Another Star Lashes Out, and \'Two and a Half Men\' Keeps Cruising

Angus T. Jones speaks about his faith in this video. At around 7:45, he discusses “Two and a Half Men.”

The fate of the CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men” may not ride on any future decisions by Angus T. Jones, the young co-star who this week appeared in a video where he denounced the show as filth and urged viewers not to watch it.

Unlike the crisis that was stirred two years ago when the show's original star, Charlie Sheen, was fired for persistent drug use and vituperative comments about the show's creator, Chuck Lorre, the incident with Mr. Jones is almost certain not to lead to the cancellation of episodes, or even to threaten a potential extension of the series.

In the video made for the Forerunner Chronicles, a production of a preacher from the Seventh Day Adventist Church named Christopher Hudson, Mr. Jones, who is now 19, said, “If you watch ‘Two and a Half Men,' please stop watching. I'm on ‘Two and a Half Men' and I don't want to be on it.” He said people who were making it were “filling your head with filth.”

Though both entities behind the show - the studio, Warner Brothers, and the network, CBS - have steered clear of any comment, two executives tied to the production said on Tuesday that Mr. Jones was not slated to appear in either of the next two planned episodes.

Thus any decision he might make in the short term to leave would not have an immediate impact on the production. (Despite his criticisms, Mr. Jones did not say in the video that he would quit the show, which pays him $350,000 an episode.)

Mr. Jones's future participation in the series was a question even before this incident. This season, his character, Jake, had appeared only sporadically, having joined the Army at the end of l ast season.

He mainly has had limited scenes where he speaks by Skype to the other two characters, played by Jon Cryer and Ashton Kutcher. Mr. Jones signed a one-year contract for this season on the comedy.

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

NBC Signs Creator of \'Downton Abbey\' for Drama About Gilded Age in New York

Julian Fellowes, creator of the British period drama “Downton Abbey,” has concluded a deal to create a new period drama for NBC based on the Gilded Age of New York City, the network announced on Tuesday.

The new television drama will be produced by the NBC Universal television studio.

In its release, NBC described the series, which will be called “The Gilded Age” as an “epic tale of the princes of the American Renaissance, and the vast fortunes they made - and spent - in late-19th century New York.”

Mr. Fellowes said in a statement, “This was a vivid time with dizzying, brilliant ascents and calamitous falls, of record-breaking ostentation and savage rivalry; a time when money was king.”

He will continue in his executive producer role on the Emmy-award-winning “Downton Abbey,” which airs on PBS. The show just announced a fourth season would go into production.

NBC did not say how soon the show might be on the air, but it c omes at the tail end of the traditional development period for the fall television season.

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

Buffett Says He Remains Bullish on Newspapers, Despite Closing One

Warren E. Buffett isn't letting one troubled newspaper color his view of buying what many media experts consider the dinosaurs of the news business. Mr. Buffett said he still planned to buy newspapers, even though he recently announced that he would be shutting down one that he recently bought by the end of the year.

“I hope we have a lot more,” said Mr. Buffett about his newspaper portfolio while he attended a party Monday night for his longtime friend Carol Loomis, a writer for Fortune who recently published “Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966-2012.”

Mr. Buffett went on a newspaper spending spree this year by buying more than 60 newspapers from Media General and a small stake in the newspaper company Lee Enterprises, a chain of mostly small dailies based in Iowa. At the time, he stressed that he had great confidence that newspapers would continue to be solid investments for decades to come.

“I think newspapers in print form, in most of the cities and towns where they are present, will be here in 10 and 20 years,” Mr. Buffett said. “I think newspapers do a good job of serving a community where there is a lot of community interest.”

But this month, Doug Hiemstra, president of the World Media Enterprises, which is a Berkshire Hathaway Company, sent a letter to his staff saying that the company would shut down The News and Messenger in Manassas, Va., by year's end. Mr. Hiemstra wrote in his Nov. 14 letter that “The News and Messenger has lost money for a number of years under the Media General ownership, and after our team made an exhaustive review of The News and Messenger, we were unable to come up with a scenario that would result in a likelihood of profitable operations there.”

The company announced it would cut 105 positions, mainly at The News and Messenger.

According to public filings, Berkshire Hathaway also cut back its stake in Lee Enterprises.

Mr. Buffett said at Monday night's reception that the cuts at Media General were focused on one troubled paper. He said he planned to share more of his thoughts about newspapers soon and was working on a section about them in his annual letter to shareholders.

Head of Financial Times Group to Step Down

Rona Fairhead, chief executive of Pearson's Financial Times Group and a member of the board of directors of the London-based media conglomerate, will step down in April, Pearson said Tuesday. It will be the company's second high-level executive departure in recent months.

Ms. Fairhead's resignation comes after Pearson's long-time chief executive, Marjorie Scardino, said in October she would leave the company after nearly 16 years in her current role. In January, John Fallon, currently the chief executive for Pearson's international education division, will take over as chief executive.

The departures of two executives who had championed the company's print publishing assets, including The Financial Times newspaper, have fueled increased speculation that Pearson will seek to sell the rose-colored business daily, known as the FT, so that it can focus on its fast-growing education business.

In October, Pearson reached an agreement with Bertelsmann, the Germa n media company, to combine its Penguin publishing house with Random House. Under the agreement, which is still subject to approval from regulators, Bertelsmann would control 53 percent of the combined Penguin-Random House division.

Among the companies that analysts have said could make a bid to acquire the FT are Thomson Reuters, which has an editorial staff of thousands, but no print publication. Bloomberg LP could also explore a purchase of the FT to help its journalism gain more exposure outside the financial terminal business. The company also owns Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine. Spokesmen for Reuters and Bloomberg declined to comment when previously asked about a potential bid for the publication.

A Pearson spokesman, Charles Goldsmith, said Ms. Fairhead's decision to leave Pearson was “completely unrelated to ownership of the FT.”

Last week, Mr. Fallon visited the London headquarters of the FT to squelch concerns on both the business and editorial sides and assure the staff that the newspaper was not for sale.

For the past 11 years Ms. Fairhead, 50, has served in various senior roles at Pearson including chief financial officer. Since 2006 she has served as chairman and chief executive of the Financial Times Group, a unit that includes the FT, FT.com and a 50 percent stake in The Economist. In a press release, the company said Ms. Fairhead is leaving “to pursue the next phase of her career outside Pearson.”

A replacement was not immediately named, but the company said that during a handover period, Ms. Fairhead would help prepare the incoming chief.

“She led a fundamental restructuring and refocusing of the FT Group, including its successful development of digital businesses, and leaves a strong organization with a bright future in a highly challenging industry,” Ms. Scardino said in a statement

Simon & Schuster Introduces Self-Publishing Service

Simon & Schuster announced Tuesday that it would become the first of the big six publishing houses to dive deeply into the booming self-publishing market.

Self-publishing is a rapidly growing and lucrative sector of the publishing world; the number of self-published books has tripled since 2006, to about 235,000 titles annually, according to the research and consulting firm Bowker. But big publishers have been tentative about entering the market, partly for fear of tarnishing their brand by allowing content they have not reviewed to be published under their name.

But Simon & Schuster has gotten around that problem by teaming up with Author Solutions Inc., a company based in Bloomington, Ind., that already has a robust self-publishing business. Author Solutions also has partnerships with several smaller and niche publishers including Harlequin, which specializes in romance books, and Thomas Nelson, which focuses on Christian books.

The two companies have c reated a separate house called Archway Publishing, which will be available for authors looking to publish fiction, nonfiction, business or children's books.

Simon & Schuster hopes to distinguish Archway from other self-publishing options as a premium service, at a premium cost to the authors. In addition to the standard editorial, design and distribution services normally offered by Author Solutions, Archway will offer a host of new options designed in consultation with Simon.

Authors can buy packages ranging from $1,599, for the least expensive children's package, to $24,999, for the most expensive business book package.

In return, authors will get a range of services, like having their books included in Edelweiss â€" an industry online catalog available to major retailers and wholesalers among others â€" or having access to a speaker's bureau that will help find speaking opportunities. They might also benefit from a video pr oduction department that creates and distributes book trailers.

Author Solutions' chief executive, Kevin Weiss, hailed the deal as a step forward for the self-publishing markets. “This is the largest non-niche publisher that we have established a partnership with to date,” he said in an interview. “And we are establishing a high-end service and a children's service by adapting criteria designed by Simon & Schuster.”

While the venture promises to access the expertise of a major publishing house, it will be completely operated and staffed by Author Solutions. With no Simon & Schuster personnel involved, and without the Simon & Schuster name attached in any way to the final product, Archway's prices â€" significantly higher than even the most expensive competition â€" could be a hard sell.

Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of Idea Logical, a publishing consulting firm, said: “If you change the branding you are not as attractive to the self-published au thor, because, obviously, they are looking for the branding.”

But Adam Rothberg, vice president of corporate communication for Simon & Schuster, said that another attraction of Archway is that Simon & Schuster will be carefully monitoring sales of books completed through the new venture and will use it as a way to spot authors it might want to sign to a contract.

One odd twist of the deal is that Author Solutions was purchased by British publishing giant Pearson in July. Pearson also owns Penguin, a Simon & Schuster competitor. But since Simon & Schuster was already far along in the planning for the new brand, they decided to go forward anyway, Mr. Rothberg said.

The Breakfast Meeting: A New Russian TV Star, and the Joy of a Critic\'s Pan

Svetlana Kuritsyna, a 20-year-old woman from an impoverished rural region of Russia, has become a media star on the basis of an innocent, somewhat inarticulate video interview in which she praises President Vladimir V. Putin. She can be seen as the polar opposite of Pussy Riot, the anti-Putin feminist punk band, three of whose members are now in prison, Sophia Kishkovsky writes. Ms. Kuritsyna is now the star of her own trashy reality show.

• Appearing in Beijing on Sunday, Elton John dedicated his concert “to the spirit and talent of Ai Weiwei,” the Chinese artist and dissident, James C. McKinley Jr. reports, noting that, according to The Associated Press, there was no applause, only expressions of shock and a wave of murmuring. The Chinese government generally applies strict control to live concerts, requiring musicians to submit a detailed set list in advance.

The head of the trust that supervises the British Broadcasting Corporation testified be fore Parliament on Tuesday, saying the corporation's recent report that wrongly implicated a former Conservative Party politician in sexual abuse showed “appalling editorial judgment,” Alan Cowell and John F. Burns report.

• The hearing in Parliament comes just days before a report on press ethics is set to be released. That report was prompted by the phone-hacking scandal mainly centered on Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper division. The variety of investigations and hearings into British journalism, Mr. Cowell writes, “illustrates once more the intensity of the scrutiny faced by journalists and editors in Britain at a time when the news business is struggling to make a painful and costly adjustment to the digital era.”

The Times's public editor, Margaret Sullivan, looks at when (or whether) a critic should offer an entertainingly nasty review. Her peg is the widely circulated, take-no-prisoners review by Pete Wells of a Times Square restaurant opened by Guy Fieri, the Food Network star. After recounting a series of devastating reviews - including one that called Coldplay “the most insufferable band of the decade” - and potent put-downs by the likes of Dorothy Parker (that Katharine Hepburn could “run the gamut of emotions from A to B”) she concludes:

Is it ever really acceptable for criticism to be so over the top, considering that there are human beings behind every venture? I think it is. That kind of brutal honesty is sometimes necessary. If it is entertaining, all the better. The exuberant pan should be an arrow in the critic's quiver, but reached for only rarely.