Employment tumbles again at newspapers, and First Look’s plans shift

Good morning. Here are 10 (OK, maybe not exactly 10) media stories.

1. The newspaper business lost 1,300 employees last year: “The overall revenue figure, as measured by the Newspaper Association of America, was down 2.6 percent in 2013, close to an even match with the percentage of news job cuts for the year,” Rick Edmonds writes. (Poynter) | One small bright spot: Minority employment was up, after years of stagnating. (Poynter)
2. An update on First Look Media: “We have definitely rethought some of our original ideas and plans,” Pierre Omidyar writes. (First Look Media) | Jay Rosen: “For First Look the way to a large user base isn’t ‘one big flagship website’ or an ‘everything you need to know’ news app to go up against, say, the Guardian or npr.org.” (PressThink) | Mathew Ingram: “More than anything else, what Omidyar is describing sounds like a real-time journalism lab, one that will test out different ways of interacting with readers around a topic — albeit a lab that happens to have a quarter of a billion dollars behind it.” (Gigaom)
3. Margot Adler, R.I.P.: The NPR reporter died at 68. She “helped shape a lot we would call the NPR sound today – human, curious, conversational,” David Folkenflik says in his report. (NPR) | Adler “said that being a Wiccan priestess and an NPR reporter ended up working out ‘pretty fine,’ but there were times where she felt discriminated against.” (WNPR)
4. The New York Times will use online panels as part of its polling: “This is a very big deal in the survey world,” Pew Research Center director of survey research Scott Keeter says. (Pew)
5. Paper runs wrong photo: The New Zealand Herald ran a photo of dead “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn in a story about Staff Sgt. Guy Boyland, an Israeli soldier who died in Gaza. (L.A. Times) | Editor Shayne Currie: “I would like to reiterate how seriously we are taking this error and apologise again.” (The New Zealand Herald)
6. Stephen A. Smith apologized for remarks about domestic violence: ESPN says, “As his apology demonstrates, he recognizes his mistakes and has a deeper appreciation of our company values.” (@richarddeitsch) | Tom Ley: “Horseshit Apology.” (Deadspin) | Richard Sandomir: “If he is not suspended, it suggests that we need to understand ESPN’s discipline handbook. How offensive need someone be to earn a week or more off? (NYT)
7. More sports media: Washington Times Editor John Solomon says the paper’s content partnership with the Washington Redskins will be transparent: “You’ll know what the Washington Times did, and you’ll know what comes from the Redskins.” (The Washington Post) | Washington, D.C., station WJFK-FM ran a promo for newly promoted host Chad Dukes that featured him calling a rival host a “fag.” It removed the promo after Dave McKenna wrote about it. (Deadspin)
8. Not everyone reads on a tablet: News sites have to somehow go “mobile first” without “underserving the 9-to-5 audience that’ll probably be looking at a big screen for some years to come.” (Nieman) | Sam Kirkland wondered a similar wonder a while back: “Do mobile-friendly redesigns run the risk of frustrating desktop users?” (Poynter)
9. Ira Glass finds Shakespeare unemotional: Tim Carmody: “Will bespectacled literary nerds have to choose between Chicago’s adopted son Ira and our old friend Stratford Billy?” (Kottke.org) | Alyssa Rosenberg: Our “contemporary conversation about Shakespeare would be a lot more interesting if, rather than using the Bard’s name as a synonym for unimpeachable greatness, we could talk about what works of Shakespeare we like best, which do not resonate with us and why.” (The Washington Post) | DRAMATIC TWIST INVADES ROUNDUP ITEM: As it happens, in October, Mike Daisey plans to perform a series of monologues about why Shakespeare’s work matters. “I mean, it would be a little odd in any event,” Daisey writes, “but of all the people to have made it a little uproar…” (Mike Daisey’s Facebook page) | Related: Glass is a total gearhead. (Gizmodo)
10. Job moves, edited by Benjamin Mullin: Fareed Zakaria will be a contributing editor with Atlantic Media starting in September. Zakaria will remain the host of “Fareed Zakaria GPS” and continue to write for The Washington Post. (Poynter) | Bob Cusack has been named editor in chief of The Hill. Formerly, he was managing editor there. He will replace Hugo Gurdon, who will be editorial director at the Washington Examiner. News editor Ian Swanson will succeed Cusack as managing editor and lobbying editor Dustin Weaver will replace Swanson as news editor. Scott Wong, Politico reporter and author of The Huddle, will be joining The Hill covering congressional Republicans. Diana Marrero, a former national account executive for The Washington Post, will be director of content partnerships at The Hill. Shannan Bowen, formerly an audience development manager at Atlantic Media Strategies, will be director of audience engagement at The Hill. (The Hill) | Jon Auerbach is executive producer at CNN’s Reliable Sources. Previously, he was a supervising producer at “John King, USA.” (TV Newser) | Shana Hale has been named creative director at Better Homes and Gardens. She had been art director there. (shanahale.com) | Malika Touré has joined Ad Age as a reporter. Formerly, she was an intern at Creativity. (Ad Age) | Job of the day: The Seattle Times is hiring a Microsoft reporter. Get your résumés in! (Journalism Jobs) | Send Ben your job moves: bmullin@poynter.org.

Suggestions? Corrections? Would like me to send you this roundup each morning? Please email me: abeaujon@poynter.org.