Month: January 2011

  • LOS ANGELES (AP) – News Corp. is now set to unveil the world’s first iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, in New York next Wednesday.

    CEO Rupert Murdoch will take the wraps off the tablet publication at the Guggenheim Museum. He will appear with Apple Inc.’s vice president of Internet services, Eddy Cue.

    The company sent out invitations to journalists on Thursday.

    The original announcement was to take place on Jan. 19 in San Francisco, but the event was postponed to work out technical kinks in the subscription plan.

    Apple CEO Steve Jobs was originally set to share the stage, but he has gone on a medical leave of absence.

    Journalists have been working on the publication at multiple U.S. bureaus including Los Angeles and New York. The Daily will cover general news, culture and entertainment and will include video.

    News Corp. has revealed few details about The Daily. It has not said, for instance, what it will charge readers, if anything. But the company has been at the forefront of efforts to get subscription fees for digital content. The website of the The Wall Street Journal, which News Corp. bought in 2007, has required a paid subscription for 14 years, and the newspaper charges for its iPad app.

     



  • When it comes to truth in labeling, House Republicans are getting off to a poor start with their constantly repeated references to the new health care law as “job-killing.”

    We find:

    • Independent, nonpartisan experts project only a “small” or “minimal” impact on jobs, even before taking likely job gains in the health care and insurance industries into account.
    • The House Republican leadership, in a report issued Jan. 6, badly misrepresents what the Congressional Budget Office has said about the law. In fact, CBO is among those saying the effect “will probably be small.”
    • The GOP also cites a study projecting a 1.6 million job loss — but fails to mention that the study refers to a hypothetical employer mandate that is not part of the new law.
    • The same study cited by the GOP also predicts an offsetting gain of 890,000 jobs in hospitals, doctors’ offices and insurance companies — a factor not mentioned by the House leadership.

    There’s little doubt that the new law will likely lead to somewhat fewer low-wage jobs. That’s mainly because of the law’s requirement that, generally, firms with more than 50 workers pay a penalty if they fail to provide health coverage for their workers. One leading health care expert, John Sheils of The Lewin Group, puts the loss at between 150,000 and 300,000 jobs, at or near the minimum wage. And Sheils says that relatively small loss would be partly offset by gains in the health care industry.