Online Critics Fault Anniversary Coverage on \'Today\'

September 11, 2012, 6:37 pm

By BILL CARTER

NBC's “Today” show, already drawing widespread attention because of a recent decline in the ratings, received a barrage of online criticism on Tuesday for being the only network morning news show not to observe a moment of silence in commemoration of the attacks on the World Trade Center, which took place 11 years ago.

That the program was in the midst of an interview with Kris Jenner - mother of cable television's most gossiped-about family, the Kardashians - who was talking about her breast augmentation, only increased the volume of questioning about the show's value system.

Despite suggestions on social media that NBC apologize for the gaffe abounded, none will be forthcoming, a spokeswoman f or the show said. The simple reason: Unlike its competitors, the “Today” show has not maintained a tradition of offering a moment of silence on 9/11 mornings.

Though the show did include the moment of silence last year, the 10th anniversary of the attack, that was a special occasion, said Megan Kopf, the “Today” spokeswoman, when the entire show was dedicated the anniversary, with the anchor Matt Lauer at the memorial in Lower Manhattan.

Other than that observation, “Today” has not included a moment of silence in its 9/11 shows since 2006, Ms. Kopf said. “It is not a tradition on our show,” she said.

She pointed out that the program did include an extensive interview with Pasquale Buzzelli, a survivor of the attack on the buildings that morning. That interview appeared in the 7:30 half hour, when “Today” has a much larger audience.

Viewers in New York were unaware of discrepancy between the moment of silence on ABC and CBS and the Kardashian-themed interview on NBC because as they always do on the anniversary of the attacks, the local New York stations owned by the networks pre-empted the national morning news programs with their own coverage of the ceremonies from the site.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.

CBS Adjusts Schedule to Account for Longer N.F.L. Games

By BILL CARTER

CBS is bowing to reality and making it official: on Sundays, when it carries late-afternoon National Football League games, the schedule of programs that follows will start at 7:30 p.m. and not 7.

That is, it will be the starting time on paper for the Eastern time zone. (In Central time, the new start time will be 6:30 p.m.) CBS acknowledges that for many weeks the lineup will be pushed back still further by long N.F.L. games. But this ought to help viewers who record CBS's Sunday shows.

The disconnect between the scheduled times for Sunday shows and the time those shows actually appeared has been a concern for fans of programs like “The Good Wife.” With football games running long, viewers who regularly DVR that drama found themselves missing the ends of episodes if they did not also set up their machines to record the following show. Even with CBS issuing regular updates last year, fans of the series were especiall y irritated if episodes got cut off.

“We're just trying to be proactive and viewer friendly,” said Kelly Kahl, the chief scheduler for CBS.

Even with “60 Minutes” scheduled to start at 7:30 - and the rest of the lineup sliding to start times on the half hour - CBS executives will still be advising DVR users to record the following shows this season, Mr. Kahl said. DVRs record by the official program schedule, so when shows start late and run past their scheduled time, much of the content goes unrecorded.

There are a host of reasons why N.F.L. games should be expected to run long this season. Among the ones Mr. Kahl cited were later kickoff times that the N.F.L. announced this season (4:25 p.m.); the increasing number of official video reviews (after every turnover, for example); and the use of replacement referees, who may not keep the game moving as fast.

Not that CBS was especially unhappy to have more minutes o f football included in its Sunday prime-time numbers. “It may be a pain but we'll take a 17 rating for football every week,” Mr. Kahl said.

The N.F.L. shows no signs of fading as television's biggest attraction. The first edition of “Sunday Night Football” on NBC this week was the second-most-watched in that show's history, with 27.57 million viewers.

CBS didn't have a football run-over Sunday, but it did have a tennis run-over. That didn't hurt “60 Minutes,” which was the most-watched nonfootball offering on television last week: 12.6 million viewers watched the account from a former Navy SEAL of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.

For Paton, Bankruptcy for Journal Register Is \'Embarrassing\' but Necessary

September 11, 2012, 3:25 pm

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

The last few days have provided a lesson in humility, John Paton acknowledged.

Mr. Paton, the chief executive of the management company Digital First Media Group, had his subsidiary, the Journal Register Company, file for bankruptcy protection last Wednesday.

Since then, he has found himself facing a firing squad of media bloggers and former employees on Facebook and Twitter. They were not impressed with how the company faced bankruptcy for the second time in three years, especially since Mr. Paton had spent the last couple of years touting Journal Register's digital growth to the press.

A former Journal Register employee, Rachel Jackson, wrote in a letter to the Romanesko journalism bl og that “John Paton and his cronies ran the papers into the ground.”

Ryan Chittum, deputy editor of the Audit for Columbia Journalism Review, wrote “They can spin it all they want, but Paton's digital bonanza hasn't been quite what he's implied, and it hasn't been enough to stave off bankruptcy.”

Mr. Paton seemed like he had read every one of his critics' comments.

“It's pretty damn public and it's pretty damn embarrassing,” Mr. Paton said Monday in an interview. Still, it didn't change his mind that he had no choice but to file for bankruptcy. “From a business perspective, it's the absolute right thing to do,” he said.

Mr. Paton said in the last five days he visited nine Journal Register Company properties in four states, including Ohio, Michigan, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, to talk about how the bankruptcy would play out. This week, he plans to visit two more Journal Register sites in Ohio.

“I think they now understand why we're doing this even if they don't understand the financial mechanics,'” he said.

Many media bloggers and followers on Twitter raised concern that bankruptcy was just an easy way for Mr. Paton not to pay the pensions of employees at papers like the New Haven Register and the Trentonian. Mr. Paton said that while “it's up to the new owner to decide with the unions how they're going to negotiate” pension benefits, the company's research showed that employees' pensions should be protected under coverage provided by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Lawyers have told Mr. Paton that the bankruptcy should be completed in the next three to four months.

Mr. Paton stressed that he still thought recent college graduates should go into journalism. He said the Journal Register Company can hire and fire staff through bankruptcy. He stressed that his other newspapers, like the Denver Post, which are part of the Media News Group division of Digital First, a re thriving and that young people have a lot of opportunities in this field.

“I think there's a huge future for journalism,” said Mr. Paton.

Michael Lewis Tells of Submitting Quotes for White House Approval

September 11, 2012, 11:48 am

By JEREMY W. PETERS

Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” was granted extraordinary access to President Obama for his latest article in Vanity Fair.

But with that access came one major condition.

Like other journalists who write about Washington and presidential politics, Mr. Lewis said that he had to submit to the widespread but rarely disclosed practice of quote approval.

During a discussion at Lincoln Center on Monday night with Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, Mr. Lewis volunteered to the audience that as a condition of cooperating with his story, the White House insisted on signing off on the quotes that would appear.

Mr. Lewis said that ulti mately the White House disallowed very little of what he asked to use. And he described having access to the president that was unusually unfettered. About 95 percent of what he witnessed was on the record, he said.

What the White House asked to leave off the record, Mr. Lewis added, was usually of little relevance to his article anyway - like a discussion between Mr. Obama and his political strategists about their electoral strategy in Florida.

Mr. Lewis said there was one particularly moving exchange with the president that he wished he could have described in greater detail. But the White House nixed the idea, perhaps wary of having the commander in chief described as in tears.

Mr. Lewis declined to delve into too much detail because he said he did not want to violate the ground rules he agreed to, but he did offer that the president explained to him how the job exacts a heavy emotional toll. The president told Mr. Lewis how one evening after a particularly trying day, he sat down to watch a movie and surprised himself by suddenly tearing up.

In the discussion with Mr. Carter on Monday, Mr. Lewis described a White House staff that seemed to be extremely wary of his presence around the president. He said that in one exchange with Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, Mr. Carney expressed reservations about cooperating. But ultimately, Mr. Lewis recalled Mr. Carney saying, his concerns didn't matter because the boss wanted to do the story.

That meant Mr. Lewis was allowed to peek behind the White House curtain in a way that few journalists ever have.

Over an eight-month period, Mr. Lewis conducted multiple interviews with the president. He rode in the official presidential limousine. He was given a special lapel pin that designated him to the Secret Service as someone who was allowed to be in close proximity to the president.

When he flew with the president on sever al foreign and domestic trips, he sat not with the rest of the press corps in the back of Air Force One, but near the front. And the president even allowed Mr. Lewis to play on his basketball team.

But that pursuit did not end quite as Mr. Lewis had hoped. The president benched him.

Big Ratings for Debut of \'Katie\'

September 11, 2012, 1:46 pm

By BILL CARTER

Katie Couric proved her enduring appeal for television viewers with a highly successful debut to her new syndicated talk show “Katie” Monday.

Its an especially competitive new market for syndicated shows, which aspire to fill the void left by Oprah Winfrey. But Ms. Couric's show, which included interviews with Sheryl Crow and Jessica Simpson, scored the best initial rating number for a new talk entry since “Dr. Phil” in 2002.

That number was a 2.8 rating in figures gathered overnight from the country's largest cities. A total audience number will not be available until Sept. 25. But by comparison, Ms. Couric dominated over new shows hosted by Steve Harvey (a 1.5 rating); Jeff Probst (a 1.0 rating); and Ricki Lake (a 0.8 rating.)

Ms. Couric has bolted out of the gate with great ratings before, however. For her first newscast as the anchor of the CBS evening news in 2006, she attracted an enormous audience of 13.6 million viewers. That night, she had a much bigger rating than her syndicated debut just among viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, a 3.9.

But that came after an enormous promotion campaign by CBS. Her ratings dropped sharply after that and she and CBS remained the third-rated newscast for most of her tenure.

But that was another time and another format. Most reviews noted that Ms. Couric seemed back in her element in the syndicated show Monday, covering a range of topics from serious to light.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.

LearnVest Dips Its Toes Into Investment Advice

September 11, 2012, 1:15 pm

By ANN CARRNS

LearnVest.com, which started out several years ago as a budgeting and money management site aimed at young women, is dipping its toes into the world of investment advice and has spiffed up its online tools to appeal to a broader audience.

LearnVest announced Tuesday that it had become a registered investment adviser, or R.I.A., which means that its certified financial planners - who give advice to the site's users over the phone and by e-mail - can go beyond telling you to save more and pay off your credit card debt and suggest what sort of investments you should use for your retirement money.

However, while LearnVest aims to offer unbiased financial advice at a reasonable price to people who aren't millionaires, its offering for now stops short of what many investors may truly want and need. Unlike other sites aimed at smaller investors, such as Betterment, LearnVest doesn't offer advice about specific investments or fund families, and doesn't actually execute trades or move money.

Rather, the site's investment advice focuses on educating clients about asset class and allocation in general, not recommendations for specific investments, said Alexa von Tobel, the site's founder and chief executive. For instance, planners will focus on what proportion of your portfolio should be in large company stocks, foreign stocks, bonds, real estate, cash, etc.  Ms. von Tobel said LearnVest wanted its clients to “feel empowered to select their own investments,” preferably low-cost exchange-traded funds and mutual funds, which she noted were available from a number of providers.

Although the advice may get more specific in the future as c lient demands evolve, she said, “For now, we're not going to say, ‘go with this stock versus this stock.'”

In a follow-up e-mail, she said the site was “not offering implementation at this time because we're focused on helping our clients get a solid footing in the investing space by understanding risk, portfolio allocation and how to minimize fees,” so they can successfully choose investments on their own.

Clients also are on their own in terms of re-balancing investments in retirement accounts and purchasing actual investments. A sample “Portfolio Builder” plan provided by LearnVest, which includes the investment advice component, simply contrasts a fictional client's existing asset allocation with a recommended distribution. It also advises clients on how to vet a brokerage firm, before suggesting that they “take a look at Betterment, Vanguard, Scottrade, Charles Schwab, Fidelity and E*Trade.”

LearnVest's basic tools - its budgeting and money-management features, where you can view all your accounts in one place - are available free. If users want to gain access to a planner, they pay according to the level of service. Previously, the highest level was $349 a year, which included development of a five-year financial plan. Now, the highest level is  the “Portfolio Builder” option at $599 a year, which includes a financial plan as well as “personalized guidance” on your investments from a certified financial planner over the phone and by e-mail.

The annual fee includes an introductory diagnostic call and three subsequent calls with your adviser, along with unlimited e-mail access. You don't get to pick your adviser, but you'll speak with the same one each time. That flat fee is all you pay; LearnVest doesn't charge an additional fee based on the total amount of assets under management.

A question now for LearnVest is whether the site's financial planners can provide quality service to th e volume of clients interested in their services. Ms. von Tobel says LearnVest will have 50 certified financial planners on staff by the end of the year, although she's unsure how many of them will be full time.

A traditional financial planner might handle between 250 and 350 clients on average, she said, although that number varies greatly depending on the clients' wealth and the complexity of their financial situations. Since she says LearnVest's planners operate more efficiently, she expects they will be able to handle “a good amount” over that range, although she can't yet say just how many that might be.

LearnVest has at least 300,000 users, according to numbers the company released six months ago.

As an R.I.A., LearnVest's planners will have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of their clients, Ms. von Tobel said. The full-time planners will be salaried and will get bonuses based on customer satisfaction, she said; neither they nor LearnVest as a company receive commissions for selling investments to clients. LearnVest said in its announcement that its planners would “remain completely unbiased, with no product recommendations throughout the client's experience.” (Part-time planners must work at least 12 hours a week and will be paid a per-client rate, and also will be evaluated based on customer satisfaction).

Certified financial planners must undergo specific training, pass an exam and have at least two years of experience before earning the designation. In addition, Ms. von Tobel described a detailed hiring process that includes having candidates create a video explaining a financial issue and developing a complex financial plan before they are interviewed. The planners will work from locations around the country, she said.

Along with the addition of the R.I.A. designation, LearnVest has added more features to its Web site, such as the ability for a client's financial planner to log onto a Web page while they are talking to view the client's finances at the same time that the client is seeing it. Ms. von Tobel said clients had suggested the idea, which helps streamline interactions between the adviser and the customer. (Planners don't have access to the information unless they are online with the client, she said.)

What do you think of LearnVest's approach? Would you pay $599 for its level of investment advice?

Six Finalists for Man Booker Prize Are Named

September 11, 2012, 12:43 pm

By JULIE BOSMAN

Six authors were named on Tuesday to the annual shortlist of candidates for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, the most significant literary award in Britain.

The authors on the list are:

• Tan Twan Eng, for “The Garden of Evening Mists” (Myrmidon Books)
• Deborah Levy, for “Swimming Home” (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber)
• Hilary Mantel, for “Bring Up the Bodies” (Fourth Estate)
• Alison Moore, for “The Lighthouse” (Salt)
• Will Self, for “Umbrella” (Bloomsbury)
• Jeet Thayil, for “Narcopolis” (Faber & Faber)

The winner of the prize - which is open to writers from Britain, Ireland or one of the Commonwealth nations - will be nam ed at a ceremony in London on Oct. 16 and receive a cash prize of £50,000, or about $80,000.

Last Year

Working Until 70 May Not Solve Savings Shortfall

September 11, 2012, 12:13 pm

By ANN CARRNS

Research from the nonprofit Employee Benefits Research Institute throws cold water on the notion that working until age 70 will set most Americans up for adequate retirement income.

Jack VanDerhei, research director at E.B.R.I., says some studies have suggested that by working to age 70 - five years past the traditional retirement age of 65 - nearly 80 percent of preretirees, including lower-income Americans, could have adequate retirement income. But such models, he said, don't fully take into account changes in the retirement system, such as the shift away from pension plans and toward 401(k) accounts, or the potential for a catastrophic health event that would require a stay in a nursing home.

Wh en those factors are accounted for, he said, the outlook is less optimistic, especially for lower-income workers. E.B.R.I.'s analytical model, he said, indicates that for those in the lowest quarter of incomes, workers would have to toil until age 84 before 90 percent of them would have at least a break-even chance for success.

That doesn't mean, he said, that he is advocating that everyone work until their 80s, or that working that long is feasible. But it does suggest, he said, that it is a risky notion to think that you can work until you're 65 and then simply work five more years if you don't haven't saved enough. If a couple near retirement age has one member who become ill and requires a lengthy nursing home stay, he said, a good chunk of their savings may be exhausted. “How can you ignore that?” he said.

It's much less of a gamble, he said, to save more while you're working, if you can: “It's much less risky than waiting until you're 65 or 67 and see ing what happens.”

How long do you plan on working?

Working Until 70 May Not Solve Savings Shortfall

September 11, 2012, 12:13 pm

By ANN CARRNS

Research from the nonprofit Employee Benefits Research Institute throws cold water on the notion that working until age 70 will set most Americans up for adequate retirement income.

Jack VanDerhei, research director at E.B.R.I., says some studies have suggested that by working to age 70 - five years past the traditional retirement age of 65 - nearly 80 percent of preretirees, including lower-income Americans, could have adequate retirement income. But such models, he said, don't fully take into account changes in the retirement system, such as the shift away from pension plans and toward 401(k) accounts, or the potential for a catastrophic health event that would require a stay in a nursing home.

Wh en those factors are accounted for, he said, the outlook is less optimistic, especially for lower-income workers. E.B.R.I.'s analytical model, he said, indicates that for those in the lowest quarter of incomes, workers would have to toil until age 84 before 90 percent of them would have at least a break-even chance for success.

That doesn't mean, he said, that he is advocating that everyone work until their 80s, or that working that long is feasible. But it does suggest, he said, that it is a risky notion to think that you can work until you're 65 and then simply work five more years if you don't haven't saved enough. If a couple near retirement age has one member who become ill and requires a lengthy nursing home stay, he said, a good chunk of their savings may be exhausted. “How can you ignore that?” he said.

It's much less of a gamble, he said, to save more while you're working, if you can: “It's much less risky than waiting until you're 65 or 67 and see ing what happens.”

How long do you plan on working?

Ad Campaign Will Encourage People to \'Love People\'

September 11, 2012, 9:00 am

By STUART ELLIOTT

People magazine is addressing a slump in single copy sales â€" issues sold one by one, in venues like newsstands and supermarkets, rather than by annual subscription - with what executives are calling their most comprehensive advertising campaign to date.

The campaign, which carries the theme “People love People,” is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, to promote the Sept. 24 issue that will be the annual Best and Worst Dressed double issue. Ads will appear on national television, in print, online, in stores and in social media as well as in other magazines that, like People, are published by the Time Inc. division of Time Warner.

Single copy sales are important to the people at People because t hey bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue. About 35 percent of the 3.56 million copies that People sells each week are as single copy sales â€" by far the largest percentage for any Time Inc. title.

The ads will arrive not long after a report that People suffered a steep slump in single copy sales in the first half of 2012. The decline was 18.6 percent compared to the same period of 2011, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

By comparison, for all magazines tracked by the A.B.C., single copy sales in the first half fell 10 percent compared with the same period last year.

The campaign has a budget estimated at more than $16 million and is scheduled to run for the next year. It has been in the works for about 18 months, People executives say, and as a result is not a direct response to the decline in single-copy sales. People - and many other magazines that rely on single copy sales - have been experiencing difficulties in that realm for several years.

For one thing, since the recession consumers have been cutting back on impulse purchases like individual copies of magazines. A regular weekly issue of People costs $3.99 a copy on a newsstand or at a checkout, compared with about $2 a copy if bought by subscription.

Another problem for publishers is that consumers have been making fewer trips to shop since gasoline prices have been climbing, which means there are fewer occasions for them to peruse tempting displays of magazines at checkouts, newsstands or bookstores.

The goal is “to create the urgency” among readers “at the point of purchase, closing the deal,” said Karen Kovacs, publisher of People.

“We know people really love this brand,” she added. “It's just about engaging them, to drive the weekly excitement.”

Years ago, People regularly ran national television commercials to stimulate circulation, but those have n ot appeared in some years. “We haven't done anything to this extent,” Ms. Kovacs said, referring to the scope of the new campaign and its presence in new media that did not exist when People was a regular TV advertiser.

Of course, another reason for declining single copy sales is the amount of editorial content in the People bailiwick of celebrity news and gossip that is free in new media like online, mobile and social. The campaign acknowledges that by selling People as a franchise.

“All day, our reader is checking People in mobile and social,” Ms. Kovacs said. “During the week, she reads the Web site, and then the weekly magazine is her ‘me-time.' ” (The typical People reader is a woman, ages 18 to 54.)

The campaign was tested in five markets in the spring: Baltimore; Indianapolis; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Nashville; and Portland, Ore. The results showed “about an 8 percent lift in over all single copy sales,” said Jennifer Ogden-Reese, seni or vice president for consumer marketing of the Style and Entertainment Group at Time Inc., as well as increases in subscription sales, “Web site engagement and Facebook fans.”

“We were really encouraged,” she added, and hope that when the campaign runs nationally the percentage increase in single copy sales will be “in the low double digits.”

People is “the biggest retail revenue generator in the magazine industry,” Ms. Ogden-Reese said. “We want to re-ignite the emotional passion around the magazine.”

By giving readers “even more reason to buy,” she added, the campaign could “increase the buy rate” among regular customers.

That is often easier to achieve than to woo people who rarely or never buy the magazine. In another field, fast food, the strong sales gains in recent years at McDonald's have come from getting regular customers to stop in a time or two more each month rather than converting those who do not usually eat at the Golden Arches.

The People campaign is being created by an agency in New York named the Terri & Sandy Solution. The commercials depict pages and covers of People magazine flying through the air, looking like tiles, and forming colorful mosaic patterns.

In one spot, in which Bruno Mars sings “You're Amazing Just the Way You Are,” a female announcer comes on at the end and says: “Pick up this week's amazing issue of People. In stores now.”

Other ads will be devoted to themes. One, featuring photos from the annual Sexiest Man Alive issue, declares, “People love sexy.” Another, offering photos of stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, asserts, “People love legends.”

People's circulation has held fairly steady around 3.56 million because as single copy sales have decreased, subscription sales have increased. The ratio used to be 50-50, compared with the current split of 35 percent single copies and 65 percent subsc riptions.

But because single copy sales are more lucrative, People executives hope the campaign will help get them back on track.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter by clicking here.

The Breakfast Meeting: Foxconn\'s Use of \'Interns,\' and Good Nipples, Bad Nipples

September 11, 2012, 9:03 am

By NOAM COHEN

Apple's Chinese manufacturing partner, Foxconn Technology, has come under criticism recently after reports of students being forced to “intern” at the company's factories that make iPhones and their components, David Barboza and Charles Duhigg report. The reliance on so-called interns - including those studying law or English, worker advocates say - is particularly high as Foxconn attempts to meet demand for the new iPhone 5. “They don't want to work there - they want to learn,” one advocate said. “But if they don't work, they are told they will not graduate, because it is a very busy time with the new iPhone coming, and Foxconn does not have enough workers without the students.”

• YouTube o n Tuesday is introducing an iPhone app, something it never needed to do because it had come installed on iPhones, Claire Cain Miller writes. That is changing with the new iPhones. The new arrangement means that YouTube on iPhones will be able to run ads, but it comes at a price, of course: YouTube must convince iPhone owners to download the free app, and it will begin a mobile and online marketing campaign to do so.

Monday began in earnest the battle to inherit Oprah Winfrey's mantle, with the arrival of Katie Couric to TV screens as a daytime talk show host, Alessandra Stanley writes. While Ms. Couric's most recent job had her delivering the evening news, she has always had the ability to shift from “dogged, hard-news interviewer to fun-loving queen of girl talk and back again,” Ms. Stanley writes. In her latest gig, as host of “Katie,” the pull has been to a lighter direction. Other new talk show hosts looking to break out include Jeff Probst, the host of “Survivor,” and the comedian Steve Harvey.

The cartoon editor of The New Yorker, Robert Mankoff, in a blog post explained how the magazine ran afoul of Facebook's standards on “Nudity and Sex” with a cartoon showing a post-coital Adam and Eve. In a nutshell: even in cartoons, men's nipples are O.K., women's not.

Tuesday Reading: Early Music Lessons Have Longtime Benefits

September 11, 2012, 8:28 am

By ANN CARRNS

A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.