new york times

Over and over, magazines and newspapers miss the truth about business by a mile. They're so consistently bad, in fact, that the media has been a leading contrary indicator of stock prices and business trends. Here are seven classic examples.

Tribune CEO Randy Michaels is expected to resign after The New York Times reported he has fostered a sexist "frat house" culture at the news company. Employees said he encouraged sexual innuendo, profanity, poker parties and other bawdy behavior, according to the story.

CNN host Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor who resigned amid a prostitution scandal, was rejected for membership at the Harvard Club in New York City. The club rarely turns down qualified candidates, and Spitzer is a Harvard Law School graduate.

Starbucks is launching a new digital network Wednesday that it says will give customers access to free e-books, movies and access to some paid news sites. The move is meant to attract customers and customer loyalty, and also to provide Starbucks with a new revenue stream.

Two newspaper companies, The New York Times Co. and McClatchy, both saw advertising revenues decline in the third quarter, compared to a year ago. And that's after last year's ad sales plunged from 2008.

In a scandal that raises troubling questions about journalistic ethics in the Web era, writers for Breakingviews, a media property owned by Thompson Reuters, failed to disclose that they owned shares in companies they wrote about.

The rest of the industry may be envisioning an all-digital future, by Frank Bennack Jr., vice chairman and CEO of Hearst Corp. is sanguine about the prospects for dead-tree newspapers. "They'll be around as ink and paper for as long as the eye can see," Bennack said Monday.

If you have any doubt that The Wall Street Journal is fast becoming steeped in the corporate culture of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., check these quotations. Like Fox News, it declares victory (prematurely) and expresses contempt for rivals.

Nick Bilton's compulsive urge to multitask and unusual career path give him a unique perspective on the future of the media business. In a video Q&A, The New York Times writer talks about his new book, I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works.

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