Jon Landman

It's a late, sleepy summer Friday, but New York Times online editor Jon Landman has some choice words for Rupert Murdoch, Robert Thomson and The Wall Street Journal's online editor, Alan Murray, this afternoon.

Well, technically speaking, he doesn't name any of those people in his weekly memo, or the paper itself, but in his weekly briefing designed to discuss accomplishments for nytimes.com, he comes out swinging! Namely, he says wsj.com has accomplished nothing!

As Mr.Landman writes:

There's some financial newspaper out there, on Wall Street or maybe in midtown, we aren't sure. There's new ownership, it seems, some rich guy who says he wants his paper to be more like ours.  read more »

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Michael Calderone at Politico is reporting that Jon Landman is a top candidate for the chief editor job at The Washington Post, which is expected to be vacated sometime next year by Len Downie.

Landman apparently met with Downie last week, though the nature of the visit isn't clear. Landman sent Calderone an e-mail saying, "I won't confirm, deny or discuss."

O.K., but we will! Calderone reports that Landman now joins a short list of candidates that includes Newsweek's Jon Meacham, ex-Journal editor Marcus Brauchli, Post columnist David Ignatius and Post managing editor Philip Bennett.

 

Deputy managing editor and digital honcho Jon Landman sent a staff memo around the New York Times today, offically announcing Urbanite, "a daily newsletter devoted to some of the best stuff to do in New York today." It is, he writes, "the second-biggest premiere in New York this week." Edited by Arts & Leisure chief Ariel Kaminer, and written by former Boldfacer Melena Ryzik—writer, reporter, and snappy dresser—,the daily mailer has already made headlines this week on Jossip.

The "second-biggest premiere" status places the newsletter's debut below Borat—but above Volver! The memo follows.  read more »

Jon Landman's digital empire at NYT.com is growing like a well-watered weed—word comes today that the entire political staff of The New York Times will be contributing to a new Times blog. That blog will cover the races for Senate, Governor and Attorney General in New York.

Today The New York Times announced it will take the opportunity to cash out its $100-million investment in the Discovery Times channel. "[I]t has become clear that our investment dollar is better spent developing video for our own nytimes.com," says the memo, reproduced below.

In the April 10 issue, the Observer reported, based on documents obtained by the Rocky Mountain News, that the Times might take advantage of a window in its agreement with Discovery Communications that would allow the paper to sell its stake.  read more »

Just asking: What new entry in the crowded and antagonistic celebrity-glossy field is making rivals  read more »

It didn't take 85 days, but Judith Miller was slow enough to cooperate with the New York Times team reporting on her case that some readers ended up missing the paper's long-awaited Miller coverage on Oct. 16.

The paper's two-story Sunday package--a 5,800-word account of Miller's role in the Valerie Plame affair and Miller's own first-person tale of her conversations with vice-presidential chief of staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby--missed the deadline to be included in the bulldog edition, 270,000 copies distributed nationally.

Deputy managing editor Jon Landman, who oversaw the reporting team, said the slipped deadline was a result of Miller's delaying. Throughout the previous week, Landman said, Miller gave conflicting signals about whether she would write a story herself or not.

"We didn't have her first-person account," Landman said. "We didn't have her perspective on things. We got it a little before noon [Oct. 14]. It was very frustrating.

"There was lots of off-and-on and on-and-off," Landman added. "And that was frustrating too."

The reporters on the story--Don Van Natta Jr., Adam Liptak, Clifford Levy and Janny Scott--had been working to complete a piece with or without Miller's participation, Landman said. But when Miller turned in her first-person piece late on the morning of Oct. 14, the reporters had to race to re-report details to reflect her assertions, with less than a day to spare before deadline.

Executive editor Bill Keller, who was traveling in China, reviewed a partial draft. Copy editors received the piece by 9 a.m. on Saturday, but it was too late to turn the package around for the noon bulldog close.

--Gabriel Sherman   read more »

Correction: The number of copies in the national bulldog edition was about 270,000, not 100,000 as originally reported in this item.

New York Times fix-it editor Jonathan Landman, having turned the refurbished culture report over to Sam Sifton, now finds the rattling chassis of the Times' Web and television operations parked under his shade tree. His August 23 start date should give him somewhere between one and five weeks to get the paper's TimeSelect partial-pay Web system up and running in September, as announced earlier.

Press Release THE NEW YORK TIMES NAMES JONATHAN I. LANDMAN DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR

NEW YORK, July 22, 2005 - The New York Times announced today that Jonathan I. Landman, assistant managing editor, has been named deputy managing editor, responsible for digital journalism. The position will be effective August 23 and incorporates most of the responsibilities previously held by Michael Oreskes, who will become the new executive editor of the International Herald Tribune, as announced in May. In his new role, Mr. Landman will oversee Times Web and television content. He will continue to report to Executive Editor Bill Keller.

In making the announcement, Mr. Keller said, "Jon is one of our most creative editors and a journalist of the utmost integrity. He will be open to the immense potential of the young digital medium, but he will be anchored in the values that give us our credibility and authority. He is, moreover, adept at assembling great talent and making ambitious things happen. There is nothing quite as infectious as Jon Landman when he's excited about something--and about our ability to make waves on the Web, he is very excited indeed."  read more »

In his new role, Mr. Landman will have oversight of the digital newsroom as well as newsroom responsibility for Times television journalism. He will serve as the newsroom's representative on the Company's joint venture with Discovery Communications, Inc., the Discovery Times Channel.

Mr. Landman, 52, returned to assistant managing editor and member of The Times masthead in May of this year. He had been acting culture editor from 2004 to 2005. Previously, he was the assistant managing editor for enterprise from 2003 to 2004. He had been metropolitan editor of The Times since 1999 and editor of The Times's Week in Review since 1994. Previously, he served as deputy editor of the Washington bureau since 1992; assistant editor in Washington from 1991; assistant metropolitan editor from 1990 and assistant national editor from 1989. He joined The Times as a copy editor in 1987.

The Transom's reporters have recently been scolded by a fashion reporter for looking "terrified and clearly out of place" at fashionable events. (And: "SO nerdy, and they dress/ act like it! They walk around with glasses and little notepads. Nobody is going to open up to people like that!")

So it was with great interest that we saw that fashion powers-that-be have weighed in on two distinguished newswomen of the New York Times: prisoner of principle Judith Miller and prisoner of the Culture department, Arts & Leisure deputy editor Ariel Kaminer. They're two of our very favorite power journo-machers... but do their fashions convey their schwang?

As for Ms. Miller's big day in court this week, The Washington Post said:

She was also carrying a black shoulder bag whose most distinguishing feature was its ability to keep a multitude of writing tools within easy reach. [...] She was wearing the sort of practical, comfortable and just-stylish-enough clothes that can be worn in any situation [...] With her sensible pageboy and its trim bangs, she has the look of an English lecturer at Barnard. [...] She wore reporter clothes -- almost a suit, but not really.

Clearly, nobody is going to open up to people like that.

As for Ms. Kaminer: in a spread in the August, 2005, issue of Lucky magazine (p.158), she looks strangely, wondrously radiant for someone, in The Transom's opinion, who has been forced to sit so very close to former culture boss Jon Landman for so long. Though she does not, surely, appear as radiant as other members of the Arts department, nor could she have that special glow spread by a television critic in the office. (Perhaps this is a good place for The Transom to disclose that it once lifted a small suitcase of money from Arts & Leisure in exchange for a small suitcase of words.)

What The Transom is saying is: the New York Times, though not a terribly womanly place, is in fact a very fertile place at the moment. It is perhaps a dangerous and wonderful time to have ovaries.  read more »

But back on topic: "[T]he Times," Ms. Kaminer told Lucky, "is obviously a place where the emphasis is on working hard, not dressing up." (She also notes that in her first job, her fashion look was more like "an attempt to convince people I'd slept in my clothes," a sentiment the Transom can really get behind.)

And most importantly: "If you can't compete," Ms. Kaminer said to Lucky, "don't: nothing's more uncomfortable than looking like you're trying too hard." Clearly it's damned if you do and damned if you don't for The Transom. And so it is decided: The Transom shall err on the side of schlub. —Choire Sicha

Jonathan Landman, the newly appointed culture editor of The New York Times , said that he's "rusty a  read more »