NAKED CAPITALISM ON FINANCIAL REPORTING - The Sort of Wall Street Journal Reporting That Makes Me Crazy

In the early days of this blog, I’d regularly compare the Wall Street Journal’s reporting of a news story with that of the Financial Times, because in the vast majority of cases, the Journal had either gotten it badly wrong or was putting a very positive spin on a less obviously cheery fact set.

That abated somewhat as the Journal got to be less clueless about the credit markets and the crisis got so bad that the Journal quit falling for sources putting lipstick on pigs. But old habits die hard, and we see a reversion to form tonight.

The headline is a give-away: “Holiday Shopping Off to Strong Start.” And the supporting data?

– The holiday shopping season got off to a better-than-expected start, as retailers reeled in cautious shoppers with massive discounts like “buy one get one free” sweaters at Gap Inc. stores, $200 iPod Touch music players from Amazon.com, Inc., and 26-inch LCD TVs at Target Corp. sites for $299.

– In a survey of 3,370 shoppers, the National Retail Federation estimated shoppers spent an average of $372.57 over the weekend, up 7.2% over last year’s $347.55.

Gee, that sounds really good, particular given the gloom and doom expectations. But what does the story say later?

– A different survey, performed by ShopperTrak RCT Corp., found sales on Friday were up 3% over last year, to $10.6 billion. The gains marked a deceleration of growth compared with 2007, which posted 8% sales gains. ShopperTrak will release data for Saturday and Sunday on Monday.

Up 3% is still a good number, but the ShopperTrac survey appears to be based on real transaction data, not a survey. Surveys, particularly ones with random sampling (how is the Retail Federation survey done? Do they walk up to people in malls? You’d probably have lower participation by window shoppers or in-and-out buyers by mere virtue of the fact that they’d spend less time on premises). However, quick look at ShopperTrak’s website shows it promoting traffic count surveys, so I wonder how they came up with their figures. More disclosure about the methodologies would have been helpful.

But the Journal chose to lead with the more optimistic, and potentially less reliable survey (in fairness, in this case, so did the Financial Times, but with a tad less enthusiastic headline: “Black Friday bargains lift sales.” The New York Times gets a gold star for most nuanced headline: “Solid Start to Holiday Shopping, but Discounts Threaten Profits.”

But both stories stressed that sales were in heavily discounted items. From the Journal:

Although unprecedented discounts lured shoppers into stores, momentum ebbed Saturday, raising concerns that shoppers were merely exploiting the “door-buster” deals and then walking out of stores.

Indeed, as many as 70% of consumers purchased only deeply-discounted merchandise Friday, according to Charleston, S.C.-based America’s Research Group, which polled 700 shoppers over the weekend.

“They didn’t stay if they didn’t get the deals,” says Britt Beemer, the firm’s founder.

In other words, profitless revenues on many of the items sold, and other inventory left behind.

CNN WANTS TO KILL AP - EJC: CNN pitches a cheaper wire service to newspapers

CNN, in the afterglow of an election season of record ratings for cable news, is elbowing in on a new line of business: catering to financially strained newspapers looking for an alternative to The Associated Press. For nearly a month, a trial version of CNN’s wire service has been on display in some newspapers. But this week, editors from about 30 papers will visit Atlanta to hear CNN’s plans to broaden a service to provide coverage of big national and international events - and maybe local ones - on a smaller scale and at a lower cost than The A.P.

With its CNN Wire, the company is going up against the largest news-gathering operation in the world in The A.P., and it must convince editors that it can offer something that is well outside its broadcast expertise - which may not be a tough task given the dire circumstances newspapers face. In addition, a number of newspapers are unhappy with the cost of The A.P., a nonprofit corporation that is owned by the 1,400 papers that are its members. Some newspapers have even given notice that they intend to leave The A.P. (New York Times)

Analyst: Media to Cut Thousands of More Jobs

British media companies could cut tens of thousands more jobs in the coming years as the economic downturn hits an industry already ravaged by the Internet revolution. About half of all U.K. media jobs will be gone by 2013 under current economic conditions, according to Enders Analysis.

TVBizWire - Redstone Sells Midway Stake WSJ

Sumner Redstone is expected to announce the sale of his controlling stake in Midway Games, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Familiar Anchors Victims of Local Downturn NYTimes

Veteran anchors are losing their jobs at local stations, which don’t want to keep paying their big salaries while advertising.

AP: MORE ON SLAIN ANCHORWOMAN IN ARKASAS

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The parents of the television anchorwoman who was beaten to death said Monday there is evidence their daughter also was sexually assaulted, and that she broke her hand fighting her attacker.

Five days after a suspect was arrested in the Oct. 20 beating of KATV anchorwoman Anne Pressly, Guy and Patti Cannady said on NBC’s “Today” that the family still has many questions about the killing. Guy Cannady said that while the police theory is that Pressly interrupted a random robbery, he isn’t convinced of that.

“Well, it’s just unbelievable that a random robbery like this would involve the brutal slaying of Anne in this way. There just seems to be a lot more to the whole story than just a robbery gone bad,” he said. “I think he could have been a stalker.”

NEWSPAPERS LAYING OFF WORKERS HAVE DOUBLE DIGIT PROFITS

IFC’S MEDIA PROJECT: FEAR RULES THE NEWSROOM: DAN RATHER:

Tomorrow, on IFC Media Project episode 3, a clip with Dan Rather who gives his personal take on the current state of journalism in America. Basically, Rather says “fear rules the newsroom:”

TINA BROWN ON DAILY BEAST: OBAMAIZE MEET THE PRESS

The suits at NBC are doing far more agonizing over who should fill Tim Russert’s shoes on Meet the Press than Obama is over appointing his cabinet. They’re taking more time over it, too. I guess that’s because the president-elect has something the NBC front office doesn’t have: self-confidence. Unlike him, they’re so terrified of making a mistake they can’t make a decision.

That’s why they have tortured the long-suffering Tom Brokaw—who has gallantly occupied the transition chair—with a refusal to let him go back to his ranch in Montana and work on a book. Brokaw has done a stately job of holding the show together for the last five months but now that the election’s over you can see the boredom flaring from his iconic nostrils as he quizzes Senator Joe Lieberman or former Secretary of State James Baker while he waits for the brass to make up their goddamn minds.

One of the problems for NBC that was showcased during Russert’s media version of a state funeral in June is the way the chair of Meet the Press has become above all a Washington social and status position and only secondarily a journalistic assignment. Russert himself was not a journalist. He came from politics. His interviews either promoted his subjects or subjected them to opposition research. He was the Washington élite’s staff man, stoking their prejudices, whims, and attitudes. His regular-guy persona flattered the élite by making them imagine they were regular guys too.

Russert’s key gotcha device was to produce those laborious read-along quotes chosen to expose the hypocrisy or flip-flopping of whoever was in the hot seat. But did these quotes ever elicit interesting answers? They were always so long the interviewees had time to compose whole paragraph-long rebuttals from their store of mental talking points. Brokaw hasn’t retired this device but the next incumbent should. NBC seems to be paralyzed by the sense that whomever they chose has to be another Russert. Not so. Russert defined an era, but that era is over.

NEWSPAPERS IN DEEP DOO DOO

Newspaper Ad Revenue Falls Nearly $2 Billion - Second Quarter of Decline for Online

NEW YORK (AdAge.com — Nat Ives) — Newspaper ad revenue fell almost $2 billion in the third quarter for a record 18.1% decline, according to new statistics from the Newspaper Association of America.