One of the most respected media outlets in São Paulo, Brazil, the newspaper Jornal da Tarde (JT in Portugese) released its final edition on Wednesday, Oct. 31, after 46 years. The newspaper decorated its farewell cover with a photo taken from the Itália building, a postcard picture of the city, and the line, "Obrigado, São Paulo" (Thank you, São Paulo).
Press workers in Mexico face poor wages, job insecurity and a high risk work environment. "The profession's standing has diminished because people know it's dangerous to be a journalist and, furthermore, it doesn't pay well," said Ariel Muñoz, president of the University of Morelia, in an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
According to the National Association of Newspapers in Brazil (or ANJ in Portuguese), members that followed the association’s recommendation to abandon Google News have seen a decrease in web traffic of only 5 percent.
The Houston Chronicle unceremoniously closed its Mexico City bureau on Friday, Oct. 19, ending veteran foreign correspondent and bureau chief Dudley Althaus' 23-year run in the country, reported McClatchy Newspapers’ Tim Johnson on the blog Mexico Unmasked on Sunday, Oct. 21.
The National Newspaper Association of Brazil (ANJ) said the decision of its members to opt out of Google News en masse has made the service “very deficient” because it no longer has “the content with the highest credibility and quality in the nation.” However, ANJ reiterated its disposition to negotiate with Google a financial compensation for the use of the newspapers’ content.
For the first time ever, online advertising revenue is set to eclipse print ad sales in the United States by the end of 2012, Poynter reported on its website Thursday, Oct. 18. Climbing online ad sales will likely not lend a hand to struggling legacy media, however.
Brazil’s main newspapers abandoned Google News after the world’s top search engine refused to compensate them for the rights to their headlines. The mass rush started last year when the National Association of Newspapers in Brazil, or ANJ, began recommending its members to opt out of the service.
Documents found by police in Nicaragua contain the name of a top executive with Mexico’s media giant Televisa in a recent money laundering scandal involving the two countries, according to the radio network Noticias MVS.
Costa Rica’s oldest English-language newspaper, The Tico Times, announced on its website that it would stop publishing its print edition as of Friday, Sept. 28. The Associated Press reported that the 56-year-old newspaper laid off its entire 16-person staff on Tuesday, Sept. 25, and will restructure its business into an online-only publication.
Recent data showing print advertising revenue continues to decline in the newspaper industry has emerged just as some observers suggest newspapers should consider price increases for their print product, a strategy that doesn't impress one Wall Street Journal editor.
On Sunday, July 29, the Brazilian newspaper O Globo will launch a new design for its printed edition, to commemorate 87 years of publishing, reported the news site Jornalistas na Web.
If there is one message that can summarize the conversation between New York Times columnist David Carr and Professor Rosental Calmon Alves, director and founder of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, it is that, in today's journalism, if you want to do something, don't just think about it -- do it.