Iraq

-Google CEO Eric Schmidt says there's not much his company can do to ease the newspaper industry's death agonies. "We...can't materially change the way consumers behave." Uh, isn't that exactly what Google does? [Fortune]

Syndication is coming back with a vengeance in this new frugal reality for the news industry: first the recent announcements about newspapers sharing copy in their local areas—the Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram being one example; and now, it is coming to TV.

It was one year ago today that The New York Times announced the coming of neoconservative high priest William Kristol to its op-ed page.

-Barring a Madison Avenue miracle in 2009, ad spending is due for its first three-year decline since the Great Depression. The good news: It'll be a lot easier to find the table of contents, right? [Ad Age]

-Having gauged our national attention span and found it wanting, the broadcast networks are no longer keeping full-time correspondents in Iraq. [NYT]

MoveOn.org has determined its 2009 agenda the Web 2.0 way--by allowing its members to vote online for the key goals the liberal activist group should focus on next year. The winners: Universal health care, economic recovery and job creation, building a green economy and stopping climate change, and ending the war in Iraq.

I've been wanting to riff on the automotive bailout plea for a while. (To get started, here is a good, balanced post by Eric Karjaluoto to stew on.) As an industrial B2B marketing blogger, I think the subject is appropriate to talk about here.

As I mentioned earlier, IFC hosted a luncheon today to promote its news press-crit series, The IFC Media Project, hosted by ex-MTV wunderkind Gideon Yago.

Beginning today — Veterans Day — the US Army will integrate a series of webcasts, labeled "Straight from Iraq," into its website and overall media campaign.
"Now you can find out what it's really...

Here's one possible future for ink-and-paper newspapers: as a physical memento of the past.

The Washington Post says it sold out within hours of going on sale today, even though it increased its retail distribution by 30 percent. The Post is planning to print another 150,000 copies of a commemorative edition that will go on sale this afternoon. The Chicago Tribune is also among the papers going back to press to satisfy demand.

It's not easy, in the current environment, for heads of media conglomerates to offer their investors good news -- but it's a little easier if you're willing to fudge the occasional fact.

That's what Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes did on this morning's third-quarter earnings call while extolling the dominance of People magazine.