A newly redesigned Philadelphia Daily News announces: "We're going to be the journalistic equivalent of Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction": We Will Not Be Ignored. We'll tell the soap-opera-like narrative of Philadelphia, calling out our story's villains and praising its heroes. We'll take the plight of the voiceless seriously, but we won't take ourselves too seriously. And we'll never forget that this is a public trust and that we really work for you."

Employees of News of the World, the now-defunct News Corp. Sunday tabloid, have been invited to apply for positions across the media company’s businesses, including a posting in Siberia and 74 positions globally at Dow Jones & Co. Other positions employees were invited to apply for include 30 posts at publisher HarperCollins and about 30 at Fox. News International, the U.K. publisher arm of News Corp., has 50 openings.

I remember being tempted, when I was starting out as a journalist, to offer to write for less than the going rate. But I never managed this because that sort of practice was strictly frowned upon at the time. No such brotherly feelings remain today. Not only have freelance rates tumbled over the past few years, but a tribe of bigmouths called "bloggers" has appeared on my particular patch. Dr Johnson once said: "No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money," and he was right: the problem is that the blockheads have taken over.