|
|
writenews.com
|
Friday, July 27, 2001 Media Cynic | Forum | Advertising | Classifieds | Jobs Publishing Industry Soundbytes · Michael Hirschorn has been named to the position of Senior Vice President, News and Production, VH1, it was announced by Fred Graver, Executive Vice President, Programming & Production, VH1, to whom Hirschorn will report. In his new position, Hirschorn will be responsible for overseeing the development and creation of VH1 News specials and documentaries as well as the channel's daily news-gathering operations. Hirschorn comes to VH1 from his position as editor-in-chief of Inside.com. Prior to Inside's merger with Brill Media Holdings and Primedia, he was also co-chairman and co-founder of Inside's parent company, Powerful Media. · Playboy Enterprises, Inc. said that it closed its previously announced agreements to acquire two television networks and related assets from Califa Entertainment Group, Inc. and an additional network and related assets from V.O.D., Inc. · Firehouse.com, a fire and emergency service portal, announced that it has formed an alliance with Jems Communications to provide content for its new EMS Responder section, which will launch this week at the Firehouse Emergency Services Expo in Baltimore. Content will include excerpts from the monthly JEMS (Journal of Emergency Medical Services) magazine, weekly EMS news reports and links to jems.com, which includes a library of EMS content and information. In addition to Jems Communications' content and original content from Firehouse.com writers, Firehouse Magazine, the nation's largest firefighter magazine, also a Cygnus publication, will continue to provide its content online. · Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation, announced that it will increase its rate base to 310,000 effective with the January 2002 issue. The new rate base represents a 337% increase over the publication's initial rate base in May 1998. · Gerald M. Boyd was named managing editor of The New York Times, effective in September. Mr. Boyd has been a deputy managing editor of the newspaper for the past four years. The appointment was announced by Howell Raines, the current editorial page editor for The Times, who will become executive editor in September. Mr. Boyd, 51, succeeds Bill Keller, 52, who it was announced in July will become an Op-Ed columnist and senior writer for The New York Times Magazine as well as other areas of the newspaper in the fall. A replacement for Mr. Boyd has not been named at this time. Mr. Boyd has been a deputy managing editor for news at The New York Times since 1997, after serving as an assistant managing editor since 1993. · Rodale Inc., a publisher of information on healthy lifestyles, announced that Stanley L. Weil has been named director of worldwide licensing. Marc E. Jaffe, senior vice president and managing director of Rodale General Books and Licensing, made the announcement. Weil, former director of new product development for Sports Illustrated, began his assignment on July 9. He reports to Jaffe and is based in Rodale's New York office. · Michael Lewittes, an entertainment gossip columnist, is joining Wenner Media's Us Weekly as Senior Editor, it was announced by Terry McDonell, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine. At Us Weekly, Lewittes will be responsible for overseeing and reporting in the ``Hot Stuff'' and ``The Scene'' sections of the magazine. Lewittes was the bylined gossip columnist for the New York Daily News from 1993-1997 followed by a stint as Senior Articles Editor at Cosmopolitan Magazine. For the last three years, he was the Weekend features editor and humor columnist for the New York Post. · Valley Media, Inc., a distributor of music and video entertainment products, announced that James P. Miller is resigning as President and Chief Operating Officer. Miller will also resign from his seat on Valley's Board of Directors. Valley Media is a distributor of music, video, and DVD product offering full-line distribution, independent distribution, publications, and proprietary database products. · MarketWatch.com, Inc., an financial news and information website, and The Motley Fool, Inc., a multimedia personal finance company, have broadened their relationship to provide an enhanced package of MarketWatch.com financial news and research tools via The Motley Fool's websites, Fool.com and Fool.co.uk. Visitors to Fool.com and Fool.co.uk will soon be able to access a suite of research and data driven products including portfolio, quotes, charts and news. These products will augment a relationship that began in 1997 with Fool.com's launch of the BigCharts interactive charting tool. MarketWatch.com will now be powering the entire research suite, allowing The Motley Fool to consolidate vendors. · Scholastic Inc., a children's media and publishing company, announced that its classroom magazines will launch an age-appropriate and fun geography education program beginning in August for grades 4 through 6. The new curriculum-based material will include a geography feature in each issue of Scholastic News for fourth graders and the publication of a special map skills book, MAPMAN's Map Skills, for grades 4-6. The map skills book is written by Jim McMahon, who is featured as MAPMAN, the company's fun-loving resident cartographer and geography curriculum expert. · Belo announced that its Board of Directors elected Louis E. Caldera as a Class III director and Lloyd D. Ward as a Class II director, increasing the size of the Board to 14. Rolling Stone magazine is publishing six separate, simultaneous covers of the boy band, 'N Sync, to coincide with the release of their new album, Celebrity. It marks the first time in the pop culture magazine's 34 years that it has celebrated a band in this manner. Five of the covers feature ``Brady-esque'' portraits of the members of `N Sync, which will travel to newsstands, supermarkets, bookstores and other destinations where single copies are sold. The sixth cover is a limited edition group shot of the band available exclusively to subscribers. · Media General has promoted Steve M. Weaver to president and publisher of The Tampa Tribune, the largest of the company's 25 daily newspapers. Weaver succeeds Reid Ashe, who became president and COO of Media General on July 1. Weaver joined the Tribune in January 2000 as vice president of sales and marketing. Before that, he was vice president of advertising and circulation at The San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, where he progressed from circulation director to classified advertising director to advertising director. The Tribune also promoted Gilbert C. Thelen to senior vice president and executive editor. Thelen joined the Tribune as vice president and executive editor in 1998. He was previously vice president and executive editor of The State, a daily newspaper in Columbia, S.C. · Falcon Media, LLC, a publisher of online travel guidebooks, announced that they will publish an online guidebook for Beijing and the 2008 Olympics. Chief Operating Officer of Falcon Media, Tony Gazzana announced that the domain names BeijingOlympicGuidebook.com and OfficialOlympicGuidebook2008.com have been secured. Falcon Media, LLC started its epublishing with ParisGuidebook.com and recently launched FranceGuidebook.com. terri@falcon-media.com · ebrary, a provider of software and services for the online delivery of copyrighted content, and Learning Network, an Internet's consumer-education source created by Pearson plc, launched the first public beta of ebrarian, ebrary's new econtent solution for partners and customers. Access is provided through Learning Network's Infoplease reference site. · ContentGuard, Inc., a provider of digital rights management services, has obtained a patent on ``digital tickets'' - a way to track access to and distribute electronic content such as ebooks, images, music and video. A digital ticket is a code, embedded in a computer or in a plastic card similar to a credit card, that validates whether someone has certain rights to access specific digital content. For example, a person could use a digital ticket stored on a PC or other device to display an image, print a book or play music. When the ticket is presented, it is electronically ``punched'' to indicate that a right was used. · Melissa Pino, announced the grand opening and unveiling of her new website ReadingMonster.com. ReadingMonster.com is an online resource for parents and their children to interact together while enhancing reading skills. ReadingMonster.com contains a free ten-question test for parents and others to find out how their child or students reading ability is progressing. An adult and child can take the test and the child's developmental reading level instantly shows on the screen. Ms. Pino calls this evaluation the ``Monster Test''. · Salon Media Group, Inc., an Internet media company, announced that the number of unique visitors to its Salon.com network climbed to 4,030,284 in May 2001, the largest monthly audience recorded in its five-year history. Salon also announced plans to start charging for Table Talk, its online discussion community. · Travelocity.com Inc., a travel website, announced the launch of Golf Travel, a new specialty content area enabling customers to book golf-specific vacation packages. In addition to finding golf travel packages, Travelocity.com members can now track their handicap and playing performance, find detailed information on 20,000+ golf courses worldwide and book tee times online through a partnership with SirenServ, a provider of Internet content and services. Members can also watch instructional videos, exchange information with a nationwide community of golfers and find other tools to manage their game. · INT Media Group, Incorporated has announced the launch of NanotechPlanet.com, a website covering of the nanotechnology industry. The company also announced the launch of its Nanotech Planet 2001 Conference & Expo slated for the Marriott Copley Plaza in Boston on November 29-30, 2001. NanotechPlanet.com is under the editorial direction of Sandra Kay Helsel. Helsel has held top-level editorial positions at VR World magazine, Multimedia Review, SGI's IRIS Universe Magazine and VR News. Click here to return to the homepage of The Write NewsTM Click here to subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter.  www.writenews.com Copyright © 1997-2007 by Writers Write, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
