Karmazin credits some of his sales success to a new ad campaign. I guess he has to say that inasmuch as he approved the campaign, but I have a hard time believing it. I’ve seen this ad several times, but until I read this interview, I had no idea it was for Sirius (SIRI):

Meanwhile, maybe it’s just self-interest/projection, but I was struck by the fact that Karmazin seemed to go out of his way to tell the Reuters staff how little he thought of it.

Or maybe he was talking about journalists in general: After being greeted by a dozen Reuters reporters at the company’s Global Media Summit,” Karmazin declared that if he was running the news service, only one of them would be employed.

Here’s Reuters media reporter Robert MacMillan’s account of the exchange, via Twitter:

Here’s the internal memo from Journal Editor-in-Chief Robert Thomson:

From: Thomson, Robert
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:25 AM
To: WSJ All News Staff; Newswires_USERS
Subject: Boston

Colleagues,
Today we told our team in Boston that we are closing the bureau in its present form. The economic background to the closure is painfully obvious to us all. An investigative function will remain in Boston, but the core reporting team will be disbanded, though all nine reporters affected will certainly be able to apply for openings elsewhere on the paper. Coverage of the Boston mutual fund industry will switch to the Money and Investing team and we are creating an enhanced New York-based education team.

Any such decision inevitably stirs apprehension and uncertainty, but there are no plans, nascent or otherwise, to close any other U.S. or international bureau. Meanwhile, the Newswires bureau and the MarketWatch team in Boston will remain at their present staffing levels.

That there has been truly great reporting under the generalship of Gary Putka out of Boston over many, many years is not in doubt. But we remain in the midst of a profound downturn in advertising revenue and thus must think the unthinkable.

Robert

In a conference call with reporters, a broad group of professors and civil rights leaders said that the important social benefits of the settlement–which would allow Google to make millions of out-of-print books accessible online–are getting lost in the discussion of the settlement, which has drawn a fierce group of critics hoping to block a federal court from approving it.

Google helped arrange the event, which the participants said they called to bring more attention to the settlement’s benefits.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Why did Twitter co-founder Biz Stone just have to spend 228 words on a blog post, explaining that he and his company are not opposed to advertising?

Because, on Monday, Stone said this to a room full of Reuters reporters: “There are a few reasons why we’re not pursuing advertising–one is it’s just not quite as interesting to us.”

So, you can see where the confusion might have come up.

To his credit, Stone used his post to add some nuance, which is always a good thing. To wit: Twitter doesn’t plan on selling banner ads on the service, and presumably doesn’t plan on selling any ads, period.

But Twitter is happy to help marketers and advertisers who want to use the service to push product. And Stone left himself plenty of wiggle room with these lines: “Facilitating connections between businesses and individuals in meaningful and relevant ways is compelling. We’re going to leave the door open for exploration in this area.”

Stone also talked to Reuters about plans to roll out some kind of revenue-generating products–because, recall, Twitter currently has next-to none–by the end of the year.

“It doesn’t have to be this super home run in terms of making billions of dollars….But it has to show a little bit of signs of life, telling folks, ‘Yes Twitter can be a sustainable business.’”

The Reuters team apparently didn’t press Stone about what exactly he had in mind, but I don’t think he and fellow co-founder Evan Williams will get a similar pass next Tuesday when they kick off the seventh edition of the D: All Things Digital conference and sit down for a Q&A with All Things Digital Co-Executive Editors Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg.

Far be it from me to suggest a question to Boss Swisher, but I can guess at a couple that might come up. For instance: “What amount of cash would an acquirer like Google (GOOG) or Microsoft (MSFT) have to pony up to get you guys to sell? And are there any companies out there you just won’t sell to?”

One question I can answer in advance: What’s the best way to track the D7 conference via Twitter?

Glad you asked!

You have several options: You can follow @allthingsd, our official conference account, as well as the accounts for Kara Swisher, Walt Mossberg, John Paczkowski, Katie Boehret, and me, Peter Kafka, all of whom will be tweeting as much as we can from D–when we’re not onstage interviewing or backstage blogging. And you can also search for D7-related Tweets using the #D7 tag.

Katie is already taking requests from Twitter followers about topics she should be tweeting about next week, so I’ll do the same. And if you don’t actually want to follow me on Twitter, you can reach me via plain old email: peter@allthingsd.com.

Corrections and Amplications

We updated the hashmark to use for following D7-related tweets from #d7conference to #D7. It’s more direct and leaves more room for the rest of your tweet!

Yesterday a group of journalists whose personal phone records were scrutinized by investigators working for H-P as part of the investigation sued the company, its former chairwoman Patricia Dunn, and former ethics chief Kevin Hunsaker. Bringing suit against the company in separate legal filings were CNET reporters Dawn Kawamoto, Stephen Shankland and Thomas Krazit, and Associated Press reporter Rachel Konrad. Each seeks damages for “illegal and reprehensible conduct” and invasion of privacy. “Defendants conspired to and intentionally intruded into the plaintiffs solitude and private affairs,” the reporters allege, claiming a company hired by H-P used a controversial technique called “pretexting” to obtain their personal phone records. Pretexting is an illegal method of obtaining personal records through misrepresentation of someone’s identity.

HP, for its part, reiterated its regret over the affair, noting it had apologized to the people affected. “As we have said since last fall, H-P regrets these events, and we have apologized individually to those who were affected,” said Ryan Donovan, an H-P spokesman. “In an attempt to resolve this matter short of litigation, H-P made a substantial settlement offer to the reporters, their family members and a charity of their choice. Unfortunately, rather than respond to the offer, they have decided to sue. HP is disappointed by their decision and will defend itself.”

A tough break for H-P, which has suffered untold damage to its once storied reputation, sadly now just a storybook legend penned by H-P founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard.

Yesterday a group of journalists whose personal phone records were scrutinized by investigators working for H-P as part of the investigation sued the company, its former chairwoman Patricia Dunn, and former ethics chief Kevin Hunsaker. Bringing suit against the company in separate legal filings were CNET reporters Dawn Kawamoto, Stephen Shankland and Thomas Krazit, and Associated Press reporter Rachel Konrad. Each seeks damages for “illegal and reprehensible conduct” and invasion of privacy. “Defendants conspired to and intentionally intruded into the plaintiffs solitude and private affairs,” the reporters allege, claiming a company hired by H-P used a controversial technique called “pretexting” to obtain their personal phone records. Pretexting is an illegal method of obtaining personal records through misrepresentation of someone’s identity.

HP, for its part, reiterated its regret over the affair, noting it had apologized to the people affected. “As we have said since last fall, H-P regrets these events, and we have apologized individually to those who were affected,” said Ryan Donovan, an H-P spokesman. “In an attempt to resolve this matter short of litigation, H-P made a substantial settlement offer to the reporters, their family members and a charity of their choice. Unfortunately, rather than respond to the offer, they have decided to sue. HP is disappointed by their decision and will defend itself.”

A tough break for H-P, which has suffered untold damage to its once storied reputation, sadly now just a storybook legend penned by H-P founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard.