"Employment of full-time professional editorial staff peaked at 56,900 in 1989. By the end of 2011, the last year for which data are available, employment had fallen by 24%, according to the American Society of News Editors. When figures for 2012 are compiled, newsroom workforce will likely be below 40,000." —Of the many bits in this survey of the current American news business—the cable news audience is stalled forever at 1.9 million people! TIME's newsstand sales dropped 27% in a year!—the 24% drop in newspaper editorial employees is the most instructive for those of you young people thinking about a major. (Journalism is always a terrible major.)

[...]

Today's New York Observer editorial page, as always, does not disappoint, in the form of this editorial in praise of movies and TV filming in New York City. Some New Yorkers may grumble about the inconveniences that are inevitable when nearly two dozen film crews are on location in popular neighborhoods or near trendy nightspots. Here’s a bit of advice for those iconoclasts: It’s August. Chill out. Take a long weekend in the Hamptons.

DON'T MIND IF I DO?

Sometimes you learn little things about how the Internet works and it's like, ohhhhhh! Of course! Here is a solicitation we received, which explains how an advertiser places editorial content on blogs. So that the content links to ("is sponsored by") what are basically spam farms. It's fascinating as a business model! It's very smart!