News Corp. making mistake by not resigning Mossberg/Swisher

Richard Morgan of The Deal writes about the decision by News Corp. not to renew the contracts of technology journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, who had been running its All Things Digital site.

Morgan writes, “Newspapers have been the target of so many potshots in recent years it  hurts  to see the best of them shoot themselves in the foot. Yet it has already   happened now that ‘All Things D,’ rather than cut a new deal with the  newspaper  that birthed it, The Wall Street Journal, has been cut loose not only  from the  Journal but from its News Corp. parent. And with ‘All Things  D’ forced to find  new and most likely better sponsorship, what’s to keep  The New York Times’  ‘Dealbook’ from seeking the same?

“Both niche but high-profile websites began more than a decade ago as   journalistic versions of brands within brands. Or, in the parlance of Madison   Avenue, they began as ingredient brands of the sort ‘Intel Inside’  popularized.  Only these one-time ingredients of America’s premier newspapers  have since  earned such authority, identity and prosperity that neither remains  beholden to  its benefactor.

“Even before given the boot by the Journal on Thursday, ‘All Things  D’ had  taken to flaunting a sense of free agentry by retaining boutique  bank Code  Advisors LLC. The bank’s brief, according to Fortune, was ‘to  find outside  investors at an enterprise value that could exceed the $25 million  that [AOL  Inc.] reportedly paid in 2010 for rival site TechCrunch.'”

Read more here.