Outside Cable News

Via Charleston Daily Mail
Here’s how hotshot political groupies travel
Rolling studio on the road until November’s general election
by Matthew Thompson

It’s a rock ‘n’ roll tour bus for the 24-hour cable news generation.

The CNN Election Express bus has been parked at the University of Charleston for a week, and it’s a symbol of the nation’s focus on West Virginia’s primary election today.

With Hillary Clinton struggling to stay alive nationally but expected to win handily in West Virginia, the Mountain State’s political climate has been in the country’s political spotlight.

In addition to regular coverage on CNN, today’s primary election has been featured on many other national outlets. Fox had a reporter interview Gov. Joe Manchin about the presidential candidates’ stances on coal. NBC had Tim Russert talking about the West Virginia election this morning. The Washington Post had a crew in town today taking pictures of busy polls.

CNN, for one, is traveling in style.

The bus is a portable, autonomous news bureau with a studio, editing bays and all high-definition television equipment.

The bus is touring the country on the election trail.

It will stay on the road until the general election season ends in November.
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Via NYT
Bloomberg L.P. Fills Post, Suggesting Shift to News
By TIM ARANGO

The news business may be in the doldrums, but the competition over business news could be heating up.

Bloomberg L.P., the financial data and news giant founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, said Monday that it had hired Norman Pearlstine, the former top editor of Time Inc. and The Wall Street Journal, to the new position of chief content officer.

The move suggests that Bloomberg, whose fortunes have been buoyed by the selling of its hugely profitable data terminals to brokerage firms and investment banks, plans to expand the journalism side of its business.

Bloomberg’s sprawling operation, which includes 2,300 editorial employees, a television outfit and a radio station, has largely been used as a tool for the Bloomberg terminals. But the growth in terminal sales has slowed with the economy and as Wall Street suffers from the fallout of the mortgage crisis.
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