Tina Brown And "The Daily Beast": Any Black Folks Around There?

The Daily Beast  is a new website along the lines of The Huffington Post from a content standpoint and started by long-time magazine editor Tina Brown and with an investment by Barry Diller. The rumor has been that $18 million was invested in the site and that the company was burning through $1 million or so in a month. Here in the video, Brown dispells those rumors.

In all, The Daily Beast is certainly an interesting "go" in that Brown is not going to have a set of unpaid bloggers, as The Huff Post does, but all paid writers, In other words a news and content staff.


I think that's a terrible idea because it places a high cost template in the business model and causes a higher level of revenue to be reached. Translation: a constant burn rate. But what's even more alarming to me is this staff photo we see: where the hell's the staff diversity? 

Has Tina ever heard of Black folks at all? Indeed, she wasn't a fan of President-Elect Barack Obama, but one of those who knee-jerk pointed to the "media bias against Hillary Clinton " while walking ignorantly past the dark racism that Obama faced during the campaign.


Regardless, assembling an almost-all-white (one Indian) news staff in an era that prizes diversity is massively irresponsible.  


Partly as a result of this "one-think", The Daily Beast is woefully devoid of any original content at present.  It's a cross between the online version of The New York Daily News, and The Huffington Post.  If "news is advertising" as Brown says in the video, The Beast has terrible ad content.


For some reason I can see this lasting two or three years -- tops.  That's not because of the staffing, but the total package.  There's nothing original here.  

Interview: New NYT.com GM Denise Warren: | paidContent.org

Interview: New NYT.com GM Denise Warren: Tip-toeing Into Aggregation With Guarded Optimism | paidContent.org: “As if heading advertising for the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Media Group wasn’t tough enough in this climate, Denise Warren is taking on the role of GM of NYTimes.com as the site fends off increased challenges from competitors and the economy. Warren has been chief advertising officer of the NYT Media Group for three years and has been with The New York Times Company for 20 years.”

Oakland Raiders Stink - New England Up 42 to 20 In Rain-Soaked Game

I've been an Oakland Raiders fan since I was little, and went to a lot of games.  I've seen bad years, but this one's too much to take.  For the second straight year, the Oakland Raiders are guaranteed of a high -- second pick in 2009 -- NFL Draft pick.   It's not that the Raiders need the players; the Raiders need a coach and a system.

Right now, they're losing 42 to 20 to the New England Patriots at the Raiders home, a windy, cold Oakland Coliseum.   The main problem is the defense; good in places, the Pats no-huddle strategy got them off guard.  What's the best answer?  Blitz and from different angles.  Make them think about what they're doing.  But the Raiders didn't do that.

Still, this 3 and 10 team could come back.  It's 3:30 in the third quarter, and the Raiders just need to score three more touchdowns and a field goal to win.  

Oh, and hold the Pats to zero additional points.

Let's see what happens.  

David Gregory on Meet The Press - White males rule Sunday news shows - SfGate.com

White males rule Sunday news shows: “This is David Gregory's first Sunday as the host of NBC's long-running "Meet the Press," beginning what one of his rivals calls a new, post-Tim Russert era for the network Sunday public affairs shows. But some wonder if anything will really change.

Not only does Gregory's promotion in the aftermath of Russert's death ensure that all the shows will continue to be hosted by white men, roughly 80 percent of the newsmakers and pundits who have appeared on the shows over the past eight years also have been white men, according to an ongoing study by the liberal think tank Media Matters for America. (The organization's latest figures for "Fox News Sunday" are from 2005-06. In that period, 80 percent of the show's guests were male and 82 percent were white.)”

Bailout’s critics? Republicans from states with foreign automakers | Muckety.com - See the news

Bailout’s toughest critics were Republicans from states with foreign automakers | Muckety.com - See the news: “Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, for instance, took a particularly harsh tone with auto executives, suggesting their restructuring bids “are not a serious set of plans.”

Since the 1990s, Alabama has won three assembly plants, from Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai, and an engine plant by Toyota.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who slammed the bailout plan Thursday, has a Toyota plant in Georgetown.

And Bob Corker of Tennessee, who played a starring role in efforts to broker a last-minute Senate compromise Thursday, has the American headquarters of Japan’s Nissan, several Nissan plants and a planned factory by Volkswagon in his state.

But Corker’s compromise effort collapsed after the United Auto Workers refused to accept Corker’s insistence of wage and benefit concessions in 2009 to create parity with workers at U.S. factories owned by Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai and other foreign companies.

“We offered any date in the year 2009 - any date - any date, just when will we actually get there,” Corker said on the Senate floor after his proposed deal collapsed.”

Barack Obama Outed Rod Blagojevich - Gov Punished By Obama

llinois Governor Rod Blagojevich paid the price for defying President-Elect Barack Obama. In setting-up a pay-to-play scheme for Obama's vacated Senate seat, he rejected Obama's choice Valerie Jarrett and in doing so, caused Obama to pull the strings to have Rod Blagojevich arrested.

"Change" declared the word of the year -- in JAPAN!

Using a brush to write the single character on a wooden platform as tourists looked on at Kiyomizu temple in the ancient capital of Kyoto, chief monk Seihan Mori declared “change” to be Japan’s character of the year.

The selection of the kanji character, pictured at the right, is “...an expression of the Japanese people’s wishes to see political, economic and societal changes..." as they anticipate Obama's term according to Mori.

The Kiyomizu temple dates back to 798, and its present buildings were constructed in 1633. It takes its name from the Otowa waterfall, where three channels of water drop into a pond within the complex, which runs off the nearby hills.

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