NEW YORK, NY Nov. 14 (DPI) — The New York Times and The Washington Post, which once ruled American journalism in an alliance of collegial competitors, are now taking petty potshots as their status wanes — and their interests increasingly collide.
Yesterday’s quips were jarring in their small-mindedness: The Times, on a front-screen headline on the hiring of a new editor, described the Washington newspaper as “ever shrinking”. The Times editors since removed the header, leaving no trace of it today.
Perhaps in response, a Post writer, reporting on the hiring of 58-year-old Martin Baron as the Post’s executive editor, added to his report last night: “From 1996 until 1999, (Baron) was a senior editor at the New York Times, where former colleagues said he roiled longtime Washington correspondents by sometimes asking for additional reporting.”
Ouch!
This all came on the same day Slate.com dredged up a chart showing that Google’s worldwide ad revenues now exceed the total advertising revenues of the US newspaper and magazine industries. The chart was accompanied by snarky commentary on how Google deceived the newspaper industry years back:
Beyond market forces antagonizing the two enterprises, there’s more history: In 2003 The Times company took over the International Herald Tribune, ending a long partnership with The Post, in a bitter shotgun divorce that played out publicly.