It’s layoff week at Gannett — even the second N and T might be redundant.

The largest U.S. newspaper publisher and owner of USA Today, the nation’s biggest-selling daily paper, is slashing payroll just in time for the holidays. We read about layoffs everywhere these days, but if you want to see the slow-motion car crash version of how Gannett is doing it, look to Gannett Blog, run by former company reporter Jim Hopkins.

With no newspaper job to keep him busy, Hopkins chronicles nearly every event that he hears about Gannett. That includes a dose of rumor, but much of what he reports is more right than wrong.

Here is one of his latest reports:

Gannett launched what is likely the biggest mass layoff in newspaper industry history yesterday, slashing 655 jobs by early this morning, in an increasingly desperate bid to return the troubled 102-year-old publisher to prosperity. The final tally could run into the thousands.

Many more layoffs are expected today and tomorrow across the 85-daily community newspaper division, plus USA Today and the Detroit Free Press. As of 1:25 a.m. ET, only 17 papers had been accounted for, based on published accounts and Gannett Blog reader reports.

(My Gannett newsroom sources are telling me the same story.)

And while we knew that Gannett was going to cut deeply, he is keeping score at more than 80 papers, thanks to a legion of newsroom sources that dwarfs that of nearly every other reporter who covers the business.

A sample from Wednesday morning, all from anonymous posters:

The Tennessean has started layoffs today (Tuesday), a day earlier than they had told us. So far in the newsroom today we’ve lost two managers and a copy editor.

Fort Myers in progress; so far two copy editors and a designer.

Pensacola News Journal has finished up. At least five has been laid off, including the business editor who was called in from her maternity leave. Classy.

See the layoff ticker, which Hopkins updates often. Also check the documents that he posted on his website that purport to show Gannett papers’ double-digit profit margins as the company wields the axe.

UPDATE: Even Scotland is not immune,

Gannett is hardly the only publisher hacking away at payroll. Conde Nast, Time Inc and the Associated Press all are up to the same thing. The Financial Times, which not long ago was touting how good the financial crisis was for the paper, is offering buyouts and shorter work weeks. It also is freezing salaries for folks who make more than $50,000 a year.

Keep an eye on:

Yahoo: How does former AOL boss Jonathan Miller fit into the picture? Rupert Murdoch’s New York papers offer completely different stories, allowing you to believe one while scoffing at the other. The Wall Street Journal says Miller is trying to raise as much as $30 billion to buy Yahoo. The New York Post says Miller is trying to raise money for Velocity Interactive Group, the investment fund that he runs with former Fox Interactive Media chief Ross Levinsohn. We’ll only briefly remark on how funny it is that an investment firm is trying to raise money from investors.

Google: The party is officially over, according to The Wall Street Journal. Side projects involving grand visions for absent-minded professors appear to be “out.” Making money appears to be “in.” (The Wall Street Journal)

MySpace: Rupert Murdoch’s online social network is letting members use their mobile phones and devices to watch videos posted to their MySpace homepages. That does NOT include the Apple iPhone — yet. (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

News Corp is realizing synergies, cross-promoting among its brands. Here’s the latest announcement:

NEW YORK (Nov. 10, 2008) - HarperCollins Publishers and The Wall Street Journal today announced the formation of a three-year publishing partnership to develop books written by the Journal’s expert editors and reporters across a variety of topics for a wide range of readers. Both HarperCollins and Dow Jones & Company, which publishes The Wall Street Journal, are owned by News Corp. The program will be overseen by Steve Ross, group president of the Collins Group, a division of Harper Collins, and Alan Murray, deputy managing editor at The Wall Street Journal, in conjunction with the Publishers and editorial teams from the Collins, Collins Business, Collins Living and Collins Design imprints.

That’s all fine, if a bit humdrum. You have to dig down past the usual canned quotes in the press release to get to the good stuff, which as always emanates from the pen of Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson:

“We needed to find the world’s pre-eminent publisher and, fortunately, that publisher was very close to home,” said Robert Thomson, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and editor-in-chief of Dow Jones. “The demand for intelligent and insightful books on business and beyond has rarely been greater, and there is no doubt that the journalists at the Journal and Dow Jones generally are far more intelligent and measurably more insightful than journalists at other newspapers.” (emphasis ours.)

The first title, “The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street As We Know It: What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time - And How to Survive It,” is by former Journal editor Dave Kansas — now employed at a joint personal finance site run by Dow Jones and Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp. 

(Photo: Reuters)

The WSJ.com’s new look will go live on Tuesday morning, and it won’t look much like the online Journal you’ve come to know and love. (Or hate, if you’re among its competitors.)

The standard blue-and-white look of the old homepage — as seen in the bottom picture — will be gone. Instead, there will be a whiter-looking page with “champagne” offsets for the “What’s News” section and the top. (A “clean, well-lit environment” was the operating principle, according to WSJ Online Executive Editor Alan Murray).

Other changes include a navigation bar across the top of the page instead of down the left side. Community pages invite more interactivity from readers of the site, though people are required to use their real names to post.

Wall Street Journal Digital Network President Gordon McLeod wouldn’t say how much the redesign cost, but did say it was a “substantial investment,” one aimed not only at building subscriber rolls but also trying to get more non-subscribers to visit as well to persuade advertisers to keep buying space on the site.

Whether design is the key to making that happen, no one can say, but it can’t hurt to renovate every once in a while. It does tend to keep your name in the headlines…

The rap on The Wall Street Journal, especially among those who get edited for a living there, is that the editing process could use a little streamlining. It looks like that’s about to happen, judging by Thursday’s memo from top editor Robert Thomson. This is part of a series of personnel changes taking place at the Journal since News Corp bought Dow Jones last year, including the resignations of top editor Marcus Brauchli and top U.S. editor Bill Grueskin:

I am pleased to announce significant changes to the editorial leadership of The Wall Street Journal, changes which will expedite decision-making and give increased authority and responsibility to reporters and bureau chiefs. These changes will take place in tandem with the creation of a central news desk that will allow significantly enhanced co-operation between print, web and Newswires journalists, in New York and around the world. At the heart of our new structure will be a National, International and Enterprise Team, a triumvirate which will report directly to me and to whom the bureau chiefs will report.

Here are the moves among the most senior editors, effective next month:

- Matt Murray, general news editor, becomes national editor.

- Nikhil Deogun, Money & Investing section editor, becomes international editor.

- Mike Williams, page one editor, broadens duties to include investigative reporting, “A-heds” and “leders.”

Those three, Thomson wrote, will streamline commissioning and editing decisions get a central role in the production and presentation of copy for the paper and the website.

Other changes:

- Mike Miller, deputy managing editor, also becomes senior deputy managing editor and runs the paper in Thomson’s place if he is “otherwise engaged.”

- Cathy Panagoulias, assistant managing editor, becomes a deputy managing editor and gets more say in administrative support for bureau chiefs and hires.

- Jim Pensiero, vice president for special projects, becomes deputy managing editor for operations, and oversees the upcoming new publishing system (we heard it’s Methode), and runs the Journal’s move next year to News Corp headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

- Alix Freedman gets expanded authority over the paper’s ethical and journalistic standards.

- Alan Murray remains as executive editor of the online Journal.

- Dan Hertzberg, deputy managing editor, oversees the European and Asian editions

- Reg Chua becomes senior assistant managing editor and oversees the design team.

We’re not sure how this all will translate into streamlining and how this will give reporters and bureau chiefs more authority, but in all fairness, this hasn’t even gone into effect yet. We’re also curious about names not mentioned in the memo, like page one editor Laurie Hays. She didn’t return a phone call, but we’ll find out soon enough. She’s leaving, according to a second memo — going to Bloomberg as executive editor for company news. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

The appointment of Hays, who during a 23-year career at the newspaper was a Moscow-based correspondent, bureau chief in Atlanta and New York, National News Editor and, most recently, Deputy Managing Editor for Investigative Reporting, “brings exceptional experience in managing beat reporting to our 2,300 journalists in 65 countries,” said Matthew Winkler, Editor-in-Chief of Bloomberg News. 

On a separate note, catch Rupert Murdoch’s comments in Cannes about making the Journal the best paper in the world. Article on the Guardian’s website.

Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang says Microsoft just isn’t interested in a full merger these days.

His comments, his most extensive to date on the Microsoft merger drama, back up what had been the talk around town — that chances of a full-fledged merger between the two had dimmed considerably. Yang, however, did signal his company remained open to a potential deal.

“We did not walk away from that proposal. Microsoft did,” Yang said during an on-stage interview at the D: All Things Digital conference.

“Microsoft is no longer interested in buying the company, and we are talking about other things. We definitely have to understand what they’re proposing…they clearly have an interest in Yahoo, and we need to understand more,” Yang said.

A source familiar with the situation said last week that Microsoft has proposed buying Yahoo’s search business and taking a minority stake in the Web pioneer, but has stopped stopping short of reinitiating full merger negotiations.

Judging from the Wall Street Journal, Yang’s comments on stage reflect what’s happening between par putts on the golf course.  It reports that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yang played a round of golf over the weekend to discuss Yahoo’s search advertising business. But there was no indication that Microsoft still wanted to take over Yahoo.

Back onstage, meanwhile, Yang took some time to defend his track record after nearly one year as CEO and told the audience he was the right person for the job.

“I do think I am the best person to lead Yahoo,” Yang said.

Or, according to the New York Times… “Asked why he should be the leader to take the company forward, Mr. Yang said it was about his ‘passion’ and the fact that he still ‘bleeds purple,’ a reference to the distinctive color of the company’s logo.”

 Keep an eye on: 

• Havas Chairman Vincent Bollore said on Thursday he remained “calm” despite his latest failed attempt at securing two seats on the board of British rival Aegis (Reuters)
• The Wall Street Journal is about to step up its sports coverage, with the goal of turning its sports section into a “thinking man’s sports site,” the WSJ’s Adam Thompson told RotoNation
• The Screen Actors Guild and major studios returned to the bargaining table on Wednesday from a three-week recess in contract talks after another Hollywood union came to terms with producers on a new labor deal (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

Time Warner Inc is slimming down, concentrating on the content side of the business (forgive the jargon, it’s just that’s what movies, magazines, TV programming are called these days).

The media giant has just unveiled its much-anticipated plans to spin off Time Warner Cable Inc, resulting in the complete legal and structural separation of the two companies.

Plans call for Time Warner to exchange its 12.4 percent interest in TW NY Cable Holding Inc, a subsidiary of Time Warner Cable, for 80 million newly issued shares of Time Warner Cable’s Class A common stock. Time Warner will pay a one time $10.9 billion dividend.

But financial details aside, what Time Warner has in mind is appeasing shareholders frustrated by the company’s stock price, and those calling for the company to do something with its AOL Internet unit. Presumably, with the cable plans out of the way, there will be more time to talk about AOL around the executive suite.

It’s the first big, splashy decision by Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive, and will have the company getting back to its roots — namely, the business of entertaining consumers on the screen and in pages of magazines. It should be interesting to watch.

Keep an eye on:

• Microsoft is not looking to bid to buy all of Yahoo but is in talks about other types of deals with the U.S. No. 2 search engine, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says (Reuters)
• Wall Street Journal Publisher Robert Thomson was named the paper’s new managing editor, taking the helm from Marcus Brauchli after he left last month under pressure (WSJ.com)
• Stuart Elliott writes that TV networks are reaching back in time to combat digital video recorders with the live commercial (NY Times)
• The head of Virgin Mobile USA told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit that he expects more consolidation in the U.S. telecommunications industry, including deals among providers who rent space on larger operator’s networks (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

It looks like Norman Pearlstine couldn’t resist the glamorous life of journalism. After two years in the private equity business at the Blackstone Group Carlyle Group (D’oh!), Pearlstine is joining Bloomberg LP as “chief content officer,” where, as Bloomberg said in a press release, he will work with “Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler to seek growth opportunities for its
television, radio, magazine and online products and to make the most of the
existing Bloomberg News operations.”

Pearlstine used to be the editor-in-chief of Time Inc for 11 years, and before that spent 23 years at The Wall Street Journal. More details on his CV, directly from the release :

He was the paper’s top news executive for nine years, serving as Managing Editor and then Executive Editor. He previously worked as the founding editor and publisher of The Wall Street Journal/Europe, the first Managing Editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal, and the Tokyo bureau chief.

Pearlstine was founder of Smart Money magazine and worked as an Executive Editor of Forbes. He is the author of OFF THE RECORD: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources , published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2007.

We don’t know what to make of this. Our immediate questions:

- Will he succeed Winkler, with whom he worked at the Journal?

- Will he put Bloomberg into M&A mode?

- Will he work on an effort to take Bloomberg LP public? (This idea has come up at least once before)

Pearlstine wasn’t available for comment, so we’ll just publish our questions here and invite comments, but Bloomberg’s top editorial executive, Matt Winkler, did  call. Here’s a bit of what we talked about:

Q: Why Pearlstine?

A: Nobody brings as much experience in so many different ways as Norm does… Our hope is that Norm can give us a lot more awareness and guidance on ways we can deliver [our news] well beyond the Bloomberg.

Q: When did you first meet him?

A: The meet-and-greet was probably in the halls of Dow Jones & Co when I arrived in 1980, and he was the national news editor at The Wall Street Journal. People would point him out to me as a really important person you ought to know, so maybe on the way to the men’s room I was able to introduce myself. (They started working closely together in 1982 when Pearlstine was planning the European edition of the WSJ and asked Winkler to go to London)

Q: What do you think of him?

A: I would say that everything that I know that’s worth anything in this business, the news business, I can attribute to Norm.

Q: Does his new job at Bloomberg mean that you will retire?

A: I would hope that I’m just getting started, actually.  The first 18 or so years went by really fast. I think the biggest opportunities are ahead of us. I can’t wait to go at them with Norm at my side.

Q: By the way, is there a hiring freeze at Bloomberg?

A: Not exactly. The management committee at Bloomberg… saw what was unfolding with the financial world — they could see what was coming last July — and said, ‘what we want to do for the coming year is effectively freeze the headcount.’ (This does not mean that they are not hiring as people leave, however) We’re determined to find and identify and bring to Bloomberg the most talented, skilled journalists we can.

(Reuters photo shows Pearlstine on the left in his role as president of the American Academy in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the middle and former U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Holbrooke on the right.)

(Disclaimer that you’ve probably read before: Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters are competitors in providing financial news and data.)

Latest change at The Wall Street Journal in Year One of the Murdoch Era: Venerable editorial page cartoon “Pepper… and Salt” is moving to the leisure and arts page.

We’re almost surprised that a Frankenstein-style mob hasn’t already taken pitchforks and torches to the Dow Jones building. After all, it’s one of the paper’s longer-running traditions. Heck, even the editor-in-charge of the cartoon has been at it for 58 years, The New York Times reports.

The Journal would not comment on why the 58-year-old cartoon was moved last week, or what the future holds for “Pepper … and Salt” in the new Murdoch era.

But Pepper’s move could make way for a more Murdochian brand of editorial cartoon, cartoonists said. (The Times reported.)

It turns out that the editors announced the change on April 22. Why didn’t we notice before? Because we take our Pepper… and Salt on the Internet.

(Photo: Reuters file)

Rupert Murdoch has earned the disdain of many Wall Street Journal staffers by saying their stories often are too long , especially some of the front-page juggernauts that take their time getting started.

While the page-one woes got all the attention, it looks like he and his crew were doing some editing elsewhere in the paper as well. The Heard on the Street column, which contains all sorts of interesting analysis and tips about buzz in the financial world, seems to be nearly half its former size some days.

Friday’s feature, “Lehman Brothers Seen As Cheap Recovery Bet ” by Peter Eavis and David Reilly, measured 431 words. Compare that to the (now weirdly prescient) “A Microsoft, Yahoo Tie-Up? ” that Robert Guth and Kevin Delaney wrote for the May 3, 2006, edition, at 1,224 words.

Typically, 800 to 1,200 words has been the breathing room for such stories, and maybe that will return on days when the news demands. Then again…

(Photo: Reuters)

Many Wall Street Journal watchers bemoan new owner Rupert Murdoch’s greater emphasis on political and general news coverage in the paper, but so far their evidence has been anecdotal.

Not anymore! The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) furnished numbers that give an exact percentage on the decrease in business news that gets on the front page of the nation’s most powerful business daily. Here’s an excerpt from the report:

Under the Murdoch regime, the single biggest change in front-page coverage occurred with politics and the presidential campaign. From Dec. 13, 2007 through March 13, 2008, coverage more than tripled, jumping to 18% of the newshole compared with 5% in the four months before the ownership change.

Since the front page has a finite amount of space, that increase in political coverage seems to have come largely at the expense of business news. In the Murdoch era, coverage of corporate America has plunged by more than half-to 14% of the front-page space from 30% in the months before the sale.

How low can he go before the Journal’s high net-worth readership bolts?

–Reporting by Robert MacMillan and Kenneth Li

(Photo: Graphic courtesy of PEJ)