his Twitter "experiment" to Bob Garfield on "On the Media" and to WP colleague Howard Kurtz on "Reliable Sources.".
> WP's Capehart fooled by fake Jack Kimble Twitter account

Arizona Guardian
Days before Jan Brewer became Arizona governor, a judge sealed her son's 20-year-old criminal case file. In May, though, an Arizona Republic reporter obtained it when a courthouse employee simply handed it over. The paper has asked the judge to reconsider his January 2009 sealing order. Phoenix New Times: It's no secret Brewer's son is seriously mentally ill.

Washington Post
They fear, though, that Rev. Sun Myung Moon's children will kill or sell the paper once he dies. "The only one who seems to care about the paper is the father," a senior Times official tells Ian Shapira. "The children don't care. . . . The morale of the newsroom is dreadfully low. You feel like you're in a dying institution and the owners don't care about what they have and what the Washington Times is."

Washington Post | New York Times
"Those who grew up as analog reporters wonder: Is journalism becoming a popularity contest?" writes Howard Kurtz. "Does this mean pieces about celebrity sex tapes will take precedence over corruption in Afghanistan? ...Doesn't all this amount to pandering?" || Bill Keller: "Readers come to us for our judgment, not the judgment of the crowd."

New York Times | paidContent.org
"There are some other things I want to do professionally -- things that I cannot explore while fulfilling my responsibilities here," says David Westin. He's fought with network management over the news division's financial standing, reports Bill Carter. The division has been consistently profitable, but ABC had sought to increase its profit margin to 15 percent, from 5 percent. || Read his memo and earlier posts about the departing news chief.

Romenesko Misc.
Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle wins first place in the Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism category. Deborah Hartz, formerly Sun Sentinel food editor, wins for Best Newspaper Food Coverage (Over 250,001 Circulation). PLUS: More Association of Food Journalists contest winners.