John Doyle: Who will anchor CBC's The National? Machinations abound

John Doyle writes:

"Oh, just quit telling me that nobody cares who anchors the national news on TV. Just quit it. Diligent journalistic labour – reading the mail and listening to people who stop me on the street – tells me you are wrong.

Which brings us to the announcement last Thursday, about Wendy Mesley’s upcoming TV show. That was interesting.

"Early in 2018, CBC says, Mesley will host a live Sunday morning show that 'will focus on the intersection of media, technology and politics.' Which sounds a lot like Undercurrents, a media-heavy series Mesley anchored for five years and that ended in 2001. Like that series, any new excursion into media analysis in Canada will be a challenge. CBC is big media here and, generally, thin-skinned about criticism. Good luck with that."

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New York Times tops profit estimates as digital subscriptions soar

The New York Times Co reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday as the newspaper publisher signed up more digital subscribers, making up for falling print sales, Reuters reports.

The company said it had 2.3 million paid digital-only subscriptions at the end of the second quarter ended June 25, soaring 63.4 per cent from a year earlier.

The Times has tried to boost digital revenue by offering discounts to attract paying subscribers to its online edition as well as to non-news offerings such as daily crossword puzzles and cooking recipes.

The company said it had 2.3 million paid digital-only subscriptions at the end of the second quarter ended June 25, soaring 63.4 per cent from a year earlier.

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The clock may have just run out on the White House press corps

Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director from 2013 to 2015 and was communications director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, writes in the Washington Post.

"When I was White House communications director for President Barack Obama I would warn the White House press corps that they were living on borrowed time.
"At the Obama White House, we often chose to go outside regular channels to communicate with the American public. Still, we respected the institutional importance of the press corps and the importance of engaging with journalists dedicated to covering the president day in and day out.
"But in a digital age, with the proliferation of communication platforms, the media was eventually going to need a better answer for why 50 or so reporters deserved daily access to the White House — access not available to other outlets and the general public.
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Guelph's post-Mercury blues: How an Ontario city is coping without its local newspaper

A year and a half after its daily paper stopped printing, Guelph has become a living laboratory for the loss of traditional local media – a rising risk in communities across Canada, the Globe and Mail says. Reporter Simon Houpt explores what Guelphites have lost, and who's trying to fill the void.
The story -- Warning: It's long!

The end of anchors?

H.G. Watson writes on the J-Sourse web page:

"If you watched the early evening newscast on CityNews in Toronto recently, you might have noticed someone missing — the anchor.

"That’s because since 2015, CityNews has been experimenting with cutting out the middleman during their early evening newscasts. At 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. there are now no anchors to be found. Instead, reporters are running the show, throwing to each other’s stories from the field and in the studio. It’s a model that CityNews is looking to export as they expand to five new markets in the next year.

"Dave Budge, Rogers Media’s vice president of news and information for television told J-Source that the new anchorless newscast model emphasizes the work journalists are doing in the field. 'What we’ve found is the audience trusts and responds to those working reporters even more profoundly than they do to an anchor who is in a studio who is doing little more than reading introductions to those reporters’ stories,'” he said.

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