Google’s still feeling all announcey, with the addition of something called “living stories” to its repertoire of announcements over the past few days.

The project looks like the Google News topic pages got drunk and shagged Wikipedia, and the result is a hybrid results page that condenses the hell out of results to give users an overview of any given topic. Google’s got a rundown on their blog explaining the initiative, teaming up with the New York Times and the Washington Post to present a couple of sample topics for Living Stories.

Blogging in general has been a bit of an influence, with a heavily hyperlinked summary at the top of the page:

Below that is a menu on the left side, allowing users to focus on certain aspects of a story: Events, Articles, People, Quotes, Resources, Images, Videos, Audio, Graphics and Opinion are the choices currently listed:

Interesting especially is the inclusion of the two big print news names, the Washington Post and the New York Times. It may signal a coming larger acceptance on the part of print media to bend or break now, to change revenue models before it’s too late. (If it isn’t already.) Google addresses this in the first paragraph of the post, basically acknowledging that they’re at the center of the issue and ha, ha, ha!, they’re totally running with it!

The interface is truly cool, limiting the legwork needed for casual users to get much more dynamic, relevant results. (For instance, once you visit, some of the information you’ve seen becomes greyed out so new to you tidbits are easily recognizable- try that with your newsprint, Chicago Sun-Times.) There’s a video below from the Google blog, and here’s how they described it in their own words:

The idea behind Living Stories is to experiment with a different format for presenting news coverage online. News organizations produce a wealth of information that we all value; access to this information should be as great as the online medium allows. A typical newspaper article leads with the most important and interesting news, and follows with additional information of decreasing importance. Information from prior coverage is often repeated with each new online article, and the same article is presented to everyone regardless of whether they already read it. Living Stories try a different approach that plays to certain unique advantages of online publishing. They unify coverage on a single, dynamic page with a consistent URL. They organize information by developments in the story. They call your attention to changes in the story since you last viewed it so you can easily find the new material. Through a succinct summary of the whole story and regular updates, they offer a different online approach to balancing the overview with depth and context.

It appears that the Washington Post has finally had enough of their staff’s free-wheeling Twitter postings. While we might all look at the thousands of Twitter messages that fly around the world every minute as being pretty harmless WaPo senior editor Milton Coleman thinks otherwise – specifically when it comes to the newspaper’s staff.

Coleman has been working on the news organization’s social media guidelines since May but as a result of the reaction to a couple of Twitter messages by managing editor Raju Narisetti (who has since removed his Twitter account) the guidelines were put into force a little sooner than originally planned. The reasoning behind the stringent guidelines all boils down to – a matter of perception.

As Andrew Alexander writes on the Washington Post Ombudsman Blog where the new guidelines were announced

In today’s hyper-sensitive political environment, Narisetti’s tweets could be seen as one of The Post’s top editors taking sides on the question of whether a health-care reform plan must be budget neutral. On Byrd, his comments could be construed as favoring term limits or mandatory retirement for aging lawmakers. Many readers already view The Post with suspicion and believe that the personal views of its reporters and editors influence the coverage. The tweets could provide ammunition.

In the staff note that accompanied the release today of the guidelines Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli mentions this perception problem

“A few instances recently have been brought to my attention of items posted online that are incompatible with our standards,” he wrote. “As a result, we decided to accelerate the completion of these guidelines.”

He described them as “the first of what we anticipate will be several sets of standards and principles governing newsroom practices.”

The actual guidelines as quoted by Alexander in his post contain this about the perception problem

“When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.”

Another section reads: “What you do on social networks should be presumed to be publicly available to anyone, even if you have created a private account. It is possible to use privacy controls online to limit access to sensitive information. But such controls are only a deterrent, not an absolute insulator. Reality is simple: If you don’t want something to be found online, don’t put it there.”

It continues: “Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything – including photographs or video – that could be perceived as reflecting political racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility.”

In a world where newspapers are having a hard time staying relevant it doesn’t help when one of your major stars becomes more of an embarrassing liability, at least as far as the editorial department is concerned. This is something that is happening over at the Washington Post as they have been writing a number of articles that is distancing the newspaper from one of their more famous columnists – George Will.

Back in February George Will wrote in an article about climate change

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

Since that article first appeared and was gobbled up by the anti climate change people other notable writers at the newspaper have been making heavy tracks to prove how wrong Mr. Will is. First up was Juliet Eilperin and Mary Beth Sheridan who called out George Will by name in their article

The new evidence — including satellite data showing that the average multiyear wintertime sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2005 and 2006 was nine feet thick, a significant decline from the 1980s — contradicts data cited in widely circulated reports by Washington Post columnist George F. Will that sea ice in the Arctic has not significantly declined since 1979.

This was followed up in a post by Andrew Freedman on his blog where he showed how much of what Will wrote was nothing more than cherry picked items artfully construed to support his opinion. Freedman also noted that the reaction to George Will’s articles on climate change had sparked enough of a far reaching reaction that the Washington Post Ombudsman was called it to address the matter.

While the ombudsman found some problems with the article he didn’t find that evidence that Will committed any factual error or distorted any of the facts and Freedman goes on to note

However, avoiding those cardinal journalistic sins does not constitute the end of Will’s responsibility to readers. There is another important consideration, which is whether he provides readers with misleading climate science information that conflicts with what scientists know about the climate system. This is more nuanced than blatantly stating falsehoods, but it is perhaps just as important.

Then yesterday the Washington Post published an editorial that left no doubt as to what the feeling at the paper is, contrary to whatever George Will writes

MAKE NO mistake, Arctic Sea ice is melting. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the maximum extent of the winter sea ice cover for 2008-09 was the fifth-lowest on record. Underscoring their point, the agencies added, "The six lowest maximum events since satellite monitoring began in 1979 have all occurred in the past six years (2004-09)."

I would bet that being a fly on the wall at those editorial meeting would be a lot of fun.

The Washington Post Company has reported a 77% drop in profit for the year ending 2008 off the back of a tanking newspaper advertising market.

The Washington Post Company owns a cable TV business and education assets along with its flagship Washington Post newspaper. Those additional assets are solely responsible for keeping the company in the black.

The company reported a profit of $65.7 million for the year ending December 28, 2008, down from $288.6 million for the same period last year. Qtr 4 2008 saw a profit of $18.8 million, down 77% from $82.9 million in Qtr 4, 2007.

The company’s newspaper publishing division reported revenue decreasing 10% to $801.3 million, from $889.8 million in 2007. Revenue totaled $201.7 million for Qtr 4 2008, a 13% decline from $232.6 million in Qtr 4 2007.

This is where it gets nasty. The newspaper division reported an operating loss of $192.7 million in 2008, compared to income of $66.4 million in 2007. The newspaper lost $14.4 million in Qtr 4.

Print advertising revenue at The Post declined 17% to $410.4 million for the year vs 2007, but notably the decline worsened in Qtr 4, with print ads dropping 21% to $101.8 million.

The only bright spot was online, with a 7% increase for the year, and 5% increase for Qtr 4.

The site, officially debuting in public beta today, combines detailed profiles of top Washington players — ranging from members of the presidential administration to Pentagon officials — with original blogs and syndicated news content from The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Slate.com.

WhoRunsGov.com is powered by Deki, an open source enterprise collaboration tool by MindTouch. The site is expected to unveil more interactive features that will take advantage of Deki’s functionality once it moves out of its beta testing phase. Plans include added options for politicians to “own” their profiles and submit their own stories and information, as well as the ability for users to submit and contribute to profiles.

Figures for the 3rd quarter released by the Washington Post showed a massive drop in operating income to $10.1 million, down from $72.2 million, but the majority of the drop was caused by a $60 million charge to write down the value of its Maryland community newspapers and a paper in Washington state.

Advertising delivered good news and bad news. The bad news saw newspaper publishing revenue fall 7% for the quarter off a decline in print advertising revenue of 14% at The Washington Post newspaper. The newspaper division reported an operating loss of $82.7 million in the third quarter of 2008, compared to operating income of $8.8 million in the third quarter of 2007. The good news is that the decline in ad revenue slowed from a 22% decline in the 2nd quarter. Revenue from online properties rose 13%, and non-newspaper related revenue increased 10% for the quarter.

Conde Nast, publisher of a range of well known magazines and online properties has joined the layoff trend announcing a cut in payroll and nonpayroll budgets by 5%. The exact number of jobs to be cut across the company has yet to be determined.

Magazines facing the biggest changes include Men’s Vogue, which will go from 10 issues a year to 2, and Portfolio, which will shift from 12 issues to 10 per year and have its online production outsourced to Wired Digital. Staff cuts at Portfolio are said to be 20%, or 32 members of staff.