Publications

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09 Aug 2013
Research & Ideas

Read All About It: Digital CEO Buys Traditional Media!

With the sale of the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos, the newspaper enters a crucial phase in its 136-year history amid disruptive changes in communications, technology, and reader habits. According to HBS professors Bharat Anand and David... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Aisner; Journalism & News; Publishing

10 Jul 2000
Research & Ideas

Cable TV: From Community Antennas to Wired Cities

including Cox, Times Mirror, and Newhouse, had corporate parents that owned both newspapers and broadcasting properties. Another thirteen were owned by parents that owned TV and/or radio stations, but no newspapers. This group included... View Details

Keywords: by Thomas R. Eisenmann; Media & Broadcasting; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation

2002
Case

New York Times Digital

By: Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble

In 1995, the New York Times launched New York Times Digital, a new venture dedicated to building a profitable business focused on distributing news context in multimedia format online. In implementing the venture, the company created a unit that was quite distinct... View Details

Keywords: Online Technology; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Newspapers; Business Startups; Journalism and News Industry; Publishing Industry

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October 1993
Supplement

United Way of America: Governance in the Nonprofit Sector (B), Kenneth W. Dam Becomes Interim President

By: Jay W. Lorsch

Analyzes the measures taken by the United Way of America (UWA) and its board of governors in response to the 1992 Washington Post reports that lead to the UWA scandal. View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Newspapers; Nonprofit Organizations; United States

02 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Good Deeds Invite Bad Publicity

really pay off when companies need that goodwill from the public? In a recent working paper, No News Is Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events, Oberholzer-Gee set out to test the insurance hypothesis using... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy

Spring 2013
Article

Salience in Quality Disclosure: Evidence from the U.S. News College Rankings

By: Michael Luca and Jonathan Smith

How do rankings affect demand? This paper investigates the impact of college rankings, and the visibility of those rankings, on students' application decisions. Using natural experiments from U.S. News and World Report College Rankings, we present two main... View Details

Keywords: Rank and Position; Demand and Consumers; Quality; Decisions; Newspapers; United States

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October 2023 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Sydney Loves Kevin

By: Ryan W. Buell and Himabindu Lakkaraju

Kevin Roose was a columnist and podcast host for the New York Times, who focused on technology and its effects on society. When Microsoft launched the latest version of its search engine Bing in February 2023, the company invited Roose to its Redmond campus to... View Details

Keywords: Newspapers; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Technological Innovation; Perspective; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Technology Industry

03 Apr 2009
What Do You Think?

How Much Obsolescence Can Business and Society Absorb?

personal level, C. J. Cullinane reported that "I work with keeping up with technology but the newspapers and books are my anchor . [They also leave] a good audit trail." Phil Clark said, "Ultimately, when a person becomes... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett; Publishing; Journalism & News

January 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Background Note

News in the Digital World: Who Pays?

By: Stephen P. Bradley and Nancy Bartlett

Models to monetizing news in the digital landscape, which is real-time, searchable, sharable, multi-sourced, anytime, and any screen, were emerging in 2010. Could content creators get people to pay for what they watched, read, listened to, and shared online? Were news... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Newspapers; Disruptive Innovation; Technological Innovation; Online Technology; Journalism and News Industry; Publishing Industry

July 2017
Teaching Plan

'Clarín Lies!': Bias, Post-Truth, and Populism in Argentina's Media War

By: Rafael Di Tella and Sarah McAra

Teaching Note for HBS No. 718-008. View Details

Keywords: Media Regulation; Media; Government and Politics; Policy; Newspapers; Government Legislation; Business and Government Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Monopoly; Journalism and News Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Argentina

31 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Encouraging Niche Content in an Ad-Driven World

closer match between content and audience interest. Zhu has other research in the works related to ad-sponsored business models, including one with Robert Seamans at New York University that considers how ad-sponsored free newspapers... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Information; Publishing; Journalism & News

July 2017 (Revised November 2017)
Case

'Clarín Lies!': Bias, Post-Truth, and Populism in Argentina's Media War

By: Rafael Di Tella, Jose Liberti and Sarah McAra

In 2012, Argentine media conglomerate Grupo Clarín and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner were embroiled in what some called “the mother of all battles.” Grupo Clarín was one of the preeminent media companies in Argentina, with leading newspapers, cable... View Details

Keywords: Media Regulation; Media; Government and Politics; Policy; Newspapers; Government Legislation; Business and Government Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Monopoly; Journalism and News Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Argentina

22 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

Advertising: It’s Not ‘Mad Men’ Anymore

commission rate paid by magazine and newspaper publishers to agencies. These practices served to discourage price competition among agencies and facilitated the bundling of services by full-service advertising firms. After complaints from... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Advertising

July 2001 (Revised September 2005)
Case

USA TODAY: Pursuing the Network Strategy (B)

By: Michael L. Tushman, Michael J. Roberts and David Kiron

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Business Units; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Integration; Internet and the Web; Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Newspapers; Innovation and Invention; Journalism and News Industry

03 Jun 2002
What Do You Think?

Are We Entering an Era of European Management Leadership?

is described in a new book by Will Hutton, titled The World We're In (Little, Brown, 2002), from which excerpts (emailed to me by a U.K. manager) were published in England's Guardian newspaper last month. First, work less but work... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

03 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 3

http://hbr.org/2013/09/women-rising-the-unseen-barriers/ar/1 August 2013 Management Science (forthcoming) Responses to Entry in Multi-Sided Markets: The Impact of Craigslist on Local Newspapers By: Seamans, Robert, and Feng Zhu... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Media Metamorphosis: Advertising in the Technology Age

rivals — including radio and television stations, magazine and newspaper publishers, billboard and direct marketing firms — that compete for bigger pieces of the advertising pie. That pie, however, which represents national advertisers'... View Details

Keywords: by Peter K. Jacobs; Advertising

March 2024
Case

Katharine Graham: Changing the World

By: Robert Simons and Shirley Sun

This case traces the life of Katharine Graham from housewife to publisher of the Washington Post. Born into a family of wealth, Graham described herself as a “doormat wife” after she married Phil Graham and stayed at home to raise their children. His unexpected death... View Details

Keywords: Mission and Purpose; Values and Beliefs; Power and Influence; Personal Characteristics; Leadership Style; Success; Work-Life Balance; News; Newspapers; Media; Gender; Publishing Industry