The White House Takes On POLITICO

It's not just Fox News that's become subject of White House derision. The following is an excerpt from a joke e-mail that is circulating among White House staffers.  It's a response, of sorts, to the analytical essay that POLITICO editor-in-chief John Harris wrote about the "seven stories that Barack Obama doesn't want told."  It's fairly caustic -- and, truth be told, the White House maintains good relationships with POLITICO reporters and has been known to try and agenda-set by dishing out a few tips to the publication. But make no mistake: many on the White House senior staff dislike POLITICO's brand of journalism, and they do not like the effect that POLITICO's metabolism has on the rest of the press corps, including this (i.e., my own) corner of it.  Still, don't read too much into this. There's been plenty of back-and-forth between the Whit House and the POLITICO, and the White House accepts the role -- which is often substantial -- that POLITICO plays in the newsgathering process.

7 narratives politico is fighting in their efforts to get an interview with the President

1.       They are more interested in readers than accuracy

2.       Its okay to be wrong everyonce in a while, if your are the first to break the news

3.       More interested in gossip than news

4.       A spouter of the worst sort of insider conventional wisdom

5.       Their analysis about obama has been wrong more than any one

6.       Click ... period

7.       More obsessed with personality than policy

Federal Reserve tries theater ads to burnish its image

Spots urging shoppers to use their credit cards wisely will be shown on big screens in 12 U.S. cities. The central bank has long been accused of neglecting its consumer protection duties.

By Jim Puzzanghera

November 26, 2009

Reporting from Washington - The Federal Reserve isn't too popular these days, what with its failure to predict or prevent the financial crisis and recession, not to mention its involvement in last year's bailouts. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has a bestselling book out called "End the Fed," and some lawmakers are looking to cut back the central bank's power.

It sounds like a perfect time for an ad campaign.

The Fed has made a 45-second public service announcement to help consumers use their credit cards wisely. The spot will run before movie previews at theaters in 12 U.S. cities, including Long Beach, from Friday through Dec. 3.

Over jazzy music, the announcer asks: "Want to use your credit card wisely? Here are some tips you can trust from the Federal Reserve." With the Fed logo featured prominently, the ad offers suggestions such as paying your bill on time and watching for changes in the terms of the account.

The Fed has been under fire for neglecting its consumer protection authority for years -- particularly for taking 14 years to enact rules protecting consumers from unscrupulous mortgage lending.

In April and September, the Fed ran public-service ads in cinemas in California, Florida and other states devastated by the housing crash advising viewers how to avoid foreclosure scams.

The latest ad, which comes as people are expected to flock to holiday movies, could help improve the Fed's battered image as Congress weighs an overhaul of financial regulations. Plus, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will be on Capitol Hill on Dec. 3 for a hearing on his renomination for a second four-year term.

With sentiment against the Fed running high, that event promises to be a Washington blockbuster.

jim.puzzanghera@

latimes.com

News Corp. Joined by Rivals Weighing Google Block

By Greg Bensinger and Brian Womack

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Publishers of the Denver Post and the Dallas Morning News may pull some of their stories from Google Inc.’s news site, a move that would emulate News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch.
News Corp. is considering blocking Google’s search engine from displaying its news articles and is talking to Microsoft Corp. about displaying stories on its Bing site, people familiar with the situation said yesterday.
MediaNews Group Inc., the Post’s publisher, will block Google News when it starts charging readers in Pennsylvania and California for online content next year, Chief Executive Officer Dean Singleton said in an interview. Morning News owner A.H. Belo Corp. may introduce online subscription fees and also block Google, Executive Vice President James Moroney said.
“The things that go behind pay walls, we will not let Google search to, but the things that are outside the pay wall we probably will, because we want the traffic,” Singleton said.
Newspaper publishers, grappling with a collapse in the print-ad market, are considering Web-site charges and are pushing back against Google, which displays headlines and excerpts from stories on its free news site. News Corp., whose Wall Street Journal already charges for online subscriptions, has also said that it plans more paid content.
While newspapers have complained about Google using their news to attract users and boost revenue, fewer than 1 percent have opted out of the service, Josh Cohen, head of Google’s news division, said in an interview.
Value in Traffic
A significant number of publishers would have to block access to their content to produce a notable impact on Google’s search results, said Greg Sterling, principal at consulting and research firm Sterling Market Intelligence in San Francisco. “It’s a tree-in-the-forest kind of thing,” he said. “I don’t think people would notice” if a lone publisher took the action.
“There’s value in that traffic and I think publishers recognize that value,” Cohen said. “The reason they’re not opting out is they’re getting something from that relationship.”
Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in an interview this month that his company, owner of the most popular Internet search engine, would like to keep news providers on its site.
“We do worry about it, and we think it would be a bad outcome” for newspapers to leave Google, Schmidt said. “We would encourage them to stay in our program.”
Gabriel Stricker, a Google spokesman, declined to comment yesterday on any talks between News Corp. and Microsoft, as well as the other newspapers potentially opting out of Google News.
Paid Models
Murdoch, News Corp.’s chairman and CEO, said in an interview on Sky News Australia this month that he may remove the company’s content from Google searches. The company’s newspapers include the Times of London and the New York Post.
MediaNews, based in Denver, will block Google News from the content it puts behind a so-called pay wall early next year at newspapers in Chico, California, and York, Pennsylvania, Singleton said.
A.H. Belo, based in Dallas, hasn’t decided if it will block Google News and any action isn’t “imminent,” said Moroney, who is also publisher of the Morning News. Blocking Google would be part of a larger strategy, he said.
Belo is considering models for charging for some of its Web content and plans to implement a pay wall within six months at either the Morning News, Rhode Island’s Providence Journal or Riverside Press-Enterprise, published in California, Moroney said. That may require Web readers to go directly to the newspaper’s site to read stories, he said.
‘Not Monetized’
“This is traffic that’s not being monetized to any great degree,” Moroney said. “It’s akin to a person who drops into town, buys one copy of your newspaper and leaves town again and yet you spend a whole bunch of time building your business around that type of customer.”
Google, based in Mountain View, California, added 74 cents to $583.09 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Belo jumped 36 cents, or 8.2 percent, to $4.76 on the New York Stock Exchange. MediaNews is closely held.
Google News gathers stories from the Web and displays their headlines, photos and the first few lines with links to the full articles on the original publishers’ Web sites.
Google has also faced international criticism from media companies over the service. In 2007, Belgian newspapers won a copyright suit blocking Google from linking to their articles on Google News.
Fewer than 100 publishers have completely blocked their content from Google News search results, Cohen said.
“You can point back to the traffic that we’re sending and the fact that so few of those publishers have opted out as a pretty strong case that there’s value being delivered back to these publishers,” Cohen said.
Moroney said more publishers are “focused on attracting the really engaged consumers who come multiple times and stay for lots of minutes every time” rather than the casual online reader who happens upon a news site by chance.
U.S. newspaper publishers lost 28 percent of their print and online ad revenue in the third quarter from a year earlier, the Newspaper Association of America reported this month.
To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net; Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net

Lou Dobbs mulls White House bid

Former CNN host Lou Dobbs fueled already rampant speculation about his political future Monday, sending the clearest signals yet that he's mulling a bid for president — and leaving third-party political operatives salivating over the possibility of a celebrity recruit for the 2012 campaign. Photo: AP

Former CNN host Lou Dobbs fueled already rampant speculation about his political future Monday, sending the clearest signals yet that he's mulling a bid for president — and leaving third-party political operatives salivating over the possibility of a celebrity recruit for the 2012 campaign.

Less than two weeks after announcing his departure from the cable network — and after a series of interviews in which Dobbs encouraged speculation about his political plans — the anchorman known to fans as "Mr. Independent" finally made his presidential ambitions explicit on former Sen. Fred Thompson's radio show Monday.

Asked if he might make a run at the White House in 2012, Dobbs answered flatly: "Yes is the answer."

"I'm going to be talking some more with some folks who want me to listen in the next few weeks," Dobbs told Thompson. "Right now I'm fortunate to have a number of wonderful options."

Dobbs's political future, however, remains shrouded in question marks. He has left open a variety of paths to public office — in addition to toying with a presidential campaign, Dobbs hasn't ruled out a bid for the Senate in 2012 in New Jersey — and also left his party affiliation a mystery.

A representative for Dobbs said his schedule did not permit him to comment for this story by deadline.

Though Dobbs's criticism of the Obama administration and his famously conservative views on illegal immigration have raised the prospect he could run for office as a Republican, he has staked out a rhetorical position that places him outside both parties. In 2007, he penned a book titled, "Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit," and in his final CNN broadcast, Dobbs took broad aim at a political culture "defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion."
And in an appearance on CNBC last week, Dobbs told Larry Kudlow that he "absolutely" planned to remain independent of a political party.
After two consecutive presidential cycles in which independent contenders had virtually no impact at the polls, independent political strategists are delighted at the prospect of a third-party campaign for the White House headlined by a high-profile, TV-friendly candidate with the potential to scramble the national political map.

"I would assume he's going independent, since he's made a very strong case that that's where he is," said Bay Buchanan, who ran Pat Buchanan's 2000 campaign for president as the Reform Party's candidate. "There's enormous movement out there, I think more so than when Pat ran. I think they've really given up on Republicans, they've given up on Democrats; so he would be stepping into something where a path had been laid."

Buchanan added: "I think he can win."

Even independent political operatives less ideologically aligned with Dobbs — Buchanan, like Dobbs, is an immigration hawk — say he represents an enormous opportunity for foes of the two-party system.

"Lou Dobbs, I think, would be a perfect candidate for us," said former Sen. Dean Barkley, the founder of the Minnesota Reform Party (later known as the Minnesota Independence Party) who managed former Gov. Jesse Ventura's successful third-party campaign in 1998. "We were hoping he would have run last time."

The notion of a cable news personality running for high office seems less far-fetched one year after former comedian and liberal talk-radio host Al Franken upset expectations by defeating an incumbent Republican senator in Minnesota, and after television stars such as MSNBC's Chris Matthews explored running for office and Fox's Glenn Beck leaped directly into political activism. Indeed, operatives say, Dobbs's talent for communicating with a national audience could serve him well as an outsider candidate.
"You know he's got a pretty good sensibility with an audience," said media consultant Bill Hillsman, who worked on third-party campaigns for Ventura and gubernatorial candidates Kinky Friedman in Texas and Chris Daggett in New Jersey.
"There aren't too many people who you can say have that particular skill on a national basis, if you're looking at independents," said Hillsman, who said he urged Dobbs in a letter to run as an independent candidate in New Jersey's 2009 gubernatorial election.

Still, even with his star power, there could be serious limits to the appeal of a candidate best known for his opposition to immigration reform and his indulgence of conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama's birth certificate.

While Dobbs's views on immigration might get him a toehold with some constituencies, there's little modern evidence that opposition to immigration can power a national campaign. In order to have a shot at gaining traction nationally, Dobbs would have to tap into populist anger on a broader range of issues, according to Clay Mulford, who managed Ross Perot's presidential campaign in 1992.
"There's a populist streak in the voting public that spans both left and right, and so you've got the combination of this protectionist element and immigration on one hand, on the right. And on the left you've got this anti-bailout, Wall Street, focus-on-Main Street kind of sentiment," Mulford said. "That streak in American politics is something that's often ignored."

But Mulford, whom New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg consulted in 2008 about a possible independent presidential bid of his own, also poured some cold water on the Dobbs-for-President talk, noting that even a charismatic television personality would face a tough adjustment to the campaign trail.

Dobbs would encounter daunting structural obstacles to fundraising and a patchwork of ballot-access laws that tilt the playing field against any third-party contender. On top of that, Mulford said, Dobbs's hard-line views on immigration might restrict his national appeal in "a country of immigrants."

"The Electoral College makes it, unless you're going to really be at the 30 percent level and go from there, it's a hard slog, nationwide," Mulford warned. "Without some really substantive positions, given his lack of experience, a national effort would be difficult."

And for all the talk of a presidential campaign, Dobbs has yet to contact leading third-party operatives such as Buchanan, Hillsman, Mulford or Ed Rollins, the Perot campaign veteran who shared Dobbs's affiliation with CNN until the anchor quit this month, the operatives said.

Given the hurdles Dobbs would have to clear in order to run nationally, Democrats in his home state of New Jersey are responding seriously to Dobbs's hints about a Senate campaign.

"I assume he'd be a formidable candidate in terms of his skills and his ability to raise funds or self-fund," said a Democratic consultant based in New Jersey. "None of us are sitting around going, 'Oh, that's a joke.'"

At the same time, the Democrat said, Dobbs would be hampered from the first day of a Senate campaign by the optics of running as a border security hard-liner against the Senate's lone Hispanic.

"He's probably out of the mainstream on a bulk of issues. He's going to have a particularly delicate time running against the Senate's only Latino member. He certainly has no infrastructure on which to build in New Jersey," the consultant said. "I don't sense that anyone is sitting around going, 'Lou Dobbs is the next big thing.'"

Even as independents look eagerly forward to a possible Dobbs campaign — for president or another office — Republicans have responded much more warily to suggestions that Dobbs, a resident of Sussex County, could run for Senate on the GOP ticket in 2012.

"I don't think people know whether he'd run as a Republican and also don't know where he stands on anything but immigration," said a Republican strategist from New Jersey.

Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told POLITICO: "It's not even on our radar screen. Neither New Jersey senator is up in 2010, and 2010 is where our sole focus is right now."

Thanks for Paying Attention Big Journalism

by Andrew Breitbart
In response to the Columbia Journalism Review’s accusing me of “blackmailing” the Attorney General of the United States, I must take notice that the mainstream media as a journalistic establishment IS paying attention to the ongoing ACORN scandal.  Good.  I thought so.
What the Columbia Journalism Review is doing is very similar to what Media Matters is doing: protecting the Democrat-Media Complex, the natural alliance of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media.  This ACORN investigation has been going on for two months and Hannah, James, and I have proven to be truth-tellers every step of the way, while the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now has been proven time and again to be liars.

Yet instead of engaging the real, newsworthy issues of ACORN’s possible corruption, malfeasance and illegal behavior, the CJR, like its more overtly political online counterpart Media Matters, and indeed every other MSM outlet, has been sitting it out on the sidelines, waiting – rooting – for Hannah Giles, James O’Keefe and me to make a mistake.  In fact, my appearance Thursday night is the only time in which the media has introduced itself into this ongoing narrative: proof that it’s paying attention and taking sides.
Neither, by the way, has the CJR challenged James Rainey, a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, who has consistently shaded his coverage favorably toward ACORN since we first broke the story back in September, evincing little interest in the truth but instead muttering about the standards of the Society of Professional Journalists (take link, be sure to read the comments).  “But the Society of Professional Journalists has set a standard that deception should be used only when every other reporting approach has been exhausted and only then in certain cases, most notably to reveal a severe social problem or to prevent people from being harmed.”
A “severe social problem”?  Perhaps that’s exactly what Congress saw when both the Senate and the House de-funded ACORN (at least temporarily), and the group’s tie with the census was abruptly severed in the wake of our reports.  So thank you for the clarification, CJR, and thank you to its appropriately named Mr. Marx for showing that hallowed institution’s true colors at a moment when any sentient being can recognize that the credibility of journalism is on the line.   It’s a little like the Sarah Palin situation: the media simultaneously dismisses her as an inept idiot and yet hangs on her every word, hoping to entrap her.  Why else would MSNBC send Norah O’Donnell, armed with talking points, to “fact-check” a tee shirt being worn by a young woman at one of Sarah’s recent book signings?
And now to address the fever-swamp’s notion that what I said on “Hannity” last night was “blackmail.”  Blackmail occurs when one party threatens to reveal an unsavory piece of information about another party, and demands money in exchange for silence.  For obvious reasons, it is most often conducted in private.  I, on the other hand, went on national television with a challenge to the Attorney General to do his job; unlike this administration and its justice department, what I did was fully open and transparent.
There will be consequences if there isn’t an investigation into ACORN.  The videos will be shown and at a particular moment.  There is nothing illegal about my proposed response to the continued inaction from this justice department, and there’s nothing I’d like more than to have my day in court and let a jury hear why I have gone to such extraordinary measures to tell a major story that the dying, partisan, leftist media has worked so hard to suppress.
The days of the Democrat-Media Complex controlling the narrative are in their end times.  And if the AG wants to turn his focus on me instead of ACORN, then that day will be closer than many of them think.

Newspaper circulation may be worse than it looks

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - While U.S. newspapers are losing subscribers at a staggering rate, a few dailies stand out because their circulation is rising. But they aren't necessarily selling more copies.
Here's why: Since April 1, new auditing rules have made it easier for newspapers to count a reader as a paying customer.
These looser standards are especially helpful to a newspaper if it sells an "electronic edition." That can include a subscriber-only Web site, such as what The Wall Street Journal has, or it can be a digital replica of a newspaper's printed product. Several dozen publications, including USA Today, sell access to these daily "e-editions" that show how the news was laid out in print.
Under the new auditing standards, if a newspaper sells a "bundled" subscription to both the print and electronic editions, the publication is often allowed to count that subscriber twice.
If not for these rules, the industry's numbers would look even worse. Average weekday circulation at 379 U.S. newspapers fell 10.6 percent during the six months ending in September. That was the steepest decline ever recorded by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the organization that verifies how many people are paying to read publications.
It's not clear what the numbers would have been under the old auditing standards. But the effects of the new rules were widespread. There were 59 newspapers that listed at least 5,000 electronic editions in their weekday circulations, according to an Associated Press review of the figures filed with the ABC for the April-September period. In all but a few instances, the number of electronic subscribers was substantially higher than a year ago.
The decline in newspaper circulation has several causes. Many publications have intentionally reduced the range of their deliveries, cutting out exurbs or distant parts of their states where they sold relatively few copies. Higher prices for home delivery and newsstand copies also have driven some readers away. Publishers are betting they can keep their most loyal readers and are charging them more to help offset their crumbling ad sales - the main source of newspaper revenue.
Nevertheless, many newspapers are still offering discounts to bolster their circulation so they don't risk losing even more advertising revenue. The size of the audience is one factor marketers consider when they buy ads.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal was among the newspapers whose weekday circulation rose from the same time last year. Nevada's largest newspaper saw its average weekday circulation rise 6.6 percent, or nearly 11,000 subscribers, to 175,841. It was a remarkable improvement, given that weekday sales of its print edition fell by 12,000 copies and Las Vegas ranks among the cities hardest hit by the Great Recession.
How did it happen? The Review-Journal's circulation this year included 23,132 electronic editions compared with just 511 at the same time last year.
The big difference didn't occur because that many more people suddenly decided to buy the Review-Journal's digital replica of its print edition.
The change happened because the price the newspaper was charging for the online replica - it costs print customers an extra 50 cents per week - hadn't been high enough to qualify as paid circulation until the ABC's April change. That let newspapers define their paying readers as anyone who spends at least a penny for a copy. Previously, a newspaper copy had to sell for at least 25 percent of the basic price to qualify as paid circulation.
The ABC said it changed the rules to reduce its auditing costs and "provide greater pricing and marketing flexibility" for publishers.
Steve Coffeen, the Review-Journal's circulation director, said it makes sense to count the bundled subscriptions twice, as well as other people buying the electronic edition at a sharp discount, because it provides a complete picture of the newspaper's paying audience. Advertisers generally prize readers who pay for a publication, reasoning they are more likely to peruse it.
"It's important to show advertisers we are fighting the good fight and using other platforms to reach readers," Coffeen said.
That rationale makes sense to Randy Novak, director of newspaper strategy for NSA Media, one of the nation's largest buyers of newspaper ads. He doesn't see much difference between readers who are getting the newspaper at a deep discount or the standard price. He wants to reach people who care enough about the newspaper to be willing to pay for it at all.
However, another big buyer of newspaper ads says the new ABC rules made the reported circulation numbers less credible.
"You really have to do your homework now and ask newspapers about how much double counting is going on," said Allison Howald, U.S. director of print investment at PHD Media.
A surge in digital sales propelled the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania to a 16.5 percent increase in weekday circulation - the highest among dailies selling at least 50,000 copies. The Daily Record listed 10,073 electronic editions in its latest circulation of 55,370. At the same time last year it counted just 42 electronic editions in its circulation of 47,549.
In most cases, the electronic edition is a replica of the printed product, right down to the ads. The technology even makes it possible to simulate the act of turning the pages of a paper edition. Most electronic editions are sold at a small fraction of the price for the printed edition, partly because publishers don't have to pay for newsprint or fuel to deliver the copy.
Web subscriptions were pivotal in The Wall Street Journal's growth over the past decade. The digital sales are the main reason that the Journal surpassed USA Today as the top-selling U.S. newspaper in the April-September period. USA Today, owned by Gannett Co., still holds the edge in print circulation.
The Journal charges its print subscribers an additional 40 cents per week for unrestricted access to its Web site. Journal spokesman Robert Christie wouldn't comment on whether the new rules for counting subscribers contributed to a 14 percent increase in the newspaper's 407,002 digital subscribers. Including the print side, the Journal's total circulation edged up by just 0.6 percent to 2.02 million.
"We followed the ABC's rules and methodology," Christie said.
Some newspapers that posted circulation gains say they are picking up readers who feel abandoned by bigger publications. Cutbacks at newspapers in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn., contributed to most of the 2 percent increase at the 70,000-circulation Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee, said Publisher Tom Griscom. "We are keeping an eye on print and not letting it drift away," Griscom said.
A reduced emphasis on print at The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, which now deliver to homes only three days a week, also helped Michigan's Oakland Press increase its weekday circulation 7 percent to 68,067. But electronic sales were the main factor. The newspaper listed 6,500 more electronic editions in its latest circulation numbers than it did a year ago, offsetting a slight decline in print.

Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact

By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles, Richard Waters in San Francisco and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York
Published: November 22 2009 23:01 | Last updated: November 22 2009 23:01

Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.
The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.
However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.
News Corp and Microsoft, which owns the rival Bing search engine, declined to comment.
One website publisher approached by Microsoft said that the plan “puts enormous value on content if search engines are prepared to pay us to index with them”.
Microsoft’s interest is being interpreted as a direct assault on Google because it puts pressure on the search engine to start paying for content.
“This is all about Microsoft hurting Google’s margins,” said the web publisher who is familiar with the plan.
But the biggest beneficiary of the tussle could be the newspaper industry, which has yet to construct a reliable online business model that adequately replaces declining print and advertising revenues.
In a possible sign of negotiations to come, Google last week played down the importance of newspaper content.
Matt Brittin, Google’s UK director, told a Society of Editors conference that Google did not need news content to survive. “Economically it’s not a big part of how we generate revenue,” he said.
News Corp has been exploring online payment models for its newspapers and has taken an increasingly hard line against Google.
Rupert Murdoch, News Corp chairman, has said that he would use legal methods to prevent Google “stealing stories” published in his papers.
Microsoft is desperate to catch Google in search and, after five years and hundreds of millions of dollars of losses, Bing, launched in June, marks its most ambitious attempt yet.
Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, has said that the company is prepared to spend heavily for many years to make Bing a serious rival to Google.
Microsoft has sought to differentiate Bing by drawing in material not found elsewhere, though has not demanded exclusivity from content partners. Bing accounted for 9.9 per cent of searches in the US in October, up from 8.4 per cent at its launch, according to ComScore.
James Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp Europe and Asia, hinted last week that the company was making progress with its online plans. “We think that there’s a very exciting marketplace, potentially a wholesale market place for digital journalism that we’ll be developing,” he said

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