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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Portfolio Lives! Sort Of: Web Site Adopted by Condé Nast’s Corporate Cousin.

tales-from-the-cryptNever say never: Condé Nast, which is closing down its Portfolio business magazine, has decided not to turn off the lights at Portfolio.com. Instead, it is shifting control of the Web site–essentially, the Portfolio.com address and a couple years of archived content–over to American City Business Journals, its corporate cousin in the Advance Publications family.

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Friday, January 30, 2009

A News Corp. Bull Throws in the Towel; Wall Street Journal Layoffs Coming?

Longtime Rupert Murdoch fan Rich Greenfield says he’s worried that money losers like Dow Jones will pull News Corp. down, and cut his rating to “sell.” Perhaps this will cheer him up: The Wall Street Journal is reportedly bracing for layoffs next week.

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Monday, January 26, 2009

Pay For News Online? Really? Yes, Says U.S. News.

U.S. News & World Report, which used to be a weekly news magazine, then a biweekly one and is now a monthly publication, is going to try producing a weekly magazine once again. Online. And it wants you to pay up to read it. I appreciate the effort, but I don’t see how this one pans out.

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Monday, December 29, 2008

How to Land a Media Job After a Layoff: Get a Publicist

There are way too many media people who have lost their jobs in recent months. But only one who got as much ink as Paige Ferrari, a 26-year-old former editor at Radar Magazine. That’s worked out well for her.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Want to Hear What Katie Couric Said Yesterday? Don’t Read Portfolio

How serious is media investment group Quadrangle about keeping its annual Foursquare conference private? Serious enough that the only account I’ve seen of it stayed live on the Web for just a few hours yesterday. Portfolio.com media blogger Jeff Bercovici posted a short item about one of the panels yesterday afternoon; later that evening, the story had disappeared.

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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Katie Couric: I Got Help Before My Sarah Palin Interviews

Notes from Quadrangle’s Foursquare hush-hush media and tech conference: CBS anchor Katie Couric says she consulted former senator Sam Nunn and Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haas before her now-famous interrogation of the VP candidate.

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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Condé Nast to Portfolio.Com Blogger: Don’t Tell Anyone We Canned You!

One advantage of blogging for a big-time publication: You can turn your pink slip into a post. That’s what Portfolio magazine’s Kevin Maney tried to do last Friday, when he announced that as part of the cutbacks at Condé Nast, he’d no longer be writing his Tech Observer blog. By Monday, Maney’s post had disappeared. Fortunately, we’ve got the full text right here. Unfortunately, we’re going to be reading many more goodbye posts in the months to come.

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Friday, October 31, 2008

Condé’s Going-Away Present for Fired Portfolio Editor: A Book Party

After announcing staff cuts yesterday, Condé Nast’s Portfolio has begun handing out pink slips. Senior editor Ken Wells is the most high-profile of the names so far; earlier this week, the magazine hosted a book party for the Wall Street Journal vet.

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Thursday, October 30, 2008

Condé Nast Firing Most of Portfolio.com Staff

More cuts at Condé Nast: The publisher will fire most of the staff of its Portfolio.com Web site, which is run separately from its sister print publication. The site’s editorial staff of roughly two dozen will be shrunk down to “single digits,” says a source at the company. But Condé Nast managers haven’t told Portfolio.com staffers who’s staying and who’s going.

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About Peter

Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »

Ethics Statement

Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.

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