Knoxville News Sentinel:

One company, Scripps Networks Interactive Inc., will include the cable networks HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living Network and Great American Country and online comparison shopping sites Shopzilla and uSwitch. The other, E.W. Scripps, will have 10 broadcast television stations and newspapers in 15 U.S. markets, the News Sentinel, Rocky Mountain News in Denver and The Commercial Appeal in Memphis.

The deal will give E.W. Scripps shareholders one share of the new Scripps Interactive company for each share of E.W. Scripps stock, minus a 1-3 reverse split for E.W. Scripps stock.

I'm not real good at math, but does this mean the Scripps board puts the value of their cable/interactive business at three times the value of their broadcast TV and print business?

At any rate, we hope it's not too lonely out there for the newspapers being pushed out to sea on the ice floe. If Scripps goes, Knoxville will be left with, what, the Journal and Knoxville Voice? Not that there's anything wrong with those fine publications, but still.

The Knoxville News Sentinel is following the Maryville Daily Times lead. Hopefully it won't also lead to this.

The Knoxville Voice (Knoxville's only independent alternative paper) is sporting a jazzy new website. Check out the new blogs, too.

The U.T. School of Journalism and Electronic Media's conference on web journalism hosted a presentation by Rob Curley of the Washington Post last night.

He gave an entertaining presentation on some of the incredible, award winning work he has done with interactive news websites over the years. Some of it is mind boggling.

Here are some brief notes from his 2+ hour presentation...

It's the end of an era.

Betty Bean has a retrospective about her friend and mentor Ron McMahan.

I once thought I wanted to be a journalist (until I found out how underpaid they are for how much work they do). Ron McMahan sounds like the kind of news man I would have wanted to work for.

Dane Baker's editorial that Carole posted about earlier today is now online.

Once again it illustrates how you sometimes have to read the alt-press to get the whole story that the mainstream press won't (or in the case of MP used to) report.

It also illustrates the civic value of locally owned, independent alternative media.

A taste:

By definition, corporate-owned media subordinate their reporting to the needs of profit-making, in terms of range of opinion expressed, sources selected for quotation and exclusion of facts that might threaten corporate interests. This is as true today as it was a century ago, when the rising influence of corporations over the press led John Dewey to note that “Power is power and must act, and it must act according to the nature of the machinery through which it operates. In this case, the machinery is business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents, and other means of publicity and propaganda.”

There's more. Be sure to read the conclusion.

The Mrs. picked up a copy of the latest Knoxville Voice yesterday, and I am impressed with how the only locally owned, independent alternative newspaper has grown and flourished since its humble launch.

The paper's layout keeps improving, and currently sports a hard, edgy, somewhat foreboding look that says "you should be paying attention to this and you probably haven't even heard about it!" and compels you to read and be outraged, amazed, informed, or at least entertained.

The current issue is an eclectic offering of great local writing and thought, with features, columns, reporting, and reviews that you won't find in the local mainstream media. Here's a sampler:

• Catch up on county corruption (check out the graph)

• Launch of the local Progressive Women's Coalition

• Policing the police

• Nothing recycled, nothing gained

• The Sentinel's shadow: Wake up and smell the ink

• Victorian theatrical current events cello rock

(And no, that last one is not "news of the weird", it's a feature profile of Rasputina, a group playing at Blue Cats this weekend.)

If you're looking for Don Williams, you'll find him at his new Knoxville Voice home. His latest column on tribal truths and false patriotism is poignant and thought-provoking, as usual. Check the "Commentary" section to see what Don has been up to and for more great writing from other contributors (including KnoxViews contributors Carole Borges and Michael Kaplan from time to time).

The Knoxville Voice website is a work in progress that keeps evolving. It's getting more in sync with the print edition, but also extending it with online features such as new blogs by Knoxville Voice writers (including Don Williams).

The other thing I noticed about the latest print issue is the growing number of advertisements. This bodes well for the future of the paper, and proves there are local merchants, artists, and other interests willing to support alternative points of view (and, of course, reach a diverse, desirable demographic in the process).

Publisher Dane Baker is doing fantastic work at the Knoxville Voice. He's clearly committed, and in it for the long haul to "give voice to issues, events and people in our community often underrepresented in mainstream media" as stated in the Knoxville Voice's mission statement.

If you're downtown for First Friday or one of the other events, the Knoxville Voice is hosting another open house (with free food and free beer!), Friday, Aug. 3, from 6PM to 10PM, 402 S. Gay St., Suite 202 (just above MAST Gen. Store). Stop by, say hi, and show your support for Knoxville's only independent newspaper.

Fox News guy Rupert Murdoch has sealed the deal to acquire Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal.

There's apparently lots of angst about the Wall Street Journal becoming too conservative on Murdoch's watch. The Wall Street Journal? Too conservative? Could it be any more conservative?

At least now we can now expect a more "fair and balanced" Dow Jones Industrial Average. I predict 20,000 by November.

The very best quote on the deal so far, though, is from our good friend Brian Hornback, who says:

This is a good news, while mass paranoia exist amongst the liberal global whiners about news being biased or unbiased. Fox and Rupert Murdock are fair and balanced, not biased.

After all on a global scene, you have "Hanoi Jane" running the other National Cable News. Now, that my friends is biased news coverage.

Unless I'm missing something, that's probably news to CNN and Jane Fonda.

Got a pleasant surprise in the mailbox yesterday. It's the Rolling Stone Fortieth Anniversary special double edition, with a cool metallic cover and everything.

Read more...

Our pal JustJohnny directs us to the new Seymour Herald newspaper website that he developed. It's another Django (the pure open source version) based site, and it is very slick.

And here's an interesting fact. Johnny says that all the content creation for print and web is done in the web publishing backend first, then output for print publishing. The classifieds, obits, police beat etc. all come from xml created by Django and imported directly into InDesign. He says this has reduced layout time from 6-8 hours to about three.

Nice work!

(For some reason I didn't know about the Seymour Herald, but I've added it to the Local Media links.)