Across The Media Universe: Smells Like Newspaper Advertising Edition
John Harris, formerly of the Washington Post and the publication's editor in chief told AJR of the advantages of the Politico's non-traditional approach to writing: "The austere, voice-of-God detachment which is the classic newspaper style can be an impediment to engagement with the reader and a genuine understanding of what's going on with a story." However, some have their doubts about the potential for Politico's success: "I still don't know if there are enough people who will go to a politically focused Web site day in and day out and year in and year out and whether advertisers will want to advertise to them," Evans Witt, a former AP reporter who was the editor of PoliticsNow, told AJR.
I Love The Smell Of Advertising In The Morning: Changes at the Wall Street Journal have also been making news lately, and the latest is surely a welcome one -- for those who like to "scratch and sniff" their advertising. "The Wall Street Journal is on the verge of offering scented print-ad units that will appear on the regular pages of the paper," writes AdAge. L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of the The Wall Street Journal told AdAge that readers should feel free to "'suggest scents that might be appropriate. One of my colleagues suggested new money.'"
To Be Continued…: The hoopla over a huge news story -- the NSA's domestic wiretapping program -- is not over yet. "All ears will be listening next week when a federal appeals court in Cincinnati hears arguments in the landmark lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program," writes the AJC's Window on Washington blog. While the Justice Department has filed motions seeking to dismiss the American Civil Liberties Union's suit "because the issue is now moot" (since the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is now overseeing the program.) The ACLU opposes that, saying that since the president still claims "inherent authority" over the program without oversight, "there is no outside check to ensure that the terrorist surveillance program is lawful."