Bylines   

A Cyberspace Casualty

In the June issue of AJR , Dale Dougherty , publisher of the online magazine Web Review , rhetorically asked the key question of online publishing: "How can we create a business and make a living at it?" (See "Cyberspace Journalism.") Unfortunately for fans of Web Review, a daily update of Internet-related news produced by Songline Studios, Dougherty has learned the answer: He couldn't. As a result, Web Review is no more. Dougherty says that despite the critical acclaim the magazine received in the year it was published, the advertiser-supported model on which it was based simply wasn't covering costs. But Dougherty's not quite ready to give up on the e-zine business just yet, and is now using Web Review's Web site to poll former readers to find out if they would be willing to pay for the magazine. "We felt strongly about what we were doing," he says, "but we couldn't keep giving it away for free."

You Can't Quit, You're Fired

Regular readers of The New Republic may have noticed that Senior Editor Michael Lind disappeared from the masthead of the opinion weekly in its May 20 issue. While it is customary at the magazine to use the last paragraph of the "Notebook" column to welcome new editors and bid farewell to old ones, Lind got no such send-off, fueling speculation that he was fired by TNR owner and Editor in Chief Martin Peretz . But Lind says he resigned from the magazine after doing some soul-searching about whether he wanted to stay with TNR after Editor Andrew Sullivan stepped down (see Bylines, May). Lind says he faxed Sullivan his resignation on April 26, and on April 30 found a letter from Peretz in his mailbox in which Peretz said he was dissatisfied with having Lind work for the D.C.-based magazine from Manhattan. Since he had already quit, Lind paid the letter little mind until the next day, when he received another letter from TNR informing him that a stop payment order had been put on his last paycheck because a few weeks had passed since he had last written for the magazine. Lind says Peretz can backdate his termination but not history. "Clearly what [Peretz] is doing is damage control... But I think this is indicative of part of the reason TNR is falling apart. The sheer vindictiveness and pettiness of the place is just astonishing," Lind says. Peretz did not return calls seeking his take on the dispute. (Reported by Jason Vest)

To Sell or Not to Sell

When the board of directors of Milwaukee's Journal Communications, Inc. received an unsolicited and anonymous takeover inquiry for $1 billion, it quickly rejected it, saying the company, which owns the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , was not for sale (See "Merged in Milwaukee," May). But one former staffer, columnist Joel McNally , won't take no for an answer. McNally, a 27-year veteran of the late Milwaukee Journal who was laid off when the paper merged with the Sentinel , teams up with Christopher Shaw , a New York investment banker who represents the anonymous suitor, to convince employee-owners at the Journal Sentinel to at least consider the inquiry. "I feel like I'm the only person giving voice to the shareholders," says McNally, who still owns stock in the merged paper that could double in value with a takeover. "No one has asked them what they want or what they think." But Bob Dye , vice president for corporate communications for Journal Communications, says the issue of selling the company has come up several times in staff meetings without generating significant interest. "The comments I'm hearing," says Dye, "are that employees are much more interested in continuing the job than in doubling the value of their stock."

A Magazine Katzfight

Writer Bruce Buschel sues Philadelphia magazine, where he has been on the masthead for almost 20 years. Buschel had talked with Philadelphia magazine Editor Eliot Kaplan , a longtime friend, about doing a story for the magazine on Philly boulevardier Harry Jay Katz . Buschel, based in the Bronx, says he told Kaplan he wanted to "check out the story" before agreeing to write it, and traveled to Philadelphia on his own time and money to do some preliminary interviewing. Around the same time, Buschel met with editors at Esquire , who originally had wanted him to do a story on another subject but asked if he would do a story on Katz instead. Since Buschel hadn't yet signed a contract, he figured there was no reason why he couldn't do the story for both magazines. But he figured wrong.

When Buschel called Kaplan at home to explain the sticky situation, Kaplan told him he was obligated to do the story for Philadelphia magazine first since they already had discussed a deadline and fees. Both Kaplan and the magazine's lawyers then sent Buschel letters (copies were sent to Esquire) explaining that they would seek an injunction barring Esquire from running the Katz story first, and now it seems as though the Katz story may never see print anywhere. "What he's done is neither legal nor ethical," says Buschel. "I don't think a freelancer should be penalized for being sincere or industrious. It seems very obvious that my livelihood was interfered with unjustly." But Kaplan, who set up Buschel's meeting at Esquire, says he feels "betrayed." "It's our turf," he says. "I was backed into a corner."

Only on Sunday

Former Forbes magazine European correspondent Hesh Kestin decides to solve a problem that always bothered him when he lived abroad: the lack of an American newspaper on Sundays. While the International Herald Tribune , the Wall Street Journal and USA Today International sell more than 250,000 papers total per day abroad, none publish on Sunday, creating what Kestin describes as a "perfect window of opportunity." Joining with a small group of transatlantic backers, Kestin launches the American , geared toward the needs of the more than 1.5 million American expatriates around the world. Debuting with a distribution of 50,000 copies, the American includes national and international news as well as a 15-page section on American sports. Kestin, who lived abroad for 20 years, says he feels as though he has reinvented journalism from scratch because his is an American paper based on a European model of financing, which means a cover price averaging out to about $4 (the price of a Coca-Cola in a Paris cafe) and relatively little advertising. "It gives us the freedom to give people what they want," Kestin says. Joining Kestin at the paper's office in New York's trendy Hamptons is Editor Lew Serviss , a Pulitzer Prize-winner and former senior news editor at Newsday . Kestin says that finding an audience for his paper will be relatively easy compared with the real challenge of publishing his new paper – logistics. "Now I know why there was never a Sunday paper – because it's a hell of a job to get papers to all these places by Sunday morning," Kestin says. "We're like the Flying Wallendas of journalism."

Around the Dials

CBS News hires Kristin Jeannette-Meyers , former coanchor of Court TV 's "Inside America's Courts," to coanchor the "CBS Morning News." Meyers isn't the only one cashing in on her new contract, though. The New York Post reports that after CBS paid Court TV $25,000 to obtain Meyers' early release from her contract, Court TV founder and president Steven Brill decided to share some of the wealth with 20 of Meyers' former colleagues to compensate them for the "pain and suffering" of working with Meyers, rumored to be temperamental. Brill told AJR he would neither confirm nor deny the story. Meyers, who could not be reached for comment, will team with former CNN International freelance anchor Cynthia Bowers in her new CBS incarnation... Also at CBS, it looks as though the newest commentators in the "60 Minutes" lineup, Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Molly Ivins , Rolling Stone columnist P.J. O'Rourke and New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch , will leave the program as quickly as they came. It seems viewers didn't think that the point-counterpoint format fit in with the show... Former "CBS Evening News" coanchor Connie Chung , who left the network under a cloud of controversy over her interview with Newt Gingrich 's mother, decides to return to broadcasting by joining forces with her husband, Maury Povich . In a joint venture with DreamWorks, the studio created by David Geffen , Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg , the two will host a daily syndicated program set to launch in 1998.

On the Infobahn

Nando.net , the online subsidiary of McClatchy Newspapers, names Chris A. Hendricks president and publisher. Hendricks, who had been manager of technology for McClatchy, replaces Frank Daniels III , who founded Nando at Raleigh's News & Observer in 1994... Newsbytes News Network , a Minneapolis-based daily online news service covering the computer, interactive and telecommunications industries, begins a transition to a round-the-clock wire service with the addition of a late afternoon feed. Scheduled to add a midnight feed later this year, the network now distributes up to 50 stories per day via its Website ( http://
www.newsbytes.com ) .

Dropping Out

Chalk up one casualty in the race to compete with CNN . Just as MSNBC , NBC 's fledgling 24-hour joint effort with Microsoft, launches, ABC decides to shelve its 24-hour news project. Apparently the network was not yet prepared to pay the high fees of distributing the channel to already inundated cable systems. Such fees seem to be of no concern to Fox 's Rupert Murdoch , who is wooing cable operators with an unprecedented offer of $10 per subscriber to pick up his 24-hour news channel, also set to launch this summer. Meanwhile, MSNBC recruits Kenan Block , former producer of "The
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer ," as editorial producer for politics. Also joining MSNBC is Lynn Povich , former editor in chief of Working Woman magazine. Povich will be a consulting editor for the new 24-hour cable news channel's interactive division.