About Editing and Writing

From an obit on kentucky.com by Bill Estep headlined “Timothy M. Kelly, who led Pulitzer-winning work at Herald-Leader, other newspapers, dies at 73”:

Timothy M. Kelly, who oversaw Pulitzer Prize-winning work at several newspapers, including the Lexington Herald-Leader, and was honored for his commitment to diversity and public-service journalism, died Monday….

Kelly was hired at the Herald-Leader in 1989 as managing editor after working at newspapers across the country.

The Herald-Leader had improved significantly during the 1980s under the leadership of editor John Carroll, winning its first Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for an investigation of payoffs in the University of Kentucky men’s basketball program.

Wallace House and the University of Michigan announced the 2021 Livingston Awards finalists in local, national and international reporting. The awards support young journalists and honor the best reporting and storytelling by journalists under the age of 35 across all forms of journalism. The 50 finalist selections were chosen from more than 500 entries for work released in 2020. This year’s Livingston Award winners will be announced at a virtual ceremony on June 10, 2021.

Local Reporting

From a New York Times story by Edmund Lee headlined “The New York Times Tops 7.8 Million Subscribers as Growth Slows”:

No doubt, President Biden has significantly lowered the temperature of the nation after four years under Donald J. Trump, a tumultuous period capped by the worst pandemic in a century. He may have also lowered interest in the news. For the first quarter, The New York Times Company recorded its smallest gain in new subscribers in a year and a half.

The Times reported a total of 7.8 million subscribers across both print and digital platforms, with 6.9 million coming for online news or its Cooking and Games apps….

From a post on axios.com by Sara Fischer and Dan Primack headlined “Why Verizon sold AOL and Yahoo for about 1% of their peak valuation”:

The upcoming sale of Yahoo and AOL to a private equity firm for $5 billion represents a massive media markdown.

By the numbers: At their dotcom bubble peaks, Yahoo and AOL were valued at more than $125 billion and $200 billion, respectively, or $193 billion and $318 billion in 2021 dollars.

Yahoo twice turned down offers to buy Google at a fraction of its cost today. AOL held conversations with Facebook and YouTube in 2006, but ultimately failed to buy either company….

From a Washington Post obit by Matt Schudel headlined “W. Royal Stokes, who chronicled Washington jazz scene, dies at 90”:

W. Royal Stokes, a onetime professor of classics who became a major presence in jazz as a Washington-based radio disc jockey, journalist and author known for his oral histories of musicians’ lives, died May 1 at his home in Elkins, W.Va….

Mr. Stokes was, by his own admission, an accidental jazz critic with no formal musical training. His instrument was the typewriter.

From a post on poynter.org by Rick Edmonds and Al Tompkins headlined “Meredith sells its local broadcast division, doubling down on its magazine roots”:

In a transaction with implications for both the local broadcast and magazine businesses, Gray Television is buying Meredith Corporation’s 17 television stations for $2.7 billion….

Gray will become one of the top three local broadcasters (along with Sinclair and Nexstar) when the deal closes….

It continues a yearslong consolidation trend in the profitable local television business, partly driven by the better retransmission deals that station groups can negotiate with cable companies as they gain leverage by growing larger.

From a post on digiday.com by Sara Guaglione headlined “Inside the Wall Street Journal’s latest push for new subscribers”:

The Wall Street Journal is going on a subscriber acquisition spree…having debuted a new brand marketing campaign this week, and next month temporarily dropping its paywall for the first time this year.

Called “Trust Your Decisions,” the campaign launched this week and focuses on the role the WSJ plays in readers’ decision-making processes in business, finance and in their personal lives. That’s a shift in messaging from the publication’s previous campaign, “Read Yourself Better,” which launched in 2019 to tackle the issue of widespread misinformation.

From a Times Insider column by Amy Qin headlined “A Reporter Rolls With the Punches”:

As I was walking my dog in Taipei recently, I got a text from Gillian Wong, my editor on the International desk, asking if I could cover the Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Florida coming up that weekend.

Cue mild panic mode. I knew next to nothing about mixed martial arts or the U.F.C. and had never covered a sporting event before.

“Lol really?” I responded nervously.

Then, after running through a few self-affirmations, I tapped out a quick reply.

From an interview on crimereads.com headlined “Linwood Barclay on reading voraciously and making a career in writing”:

Otto Penzler: This is your twentieth adult novel. However, your first fiction—the four books featuring amateur sleuth Zack Walker, starting in 2004—were quickly overshadowed in 2007 by the immense success of the thriller No Time for Goodbye….Was becoming a writer always a goal?

From a New York Times story by Michael M. Grynbaum headlined “Yamiche Alcindor Is Named Host of ‘Washington Week’ on PBS”:

Last month, when Yamiche Alcindor learned she would become the next moderator of the PBS current-affairs show “Washington Week,” she immediately felt the emotion of the moment.

“I basically instantly cried,” Ms. Alcindor recalled, “thinking about Gwen.”

“Washington Week,” a calm redoubt in the shouty battleground of political television, is most closely associated with its longtime moderator Gwen Ifill, the pioneering journalist who broke barriers as a Black woman in the Washington press corps.