• Gawker, Thursday, January 28, 2010 3:55 PM

As it is wont to do, Gawker continues to hound Newsday over what it considers the Long Island paper's "dismal" online subscriber numbers. Tad Smith -- president of Cablevision's Local Media group, which includes Newsday -- just sent a memo to staff explaining that the strategy for Newsday.com "uniquely derives from its carriage on Cablevision." As such, "the newsday.com strategy is entirely different from the strategies pursued by other current and prospective online publishers," which "do not sell high-speed Internet services." (Smith's memo was inspired by criticism over a recent remark Newsday Publisher Terry Jimenez made at an employee meeting to the effect that Newsday.com had about three dozen subscribers.)

Some industry experts insist that critics have it all wrong. Steven Brill, cofounder of Journalism Online, recently told Media magazine: "They aren't risking any ad revenue by stopping page views from people who are out-of-market." Still, with regard to Newsday.com's lack of subscribers, Gawker teases: "That is not even part of their strategy, jerks."

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