Distributor Shuts Down, Frustrating Many on East Coast
“People All Over Town Are Wearing . . . Our Front Page”
Baquet Undergoes Surgery to Remove Tumor from Kidney
Weston Dies After Battle With Rare Cancer, Transplant
Daryl Gale, City Editor of Philly Tribune, Dies at 55
More TV Stations Originating News; Local Radio News Down
Hispanics Called Most Marginalized in U.S. Elections
Short Takes
Distributor Shuts Down, Frustrating Many on East Coast
Souvenir hunters looking for the last print edition of Jet magazine have found it hard to come by on parts of the East Coast — and maybe elsewhere — because the nation’s second largest magazine distributor suddenly went out of business.
“Yes we are aware of the problem,” Desireé Rogers, CEO of Jet’s parent Johnson Publishing Co., based in Chicago, told Journal-isms by email. “Consumers can order the issue on jetmag.com — under the inside jet tab. Also at the bottom of the home page on jetmag.com — under shop.”
The missing Jet magazines resulted from a chain of events prompted by a decision by Time Warner to split off Time Inc.’s magazines into a separate company.
Bill Mickey reported May 28 for Folio: magazine, “In advance of its spinoff from Time Warner, Time Inc. has terminated its business with Source Interlink Distribution, its second largest wholesaler. According to a regulatory filing, the decision was made due to $7 million in uncollectible receivables owed to Time Inc. that will be recorded as bad debt in 2Q 2014.
“Source Interlink distributed Time Inc.’s titles to retailers in the U.S. and sales of these magazines represented about 2 percent of the company’s total 2013 revenues—about $70 million.
“Actions like these in the magazine newsstand distribution market typically cause an immediate chain reaction. . . .”
Mickey followed up on the chain reaction the next day, reporting, “As was widely speculated following the news that Time Inc. dropped its wholesale services, Source Interlink Distribution has announced that it’s shutting down.
“A letter from the company’s CEO, Michael Sullivan, obtained and circulated by Bob Sacks, states that the company will be ‘discontinuing all operations in the near future.’ . . .” Sacks is an industry consultant who produces his own newsletter.
Mickey added, “Source moves a significant amount of magazines to retailers, especially WalMart, and the company will remain operating as it reaches agreements with publishers, national distributors and the wholesalers that will be picking up its business. . . . “
In a warning reported by Leslie Kaufman in the New York Times on May 30, “Jill Davison, a Time Inc. spokeswoman, said that the regional markets that Source Interlink served — Southern California, Chicago and the Mid-Atlantic States — might face shortages of popular Time magazines like People and Sports Illustrated for up to 12 weeks. In the S.E.C. filing, Time Inc. estimated that this loss of sales could be around $4 million. . . .”
As predicted, many newsstands have been without their usual supply of magazines, including the final Jet print edition, which was released on June 9.
“We have not had weekly publications for the past couple of weeks,” Jamie Miller, a spokesman for Giant Food, a major regional supermarket chain serving the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, told Journal-isms by telephone on Monday. “We’re changing suppliers.” Such publications as People and Us Weekly were also missing from shelves. Source Interlink additionally distributed many Hispanic magazines, Portada reported.
Miller said that when the new supplier begins, “we’re not carrying back issues,” including the Jet souvenir issue.
Rogers said the distribution problem affected “Several areas out East. Sales are fine. We certainly have more requests than usual.”
Kelvin Childs, a copy editor for a business-to-business newsletter in Washington, described his quest to find Jet in a message Sunday to his Facebook friends.
“We tried Hudson News at Union Station in Washington — success! They had dozens of copies! We bought six!” Childs wrote.
“There was a young man, about 18 or 20, standing near us, baffled as to why we were so excited. We told him it’s the last print issue of JET. ‘They’re turning it into a website,’ I said.
” ‘I apologize for my generation,’ he said.”
Word must have spread quickly.
Biruk Dano, general manager of the Hudson retail outlet at Union Station, told Journal-isms on Monday that he had sold out. The New Jersey-based Hudson Group is one of the last remaining magazine distributors, and the Union Station store originally had 175 copies.
- Katerina Eva Matsa, Pew Research Center: Time Inc. spinoff reflects a troubled magazine business (June 5)
“People All Over Town Are Wearing . . . Our Front Page”
“We had a couple dozen reporters and photographers involved on the final night, both at the game and around town to chronicle watch parties and the large, post-game celebration that gridlocked downtown for hours,” Mike Leary, senior vice president and editor of the San Antonio Express-News, told Journal-isms by email on Monday.
Leary was describing the Express-News’ response to the San Antonio Spurs’ fifth NBA title Sunday after they beat the Miami Heat, 104-87, in the NBA Finals.
“Throughout the finals, we published both Game Day and Game Report special sections, produced by our sports and photo staff,” Leary said by email. “This was on top of extensive daily coverage on the front page and in the A section. In addition, sports reporter Jabari Young, as he had done all season, produced regular pre-game and post-game videos and outdid himself last night with four post-game videos — a game wrap and interviews with Danny Green, Patty Mills and GM [R.C.] Buford. Some are on our premium site, but two can be accessed on our Spurs Nation blog: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/
“We printed some 37,000 extra copies of our regular edition and are re-printing another 25,000 now. In addition, we sold roughly 10,000 extras as the game ended and during the celebration, with thousands of additional copies on the news stands. Web traffic early this morning had topped 1 million page views and was running at triple our normal rate. Our 80-page, full-color book will go on sale Thursday morning. A video documentary produced by Jabari will be offered as part of our replica edition on Sunday. People all over town are wearing t-shirts with a replica of our front-page.”
- Tim Kawakami, San Jose Mercury News: Patience, calm confidence and the Spurs’ powerful long-term achievement amid the instant-gratification sports universe
- Chris Murray, Chris Murray Report: The Better Team Won: LeBron’s Greatness Not Diminished By Finals Loss
- William C. Rhoden, New York Times: Teams Win N.B.A. Titles, but Superstars Sell the Sizzle, and Themselves
- Armando Salguero, Miami Herald: With Miami Heat exposed by San Antonio Spurs, it’s time for Pat Riley to rebuild roster
Baquet Undergoes Surgery to Remove Tumor from Kidney
“Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The New York Times, had a malignant tumor removed from his kidney on Saturday and will spend about a week away from the office while recovering, he said in an email to the newspaper’s staff on Monday morning,” Ravi Somaiya reported Monday for the Times.
“Doctors discovered the tumor on Thursday, Mr. Baquet said, and felt that it required ‘immediate attention.’ He had ‘minimally invasive, completely successful surgery,’ he said, ‘and my doctors have given me an excellent prognosis.’ . . .”
Baquet, 57, who became executive editor last month, has not been replaced as managing editor. However, spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told Journal-isms by email, “There are several deputy managing editors and assistant managing editors who together run the newsroom in Dean’s absence. And, Dean is in touch.”
Weston Dies After Battle With Rare Cancer, Transplant
Kevin Weston, a new media entrepreneur in Oakland, Calif., who was diagnosed with acute leukemia nearly two years ago and was “in a real fight for his life” for much of that time, “passed away last night on [Father’s] Day surrounded by loved ones and held in loving embrace by his love Lateefah Simon,” his friend Ayoka Turner posted Monday on gofundme.com.
The site is a repository for fundraising that has contributed $39,663 toward Weston’s medical expenses. Weston was 45.
Weston was about to start a journalism fellowship at Stanford University in 2012 when he received the diagnosis. Ten months ago, according to a chronology of postings on gofundme.com, an entry apparently from his wife, Simon, read, “Our dear friend Ayoka Turner took months off work and organized 30 bone marrow drives and began fundraising for our medical costs. She saved us, and raised a consciousness in our community about cancer and marrow typing.”
In March, Simon wrote, “Two weeks ago today, Kevin and I learned that his cancer had resurfaced. . . .” Then, four days ago, “Kevin was admitted to the hospital with an enlarged liver and spleen.”
On oaklandnorth.com, Pendarvis Harshaw wrote about Weston in 2012, saying that Weston “studied broadcast journalism and political science at San Francisco State University, [and] became a youth organizer and workshop leader at Berkeley High through a nonprofit organization called Youth Together, where he worked for two years. He eventually joined New America Media, where he spent most of his tenure working as the editor-in-chief of Youthoutlook. Weston has come a long way since his start as a paperboy for the Oakland Tribune. This past summer, in fact, he founded The Oakland Globe, an online media publication, with an office on 14th and Broadway, the heart of Oakland’s downtown.”
Weston also worked with the Chauncey Bailey Project. He said of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, “Auntie Dori Maynard is one of my role models and the Maynard Institute is an inspiration. She has inspired and assisted so many people like me in journalism; whatever we accomplish is in no small part due to her pioneering work in our support and development.” Maynard is president of the institute.
James Bettinger, director of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships, told Journal-isms Monday by email, “Kevin Weston was a committed and gentle journalist, and we were excited by his Knight Fellowship proposal to craft a sustainable non-profit business model for community-based media. One of the many terrible truths of his death is that we’ll never get to see what he would have created.”
Daryl Gale, City Editor of Philly Tribune, Dies at 55
Daryl Gale, city editor and columnist for the Philadelphia Tribune, was found dead June 10 in his Deptford, N.J., home, his daughter, Kristen Gale, told Journal-isms on Monday. He was 55 and was believed to have suffered a gastrointestinal attack, she said.
“He was . . . an award-winning journalist who cared deeply about his craft,” Ayana Jones wrote Friday in the Tribune.
“Gale’s career as an editor, journalist, public affairs specialist, press secretary and media consultant spanned more than 20 years.
“The Philadelphia native started out as a U.S. Coast Guard photojournalist in the 1980s where he won the Alex Haley Award — the Coast Guard’s highest award for journalism. His series of articles and photographs were published in the Coastline, Navy Times, The Commandant’s Bulletin and Stars and Stripes.
“Following his honorable discharge from military service, Gale worked as a junior reporter for the Miami Times before moving back to Philadelphia. He served as editor of First World Forum magazine; lead columnist and senior writer at the Philadelphia City Paper; public affairs coordinator for the Philadelphia Unemployment Project and communications director for the campaign of Seth Williams for district attorney of Philadelphia.
“Gale also worked as senior editor of Target Marketing Magazine; a writer and media consultant for Ross Associates, Inc. and a talk show host for WURD Radio 900 AM.
“He has been a weekly columnist for The Tribune since 2006. He covered politics, education and current events with a finger on the pulse of urban Philadelphia. He became the Tribune’s city editor in 2011.
” ‘The death of our city editor was quite a shock and a loss for The Tribune and our readers. Gale was a quality journalist who cared deeply about journalism and his city. Once you got past his gruff manner he was genuinely a nice guy,’ said Tribune Managing Editor Irv Randolph.
” ‘He was one of the most outstanding columnists in this city. His weekly column, which ran every Friday, was always very hard-hitting. It was a hard-hitting column that often included a lot of biting humor in it. It was something that I always looked forward to reading myself. It always received a tremendous response.’ . . .”
Kristen Gale said the family tentatively planned services for June 27 in Springfield, Pa., and that arrangements were being handled by Wood Funeral Home in Philadelphia.
- Patrick Rapa, Philadelphia City Paper: Remembering reporter Daryl Gale
More TV Stations Originating News; Local Radio News Down
In his 20th year conducting the annual survey for the Radio Television Digital News Association, Bob Papper reported Monday, “The number of TV stations originating local news actually went up by two this year to 719 stations. However weakly, that reverses an eight-year trend of fewer newsrooms. Those 719 TV stations run news on those and another 307 stations; a record total of 1,026 stations running local news. . . .”
Papper, distinguished professor emeritus of journalism, media studies and public relations at Hofstra University, also found:
- “For the second year in a row, the average amount of news on local TV dropped slightly from the year before — down 6 minutes after a 6 minute drop a year ago. But the latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey found the median remained at 5 hours per weekday, and both average and median remained the same for both Saturday and Sunday. . . . Generally, the bigger the market and the bigger the news staff, the more news a station is likely to run.
- “The median amount of local radio news fell by 10 minutes per weekday from a year ago. The weekend remained the same, with the typical radio station running no local news on Saturday or Sunday.
- “This year, 75.7% of radio news directors said they had other responsibilities at the station beyond news. That’s up from last year’s low of 64.5% — but still well behind the all time record of 83.1% six years ago. . . . This year’s list of other jobs represents one of the biggest single year shifts that I’ve seen. Announcing stayed on top, but way below last year. Sales soared, moving from 10th place last year into a tie for first. . . .”
Short Takes
- “Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the release of al-Jazeera journalist Abdullah Elshamy on medical grounds,” the BBC reported on Monday. “Mr Elshamy has been on hunger strike for nearly five months to protest against his detention without charge. He was arrested last August when police broke up a protest by supporters of deposed president Mohammed Morsi. Earlier, a court in Cairo said it would deliver its verdict next week in the case of three other al-Jazeera journalists detained in December. . . .”
- “In addition to the hard work Maureen Bunyan has done in the decades she has spent in front of the camera, she received a well-deserved honor on Friday for her work in the community and her native Aruba,” Leon Harris reported for Washington’s WJLA-TV, for which he and Bunyan anchor. “Maureen was born in Aruba, which is part of the Dutch kingdom, and she received the honor for mentoring young Arubans over the years. On Friday evening, she was knighted by the Netherlands at the Ambassador’s home. . . .”
-
“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting awarded an $850,000 grant for eight new half-hour episodes of America By The Numbers, a series featuring journalist Maria Hinojosa that had a pilot run as a PBS election special,” Current.org reported June 10. “Programs in the series, which will air on PBS and the World Channel, will cover topics such as health disparities revealed by infant mortality rates, military service by residents of non-voting territories of the Pacific Islands and the effects of the domestic oil boom on Native American lands. . . .”
- “The Associated Press, MSNBC and other news media are sticking to the story that [President] Obama is only the fourth president to visit a reservation. I say at least seven, more likely eight,” Mark Trahant wrote Monday on his blog. “So one by one here goes the documentary evidence (for those who care). . . .”
- “In 1981 I wrote that the media in South Dakota was like the proverbial mule: you had to hit it between the eyes with a two-by-four to get its attention,” Tim Giago, editor and publisher of Native Sun News, wrote Sunday for the Huffington Post. “And perhaps that is still true. With the mascot issue raging across America the South Dakota media hasn’t touched it with a 10-foot pole. . . .”
- “Diana Castillo is leaving Laredo for a new job in Sioux City, Iowa,” Veronica Villafañe wrote Friday in her Media Moves column. “Today is her last day at Entravision owned KLDO/KXOF. She starts as News Director at KMEG14/FOX44 on June 25. Diana has been the News Director for both the Univision and Fox affiliates in Laredo. She also anchored the 9 pm Fox News in English and the 10 pm Univision newscast. . . .”
- Retired Newsday editor and columnist Les Payne was among a panel of speakers Saturday at the T. Thomas Fortune Symposium held the Red Bank, N.J, home of Fortune, a journalist and activist in the early 20th century who edited the New York Age, the most widely read black newspaper of its day. The home has been declared an endangered historic site and a group is raising money to save it. “Basically, we’re still trying to inform people about T. Thomas Fortune,” Linda Shockley told Journal-isms by email. Waller, deputy director of the Dow Jones News Fund, Inc., and a panelist, estimated that about 50 people attended.
- “Egyptian security forces confiscated copies of a human rights group’s newsletter and arrested a print shop worker, saying the publication threatened the government, the head of the group said Sunday,” the Associated Press reported. “Gamal Eid, of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, said police seized 1,000 copies of the publication, entitled Wasla, or Link, from the printers the night before. . . .”
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