The Los Angeles Times has named Eddy W. Hartenstein as its new publisher, the Associated Press (via the New York Times) has reported.
Hartenstein replaces David Hiller, who resigned from the post last month.
A former satellite television executive with DirecTV, Hartenstein has no experience in the newspaper industry.
Former Microsoft executive Erik Huggers is expected to be confirmed as the replacement for outgoing BBC director of future media and technology Ashley Highfield.
Those guys at Tribune know how to have a laugh don’t they? Take this ‘hilarious’ press release I received today about the US media group’s latest appointment:
Surely You Can’t Be Serious? Marc Chase – President Of Tribune Interactive!
Randy Michaels’ run of acquiring radio-management stars
came to a screeching halt today with Chase’s appointmentCHICAGO, April 7, 2008 — Another freaking Clear Channel
Communications executive on the payroll and this one’s been
named President of Tribune Interactive.Tribune Broadcasting’s Randy Michaels’ past finally caught
up with him when Marc Chase obviously blackmailed his way
into a position he is not remotely qualified to hold.
Insiders are irate. Chase is a fraud. A source inside
Tribune HR, who wished to remain anonymous, pointed out that
Marc Chase’s resume (below) was obviously fabricated. First
of all, his name isn’t even Marc Chase–it’s Mark Thompson.
The whole thing is a sham.MARC CHASE
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington DC 20500 202-456-1111PROFESSINAL EXPERIENCE
Vocabulary Advisorist for George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
Washington DC, 2004-presenteBay
President of Buying Crap
San Jose, California 2003-2004
Executive Vice President of Finding Crap Anywhere
Mountain View, California 2001-2002Microsoft
Senior Executive Vice President of Technology and Stuff
Seattle, Washington, 2000-2001CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX Television
Vice President of Watching TV A Lot
Los Angeles, California 1999-2000Harvard University
Dean of School of Internetology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998EDUCASHION
Nearly Graduated with Honers
School of Alabama in Atlanta Georgia 1985COMMUNITY SERVICE
400 Hours (reduced from 600)
Judge gave time off for good behaviorChase was quoted as saying, “Timing and infrared photography
are everything. I couldn’t be happier! I know Randy is
relieved to finally have me on Sam’s payroll.”Tribune has undergone major changes in the past year, with
billionaire Sam Zell acquiring the company last April in a
complex deal that left it with $13 billion in debt. Since
then, Zell has brought in new executives to fill key roles.
This one takes the cake.Last December, Zell hired Michaels — who helped Zell to
build Clear Channel into a radio behemoth that he could then
sell — to oversee Tribune’s broadcast and Internet
divisions. It is obvious Michaels has lost his mind with
this hire.–By Hugh Jass – A Reputable Media Source
© 2008, Bogus Information, a division of Dewey, Cheatum, and
Howe. All Rights Reserved.
While you’re sewing you sides back together (and trying to make sense of the whole thing), you have to ask why? As Gawker points out Marc Chase has been hired – that’s about all you can determine from the message – but is it appropriate to send out a spoof release as the Tribune company faces mass redundancies?
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has denied that Google’s resistance to using ACAP is based on ‘wanting to control’ publishers information, insisting that it is strictly a technology issues.
Speaking to iTWire, Schmidt said: “ACAP is a standard proposed by a set of people who are trying to solve the problem [of communicating content access permissions]. We have some people working with them to see if the proposal can be modified to work in the way our search engines work. At present it does not fit with the way our systems operate.”
According to iTWire, Schmidt went on to deny that Google’s reluctance so far to use the rights and permissions technology was because Google wanted as few barriers as possible between online content and its search engines. “It is not that we don’t want them to be able to control their information.”
Schmidt made his comments after a tit-for-tat exchange last week in which Gavin O’Reilly, chairman of World Association of Newspaper and ACAP CEO, reacted strongly to claims made by a senior Google executive that the search engine believed ACAP was an unnecessary system and that its function could be fulfilled by existing web standards.
A Chinese man, who used his mobile phone to film a confrontation between the authorities and protesting villagers in the country’s central Hubei province, was beaten to death by city officials, according to a report by CNN on Friday.
The death of Wei Wenhua, a 41-year-old construction company executive, has been widely condemned across online forums and news sites in China, the article states.
“Wei is the first ‘citizen journalist’ to die in China because of what he was trying to film,” a statement from press freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders said.
“He was beaten to death for doing something which is becoming more and more common and which was a way to expose law-enforcement officers who keep on overstepping their limits.”