United States

WASHINGTON -- Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer leaked the identity of a CIA operative to Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus during a 2003 phone call, Pincus testified today as the first defense witness in the CIA leak trial. Pincus was one of the first reporters to learn the identity of Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and prominent Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson...

Steve Spendlove realizes that after last month's layoffs of most of the news-gathering staff at tiny KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa there will be less local coverage. The Clear Channel executive overseeing the station knows there won't be reporters to investigate local scandals, let alone do those fluffy woman-turns-100 features that make TV anchors cock their heads and smile at the end of a newscast. But...

US Internet advertising revenues may have grown more than 30 per last year, but many corporate advertisers and advertising agencies are concerned that their online ad impressions may not be properly counted. Respondents indicated two areas where audited Web metrics are useful: 91 per cent said it's important to audit ad impressions and delivery, while 89 per cent felt it's important to verify...

He was known as the father of modern newspaper design. He helped redesign thousands of newspapers, wrote 27 journalism books and won numerous awards. But toward the end of his life, Edmund Arnold took simple pleasure in creating birthday cards for his fellow residents of Brandon Oaks Retirement Community. Arnold died Friday at Lewis-Gale Medical Center. He was 93. Arnold began his newspaper career...

Advertising forecasters predict double-digit growth for online media outlets in the new year. Traditional media, including television and newspapers, are slated for flat growth, at best, during 2007. We all know what this means. The big media companies are migrating to the Internet as fast as possible, simultaneously laying off workers and cutting budgets in their traditional broadcast and print...

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of planned job cuts in the U.S. media sector surged 88 percent last year and that trend will likely continue as readers shift from print to online services, a study on Thursday showed. For all of last year, the media industry announced 17,809 job cuts, up sizably from the 9,453 cuts announced the prior year, according to the job outplacement tracking firm...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The perjury trial of former White House official Lewis "Scooter" Libby begins on Tuesday, but the investigation has already laid bare the Bush administration's internal workings and damaged the independence of the news media. Vice President Dick Cheney is among the prominent government officials and journalists expected to testify in a case that will examine the White House...

NEW YORK, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Time Inc., the top U.S. magazine publisher, will cut 289 jobs from its estimated 11,300 workforce to slash costs as it invests more heavily in Internet properties, the company said on Thursday. The Time Warner Inc. (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) division, which owns properties including Time and People magazines, will cut 117 business jobs and 172 editorial jobs, a...

When it launched its first Web sites a year and a half ago, Backfence held the promise of creating a collection of virtual town squares. By letting residents post news about their communities, it joined the emerging citizen journalism movement and was the first such start-up to land a sizable amount of money from private investors who shared its vision. Now Vienna-based Backfence has lost three...

NEW YORK, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The New York Times Co. (NYT.N: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Thursday it aims to cut about 125 jobs at its New England Media Group, including 19 editorial staff at the Boston Globe, through voluntary buyouts and outsourcing. The Globe's publisher Steve Ainsley said in a letter to employees that the buyouts would be offered in the first quarter to employees with at...