Visitors to the International Herald Tribune’s Web site, whether checking for the latest on the markets or updates from the in London, are surely wondering if they clicked on the wrong bookmark.

Parent organization The New York Times Co. rebranded the publication’s Web site “The Global Edition of The New York Times” on March 29, combining the content created by its staff on the page with that of Times journalists. It also has a new URL: global.nytimes.com.

The Times Co. is also promoting the reorganized page, which visitors to IHT.com are automatically transferred to, at the top of .

The back-and-forth between Michael Hirschorn of The Atlantic and The New York Times about The Old Gray Lady’s long-term health – or, as Hirschorn would contend, a lack of it – has received a considerable amount of media attention in the past week.

Catherine Mathis, SVP of corporate communications at the Times Co., said that was a major reason why her company responded to the article, which predicts an end to the newspaper as soon as four months from now, via letter. Mathis also told PRWeek that she sent her letter to the Poynter.org’s popular Romanesko blog after she was told it would not run until The Atlantic’s next issue.

“With the downturn in the economy and the extraordinary events in the credit markets, I have spent more time helping both financial analysts and journalists understand our debt. Someone recently said to me, ‘Equity analysts have become debt analysts.’ I think that’s true,” Mathis said via e-mail. “Given what’s happened in the credit markets, there is much more of a focus on the cash flow, liquidity, and debt situation for companies across America. There is also a much greater need to educate employees, shareholders, and journalists on these issues.”

It’s not a coincidence if more MS&L Washington-based staffers are adding Associated Press journalists to their speed dials, buddy lists, and Twitter accounts.

With the local media landscape changing rapidly, pitching DC journalists can be a confusing task. With that in mind, MS&L’s DC office is advising staff members to increasingly pitch AP reporters.

“Putting on a concerted push at the AP in Washington will be a key to any media strategy, and it is important that MS&L clients meet as many of these reporters and editors as will agree to see them. It is not as prestigious as a sit-down at, say, The New York Times bureau, but ultimately it may have more impact,” said Michael Flagg, SVP at the agency, in a memo to staffers. “In one of the stranger new media developments, a television channel – CNN – has announced a competing print wire service that utilizes the same global reach AP has. That is bad news for AP, but good for MS&L clients, since the CNN service is likely to have a big Washington component, too.”

Says Flagg about Web news: “The big fish is still the conservative-oriented Drudge Report, but middle-of-the-road Politico and the left-leaning Huffington Post have a lot of visibility.”

Magazines’ growing use of user-generated content caught our eye last May after Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel announced it would fill its June 2008 issue almost entirely with reader content.

Yet as it turns out, that may not be the best strategy for every issue. 8020 Media, the company that published JPG magazine, a title filled all issue, every issue with user-generated content, announced January 2 that it is closing up shop.

8020 CEO Mitchell Fox told employees last week that the publisher was “at the precipice of profitability,” but “negative marketplace forces are too strong to overcome,” according to a report on The New York Times Bits blog.

More details emerged November 13 about the phony issue of The New York Times distributed to commuters this week by an alliance of liberal activist groups and volunteers.

• Andy Bichlbaum, co-founder of Yes Men, a group partially responsible for the prank, told the New York Post that small donations funded the bulk of the event’s $100,000 cost.
• New York Magazine reports that while activist organizations got most of the credit for the stunt, many of the individuals who authored the paper are media members, including a few from the derided newspaper itself. “There were a few people from the Times – we can’t tell you who they are,” Steve Lambert, an organizer, told New York. “They’re respectable journalists.”
• The Times, which gave the prank coverage on page C7, whether the groups inflated the number of distributed copies. “The statement said that 1.2 million copies were printed, more than the weekday circulation nationwide for real issues of the Times,” reported Richard Perez-Pena and Brian Stelter. “That number is suspect, if only because of the printing costs that would be involved.”

Anyone in New York pick up their free copy of “The New York Times” today? Quote marks, because it was a progressive spoof on the Times that included “All the News We Hope to Print” with a blaring cover story that the “Iraq War Ends,” “Maximum Wage Law Succeeds,” and “Nationalized Oil to Fund Climate Change Efforts” - you can see where this is going. The 14-page piece includes parody ads from a number of companies, including Exxon, which declares “Peace. An idea the world can profit from.”

One story in the issue, which can also be found online, that might be of interest to the industry: “Public Relations Industry Forecasts a Series of Massive Layoffs.”

Public relations firms across the country predict massive layoffs in the coming months due to recent legislation outlawing the firms’ most lucrative practices… The new rules would have forbidden the creation of the National Smokers Alliance, a front group formed by Philip Morris with the help of P.R. giant Burson Marsteller…

The story, dated July 4, 2009, like the rest of the paper, goes on with fake quotes from “Cynthia Knowlton,” “Fred Donahue of MediaLink Worldwide,” and Saatchi & Saatchi.

It’s been well documented that the presidential election has equaled record ratings and online visitors for much of the media. However, the candidates are helping the media on the business end as well, as The New York Times’ David Carr . Political advertising spending is helping to keep ad revenues afloat through a significant drop in automotive, retail, and financial ad spending, Carr explains.

Yet even the hundreds of millions in media spending by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) won’t be enough to offset losses in other sectors, Carr reports, citing Marci Ryvicker, VP for equity research at Wachovia Capital Markets, who predicts a 1% 2008 decline in overall ad sales.

“This is the first year in history that advertising could decline in an even year,” she told Carr. “The finance guys, the auto guys, the retail sector are used to getting pushed off the air by the political ads and then returning, but this year, they won’t be coming back.”

Experts aren’t exactly going out on a limb when predicting that this may be the worst year ever for newspapers, at least in terms of advertising revenue. However, Richard Perez-Pena’s in the June 23 New York Times quotes two analysts who put the crisis in unusually stark terms.

Says Goldman Sachs analyst Peter S. Appert: “I think the probability is very high that there will be a number of examples of individual newspapers and newspaper companies that fall into a loss position. And I think it’s inevitable that there will be closures in this industry, and maybe bankruptcies.”

Benchmark Co. analyst Edward Atorino adds that “if we have double-digit ad declines for two years, some newspapers will be in real financial jeopardy.”

“You’re going to see structural changes: papers could drop a day or two per week, they could outsource printing,” he told the Times.

Out of respect for Tim Russert’s family and friends, aren’t hinting at who they’re considering to host Meet the Press, the leading public affairs show that Russert hosted since 1991, after his sudden death last Friday.

Yet speculation abounds among media critics and reporters. Check out the roundup on the next page: Read more »