• by John Gaffney , May 20, 2003

I Care About Jayson Blair: Since I see just about every message board and portal site filling up with reactions upon reactions to the disgraced Times' reporter, I'll check in again. I do care because stealing copy or making up copy is left to fiction writers. Journalists I know work hard for the money. And when you approach it from then level of providing people insights, provocations and information to enhance their lives, it's an honorable profession. Here's what's bothering me the most. It's one thing to screw up. Everyone does it and most of us in life do it more than a few times. But to give Newsweek an interview and look to glorify yourself via a tell-all book as Blair is apparently doing - that's sleazy stuff. Journalists need to get back to their jobs, which is conveying information. The celebrity chase isn't serving anybody, whether its in print, radio or TV.

Shifting Fortunes:Fortune magazine will announce its new consumer marketing campaign this afternoon, which is a great development for TimeWarner print publications. Yes, Fortune has all those other TW/AOL properties to advertise on. But this is an expense that could have easily been cut given the economy. This is a solid bet on business advertising, a solid bet on the future of print magazines and a solid bet that planners should take note of.

At The Buzzer: We don't cover personnel moves in a high-profile manner in our online publication, Media Daily News. Our thinking is that our competitors do that pretty well and we focus on the info that will help planners and buyers in their quest to produce the ultimate media plan. But we are acutely aware that Mullen cut 56 people yesterday and our sincere best wishes go to the future of those people. It's a tough business.