Austin Goodrich, Spy Who Posed as Journalist, Dies at 87

Austin Goodrich, an American spy who used credentials as a journalist, including from CBS News, to establish his cover during cold war postings abroad, died on June 9 at his home in Port Washington, Wis. He was 87.

Austin Goodrich reporting in Stockholm in 1951.

The cause was Alzheimer’s disease, his daughter Kristina Goodrich said.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Goodrich was far from the only journalist doubling as a secret agent. Several who did so, along with some top news executives, later said that during the cold war the separation between the news media and the government was considerably more negotiable than it subsequently became.

However, it was not until the 1970s, after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigated the Central Intelligence Agency, that reports by Rolling Stone magazine and The New York Times revealed that journalists from myriad news organizations had served the agency in various capacities, sometimes with the full knowledge of their employers.

The Times reported that at least 22 American news organizations, including CBS News and Time, Life and Newsweek magazines, as well as The Times itself, “had employed, though sometimes only on a casual basis, American journalists who were also working for the C.I.A.,” and that “in a few instances the organizations were aware of the C.I.A. connection, but most of them appear not to have been.”

Mr. Goodrich joined the C.I.A. straight out of college in 1949, two years after President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act, which created it. Having spent part of his college career studying in Stockholm, he was returned there by the fledgling agency. “They said ‘Goodbye, good luck, and work your way into a job in Stockholm, and take it from there,’ ” he recalled in a video recorded by his daughter. “I was given a slip of paper with a phone number on it, and I was told, ‘If you’re really in trouble, call that number. Otherwise, we’ve got your bank account and we’ll put your salary in there, and you go out and develop your own cover.’ ”

He set himself up as a freelance writer and reporter, sending back dispatches, largely to Midwestern newspapers, about Scandinavia, including reports from Finland as it held on to its independence in the ominous shadow of the Soviet Union. He wrote about sports for the Paris edition of The New York Herald Tribune contributed to The Christian Science Monitor and Yachting magazine and served as a correspondent for Swedish radio stations.

At the same time, he was foraging among local Communists for dissatisfied party members and performing other clandestine tasks. His daughter said he told of planting ham radios in the forests of Finland so the Finns would have access to communications devices in the event of a Soviet invasion.

“My specialty was recruiting to our service disillusioned and unhappy members of the Communist Party,” Mr. Goodrich said, “people who were strongly motivated to noble purposes, which they felt had been betrayed by the party apparatus.”

Mr. Goodrich began contributing pieces to CBS as a stringer in the 1950s, and for a time the network brought him back to New York to serve as a news writer, but he was fired in 1954 after CBS learned of his connection to the C.I.A. In 1958, however, he appeared as a reporter on an installment of the CBS News program “The Twentieth Century,” anchored by Walter Cronkite, about Soviet propaganda in Finland.

Mr. Goodrich was born in Battle Creek, Mich., on Aug. 30, 1925, the son of Marjorie Austin and Cyrus Goodrich, a lawyer. He enlisted in the Army at 18 and served in the infantry in Europe during World War II. Afterward, he studied political science at the University of Michigan and spent his junior year in Stockholm.

His first marriage, to Eva Rosenberg, whom he met in Oslo, ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter Kristina, survivors include his wife, the former Mona Stender, whom he married in the early 1990s; four other children, Britt V. Weaver and Austin, Timothy and Sammy Goodrich; three sisters, Ethel Ackerson, Eleanor Guilbert and Helen Putnam; seven grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

After his time in Stockholm, Mr. Goodrich went on to agency assignments in the Netherlands and once again in Scandinavia, where he continued to work as a journalist. In 1964 he returned for a time to the United States. His subsequent postings, in Thailand and West Germany, did not require a cover.

Mr. Goodrich retired from the C.I.A. in 1976 and was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit by the future president George H. W. Bush, then the director of central intelligence. Unlike some reporters whose C.I.A. work was a sideline and who cooperated out of a sense of patriotism or, in some cases, for the money, Mr. Goodrich was first and foremost a spy.

“I think he took pride in the journalism he did, but in the final analysis that was not his full-time commitment,” Kristina Goodrich said. “He really believed in the importance of the democratic way of life and the danger of any system that could lead to totalitarian control over people.”

Fork in the Road for a Bookseller

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Customers at a Nook kiosk in a Barnes & Noble store. The company said that it would no longer manufacture color tablets.

William Lynch was brimming with the enthusiasm of a start-up entrepreneur. It was January 2012, and Mr. Lynch, Barnes & Noble’s chief executive, was showing off the company’s shiny Palo Alto, Calif., offices, a 300-person outpost that was the center of its e-reader operations.

William Lynch had been enthusiastic about the Nook.

He and other executives proudly displayed their new devices, talked about plans to expand and promised that the bookstore chain could go head-to-head with the giants of Silicon Valley.

“We’re a technology company, believe it or not,” Mr. Lynch said.

But only 16 months later, Barnes & Noble’s digital plans are crumbling. Last month, a disastrous earnings report coincided with the company’s announcement that it would no longer manufacture color tablets. And on Monday, Barnes & Noble announced that Mr. Lynch, the young, tech-savvy architect of the company’s digital strategy, had abruptly resigned. A new chief executive was not named.

That leaves the nation’s only major bookstore chain without a clear path forward, reviving fears among publishers, authors and agents â€" who are deeply dependent on a viable Barnes & Noble â€" about its future.

Barnes & Noble executives have acknowledged one fact: the digital business that was to be the centerpiece of its growth strategy must be retooled.

After introducing its first black-and-white e-reader in 2009, called the Nook, Barnes & Noble joined the tablet race, a move that industry experts have pointed to as a source of the company’s current troubles. Barnes & Noble’s inexpensive color tablets aimed for a niche in the market below the iPad. But while the company grabbed close to 25 percent of the e-book market, its digital division was getting pummeled by larger competitors, and bleeding money.

“Barnes & Noble was in a Catch-22. They had to do something in digital and Nook was their best shot at it,” said Peter Wahlstrom, a retail analyst with Morningstar Equity Research. “William Lynch had a good vision, but he was overwhelmed and fighting with one hand behind his back.”

Mr. Lynch’s departure, which was effective immediately, leaves Leonard Riggio, the chairman of Barnes & Noble, with a much more visible and powerful role within the company. Mr. Riggio, who built the company into a national force, is known to cherish the physical bookstores. His increased influence, analysts said, could shift the company’s focus more toward the retail side of the business.

Mr. Riggio, the public face of Barnes & Noble for decades, declined a request for an interview on Tuesday. But in meetings and memos in the last two days, Barnes & Noble employees have been assured that despite the recent tumult, their fundamental mission remains the same.

“As you know, we reported year-end results two weeks ago, and Barnes & Noble Retail and Barnes & Noble College delivered very solid performances and remain profitable businesses,” Mr. Riggio wrote in an e-mail to employees after the resignation of Mr. Lynch was announced. “While the losses were significant in the Nook business, I feel certain we will get the business back on track.”

For the fiscal fourth quarter, the Nook unit showed a $177 million loss in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, more than doubling the loss from the period a year earlier. Sales fell 34 percent, to $108 million.

“We’re trying to figure out the right strategy, but it can’t happen overnight,” said one executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly. “E-books are still expanding, and we still have a piece of that market. We just have to find other ways to grow our digital business.”

Analysts said the resignation of Mr. Lynch could increase the likelihood of a formal split of the company. In April 2012, the Nook was spun off as a separate business from Barnes & Noble’s nearly 700 retail stores. Microsoft, which paid hundreds of millions of dollars for 17.6 percent of the Nook division, has expressed interest in buying the entire division, but it is unclear if a deal will be reached.

“The question is, can they truly take the Nook and sell it to someone who’s interested?” said Jack W. Perry, a publishing consultant. “I don’t know if the Nook name has the value to it. But with the customers Barnes & Noble has, there’s still value there.”

In February, Mr. Riggio indicated that he wanted to buy the retail stores and take them private, but he has not publicly acted on those plans since.

On Monday, the company said it was reviewing its strategic plan and would provide an update “when appropriate.”

Michael Norris, a senior analyst with Simba Information, said Barnes & Noble was “in a period of serious and meaningful transition.”

“I think that they need to really ask themselves what kind of business they want to be in,” Mr. Norris said. “And they need to figure out how they expect to make money from both the bookstore business and the e-reader business.”

John Tinker, an analyst for the Maxim Group, said the retail stores were still an attractive property, something that had been obscured by missteps from the digital division. Mr. Lynch, who came to Barnes & Noble with a background in technology and e-commerce rather than book-selling, spent most of his time focused on the digital side of the company. Mr. Riggio has expressed support of the Nook business to employees, but has always devoted his energies to old-fashioned retail book-selling.

“The huge losses and the huge noise on the Nook side are masking a very interesting business on the retail side,” Mr. Tinker said. “If there’s one thing that Riggio is good at, it’s running stores.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 10, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fork in the Road for a Bookseller .

Fork in the Road for a Bookseller

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Customers at a Nook kiosk in a Barnes & Noble store. The company said that it would no longer manufacture color tablets.

William Lynch was brimming with the enthusiasm of a start-up entrepreneur. It was January 2012, and Mr. Lynch, Barnes & Noble’s chief executive, was showing off the company’s shiny Palo Alto, Calif., offices, a 300-person outpost that was the center of its e-reader operations.

William Lynch had been enthusiastic about the Nook.

He and other executives proudly displayed their new devices, talked about plans to expand and promised that the bookstore chain could go head-to-head with the giants of Silicon Valley.

“We’re a technology company, believe it or not,” Mr. Lynch said.

But only 16 months later, Barnes & Noble’s digital plans are crumbling. Last month, a disastrous earnings report coincided with the company’s announcement that it would no longer manufacture color tablets. And on Monday, Barnes & Noble announced that Mr. Lynch, the young, tech-savvy architect of the company’s digital strategy, had abruptly resigned. A new chief executive was not named.

That leaves the nation’s only major bookstore chain without a clear path forward, reviving fears among publishers, authors and agents â€" who are deeply dependent on a viable Barnes & Noble â€" about its future.

Barnes & Noble executives have acknowledged one fact: the digital business that was to be the centerpiece of its growth strategy must be retooled.

After introducing its first black-and-white e-reader in 2009, called the Nook, Barnes & Noble joined the tablet race, a move that industry experts have pointed to as a source of the company’s current troubles. Barnes & Noble’s inexpensive color tablets aimed for a niche in the market below the iPad. But while the company grabbed close to 25 percent of the e-book market, its digital division was getting pummeled by larger competitors, and bleeding money.

“Barnes & Noble was in a Catch-22. They had to do something in digital and Nook was their best shot at it,” said Peter Wahlstrom, a retail analyst with Morningstar Equity Research. “William Lynch had a good vision, but he was overwhelmed and fighting with one hand behind his back.”

Mr. Lynch’s departure, which was effective immediately, leaves Leonard Riggio, the chairman of Barnes & Noble, with a much more visible and powerful role within the company. Mr. Riggio, who built the company into a national force, is known to cherish the physical bookstores. His increased influence, analysts said, could shift the company’s focus more toward the retail side of the business.

Mr. Riggio, the public face of Barnes & Noble for decades, declined a request for an interview on Tuesday. But in meetings and memos in the last two days, Barnes & Noble employees have been assured that despite the recent tumult, their fundamental mission remains the same.

“As you know, we reported year-end results two weeks ago, and Barnes & Noble Retail and Barnes & Noble College delivered very solid performances and remain profitable businesses,” Mr. Riggio wrote in an e-mail to employees after the resignation of Mr. Lynch was announced. “While the losses were significant in the Nook business, I feel certain we will get the business back on track.”

For the fiscal fourth quarter, the Nook unit showed a $177 million loss in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, more than doubling the loss from the period a year earlier. Sales fell 34 percent, to $108 million.

“We’re trying to figure out the right strategy, but it can’t happen overnight,” said one executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly. “E-books are still expanding, and we still have a piece of that market. We just have to find other ways to grow our digital business.”

Analysts said the resignation of Mr. Lynch could increase the likelihood of a formal split of the company. In April 2012, the Nook was spun off as a separate business from Barnes & Noble’s nearly 700 retail stores. Microsoft, which paid hundreds of millions of dollars for 17.6 percent of the Nook division, has expressed interest in buying the entire division, but it is unclear if a deal will be reached.

“The question is, can they truly take the Nook and sell it to someone who’s interested?” said Jack W. Perry, a publishing consultant. “I don’t know if the Nook name has the value to it. But with the customers Barnes & Noble has, there’s still value there.”

In February, Mr. Riggio indicated that he wanted to buy the retail stores and take them private, but he has not publicly acted on those plans since.

On Monday, the company said it was reviewing its strategic plan and would provide an update “when appropriate.”

Michael Norris, a senior analyst with Simba Information, said Barnes & Noble was “in a period of serious and meaningful transition.”

“I think that they need to really ask themselves what kind of business they want to be in,” Mr. Norris said. “And they need to figure out how they expect to make money from both the bookstore business and the e-reader business.”

John Tinker, an analyst for the Maxim Group, said the retail stores were still an attractive property, something that had been obscured by missteps from the digital division. Mr. Lynch, who came to Barnes & Noble with a background in technology and e-commerce rather than book-selling, spent most of his time focused on the digital side of the company. Mr. Riggio has expressed support of the Nook business to employees, but has always devoted his energies to old-fashioned retail book-selling.

“The huge losses and the huge noise on the Nook side are masking a very interesting business on the retail side,” Mr. Tinker said. “If there’s one thing that Riggio is good at, it’s running stores.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 10, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fork in the Road for a Bookseller .

Conservative Voice Goes From ‘View’ to Fox News

Fox News announced a sudden shake-up of its morning show “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday night, hiring Elisabeth Hasselbeck from ABC’s “The View” to replace Gretchen Carlson, who has been a co-host of the morning show for seven years.

Ms. Hasselbeck’s last day on “The View” will be Wednesday. She will start on the three-hour “Fox & Friends” in mid-September, and Ms. Carlson will then move to Fox News at an unspecified daytime hour.

Ms. Hasselbeck, who as the lone conservative on “The View” sometimes came under attack from her more liberal co-hosts, will not feel that way on “Fox & Friends.” The morning show is reliably conservative; the co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade seem to compete to one-up each other’s critiques of the president and Democrats.

A Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. But in a statement published by several Web sites, the network’s chief executive, Roger Ailes, said of Ms. Hasselbeck, “She has proven to be an excellent conversationalist and I am certain she will make a great addition to our already successful morning franchise.”

Mr. Ailes is simultaneously making changes to his network’s morning and evening lineups. Last week he confirmed that he planned to move Megyn Kelly, the anchor of the two-hour afternoon program “America Live,” to prime time this summer. It is unclear what time slot Ms. Kelly will take over, but speculation has revolved around 10 p.m., the hour held by Greta Van Susteren.

Ms. Kelly’s promotion will free up time in the afternoon, potentially for Ms. Carlson.

ABC indicated that the decision to leave “The View” hastily was Ms. Hasselbeck’s. Her departure began to be rumored some months ago, but she and the show’s creator, Barbara Walters, have sidestepped the issue in interviews and in conversations on the show.

Ms. Walters and another longtime co-host, Joy Behar, have previously announced that they planned to leave “The View” as well, leaving two hosts remaining, Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd.

In a statement on Tuesday night, ABC thanked Ms. Hasselbeck for her 10 years on the show. It noted her “passion and strong beliefs,” saying in part, “She stood behind her political views even if they were not the most popular opinions at the table, never shying away from voicing a difficult question.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 10, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Conservative Voice Goes From ‘View’ to Fox News.

Parliament Asks Murdoch to Discuss Hacking

Just two weeks after Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper division got a fresh start under a newly formed publishing company, an old problem resurfaced: hacking.

Rupert Murdoch

On Tuesday, the British Parliament called on Mr. Murdoch “to give evidence to discuss his comments” about the culture of paying off police that he made on March 6 to nearly two dozen journalists and newspaper executives from The Sun. A tape of the 45-minute conversation first emerged on the British investigative journalism Web site Exaro News on July 4.

On the audiotape, Mr. Murdoch listens to the journalists, nearly all of whom had been questioned for hacking and other illegal news-gathering practices, talk about the impact of the scandal on their lives. He told them, “I’m just as annoyed as you are at the police, and you’re directing it at me instead.” Through the conversation, Mr. Murdoch spoke in a gravelly and often indignant voice about how the newspaper, now defunct, was targeted for practices that were largely commonplace in British journalism.

“One of our high-priced lawyers would say it’s our fault, but that situation existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street,” Mr. Murdoch said.

He also promised to continue to provide support to journalists even if they are found guilty.

“I will do everything in my power to give you total support, even if you’re convicted or get six months or whatever. I think it’s just outrageous,” he said, adding, “I don’t know of anybody or anything that did anything that wasn’t being done across Fleet Street and wasn’t the culture.”

Mr. Murdoch was invited back to appear before Parliament, according to a government official who would not be named under standard parliamentary rules. At this point, members of Parliament have not officially sent Mr. Murdoch an invitation and an interview is not expected to take place until after the House of Commons returns from its summer break. Because Mr. Murdoch has been invited and not summoned, the meeting will take place when Mr. Murdoch is in Britain.

Ashley Huston, a spokeswoman for News Corporation, said in a statement that “Mr. Murdoch welcomes the opportunity to return to the Select Committee and answer their questions. He looks forward to clearing up any misconceptions as soon as possible.”

Mr. Murdoch’s voice on the tapes sounds notably different from the more subdued tone he took when he spoke before Parliament about the hacking scandal that closed The Sun, forced the company to withdraw its takeover bid of British Sky Broadcasting, also known as BSkyB, and helped lead to the split of News Corporation into two separate companies. In July 2011, he appeared with his son James before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, then in April 2012, he appeared before a judicial panel.

In the past, Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at BTIG Research, predicted that the problems presented by the hacking scandal would ultimately benefit shareholders because of the eventual split into two companies. Last month, he wrote on his blog that News Corporation had made strides and that “shares have rebounded from fears tied to the phone hacking scandal.”

Stephen Castle contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 10, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Parliament Asks Murdoch to Discuss Hacking.

Advertising: A Contest From Target With a High-Tech Twist

A Contest From Target With a High-Tech Twist

TYPICALLY, a contest sponsored by a retailer involves asking consumers to count the number of gumballs in a jumbo glass jar, challenging them to name a new product or inviting them to fill shopping carts with merchandise as they race up and down store aisles. Now a giant retailer has joined with a magazine’s blog to co-sponsor a contest with a high-technology twist.

Target, teamed with a Fast Company technology blog, ran a contest for a shopping app.

The retailer, Target, part of the Target Corporation, and the new Co.Labs technology blog published by Fast Company magazine, owned by Mansueto Ventures, sought out developers to take part in a competition they called the Retail Accelerator contest. The goal was to encourage the development of mobile apps with shopping purposes; the grand prize winners would receive $75,000 and a chance to have their entry brought to life by Target for customers to use.

The contest began in March at the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Tex. On Wednesday, Target and Co.Labs plan to announce the winners of the grand prize: a group of seven people who work at TBWA/Chiat/Day and TBWA Worldwide in New York, part of the Omnicom Group, and competed on their own, separate from the agencies, under the name Team Pilot.

Team Pilot’s winning entry, called Divvy, is meant to improve digital experiences in the realm of group shopping or social shopping by, for instance, enabling several people to update a shopping list in real time and making it easier to divide a bill among numerous shoppers and distribute copies of receipts among them.

The idea from Team Pilot â€" led by Christopher Reardon, team leader and head of user experience â€" was one of seven finalists in what was formally called the Co.Labs and Target Retail Accelerator contest. Each finalist received $10,000 and a chance to present to judges, including Jeffrey J. Jones, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Target in Minneapolis.

There were initially about 350 individuals and teams who registered for the contest, Mr. Jones said, of whom about 75 submitted completed entries. The 75 were winnowed to the seven finalists and then to the grand prize winner.

The genesis of the contest was a question Mr. Jones asked as follows: “How do we continue to find ideas to accelerate our multichannel agenda?” By that, he meant ways of engaging with customers that include “target.com, our in-store experience, our Target app and the mobile Web.”

“As a reader of Fast Company, someone who is passionate about design and technology, I felt we were going to what I believe is the best media source that understands what’s going on and has access to the right people Target has to know, the best minds in the R.& D. community,” Mr. Jones said.

The contest is another example of a popular trend on Madison Avenue known as content marketing, which provides consumers with articles, video clips, charts and other materials that are sponsored by marketers. The purpose of content marketing, also known as branded content, custom content or sponsored content, is to surmount the increasing skepticism among the public for traditional advertising.

“I wanted to create some different models of how we can work with advertising partners,” said Christine Osekoski, publisher of Fast Company in New York.

“If you’re going to work with them on custom content, the question becomes how you make sure it’s content readers really want to read,” she added. “You have to be selective.”

Matthew Smith, integrated advertising director at Fast Company, agreed, saying that in this instance “the interests of church and state and the client and the community all aligned” because “we were speaking to them in an authentic way.”

That was echoed by Chris Dannen, the editor of Co.Labs. A way to achieve compelling content is to be transparent with readers, Mr. Dannen said, because “if they can’t see what’s going on behind the scenes, they won’t trust you.”

As a result, “we let it happen as it happened,” he said of the contest, adding: “There was the chance that no one would submit anything good. We were biting our nails.”

Mr. Dannen also shared some shortcomings, principally that because “we did not give people stringent guidelines on what their submissions should look like, some people put all their energy into the idea, some did highly detailed mock-ups and some submitted sketches on graph paper.”

The contest concept was first brought up a year ago, Ms. Osekoski recalled, when she met Mr. Jones in Los Angeles at the introduction of another Fast Company blog, Co.Create.

Although “Target is not a traditional advertiser for Fast Company,” she said, the retailer was keenly interested in reaching out to developers through the magazine. “Fast Company could be the conduit, the connector, the consultant,” she added.

Target is running ads on the Co.Labs blog to promote the contest.

Target is involved in other content marketing efforts, including the publication of its own online magazine-cum-blog, A Bullseye View. Mr. Jones said he and other Target executives “love what’s come out of” the collaboration with Co.Labs. But he added, laughing, “don’t let Christine tell you I promised to do this again.”

Ms. Osekoski, when told of Mr. Jones’s remark, said, “He reads my mind,” and laughed.

Although Fast Company is happy with how the partnership has turned out, she added: “This is not a contest to name a shade of lipstick or a nail color. This was a huge experiment for everybody. It takes a lot of work.”

Journalist Assassinated in Violent Russian Republic

MOSCOW â€" A prominent journalist who had accused local authorities of persecuting and kidnapping Muslims was shot dead in an ambush in the violent Russian republic of Dagestan on Tuesday, police officials said.

The journalist, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, 53, a deputy editor of the independent daily newspaper Novoye Delo, had already survived a January assassination attempt at the same spot just outside the capital, Makhachkala.

“They were waiting for him at an intersection just 50 meters from his house,” said Fatina Ubaidatova, a spokeswoman for the local police, adding that they did not have any suspects. “They fired several shots into the car and he was hit in the head. He died there.”

The killing is the latest in a steady tide of attacks on journalists in Dagestan, which is facing a low-level Islamic insurgency. According to data from the Russian Union of Journalists, Mr. Akhmednabiyev is the 17th journalist to be killed or die under suspicious circumstances in Dagestan since 1993.

The police say most of the killings have been carried out by “members of the criminal underground,” though it is rarely, if ever, clear what their allegiances are. In the majority of the assassinations, journalists are shot in their cars, and the cases are rarely solved.

Mr. Akhmednabiyev saw few topics as off limits, writing about what he described as extrajudicial kidnappings by local security forces, human rights violations during counterterrorism operations, and pressure against Muslim organizations.

He regularly received threatening phone calls and text messages from unidentified sources, said Khadzhimurad Sagitov, editor in chief of Novoye Delo.

“We expected this,” Mr. Sagitov said by telephone while waiting for a funeral procession for Mr. Akhmednabiyev to arrive at a cemetery on the outskirts of Makhachkala. “We knew that if not today, then it would happen tomorrow, or the next day.”

In December 2011, Khadzhimurad Kamalov, the founder of the independent Chernovik newspaper, was gunned down outside the newspaper’s offices in Makhachkala.

Mr. Kamalov’s name had been included on a so-called kill list of people whom the unknown authors accused of supporting local Islamist militants and bearing the blame for the death of police officers and civilians in the conflict.

Mr. Akhmednabiyev’s name was also on the list, though it was not clear why.

Deadly attacks, which are rarely solved by the local police, have become a common way of silencing journalists in Dagestan in recent years. The police spokeswoman said that while the attack was probably linked to Mr. Akhmednabiyev’s professional activities, she could not name any particular articles or a specific motive in the killing. Mr. Sagitov similarly said he could not name a particular article of Mr. Akhmednabiyev’s as a likely trigger behind the attack, adding that he “never made it personal” in articles that accused local authorities of crimes.

“He was a religious man,” said Mr. Sagitov. “That helped him deal with the threats.”

On Tuesday, several hundred mourners carried Mr. Akhmednabiyev’s body from a downtown mosque down a main avenue in Makhachkala to a local cemetery.

Some also held signs, one that read: “Who’s next?”

Senator Seeks F.C.C. Review of WWOR-TV’s License

WWOR, the New Jersey-based television station, faced a new challenge to its license on Tuesday from United States Senator Robert Menendez.

Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to urge a “prompt and thorough review” of the license that permits WWOR to profit from the public airwaves. His letter came one day after the station replaced its traditional half-hour nightly newscast, the only daily news on its schedule, with a tabloid-style magazine program called “Chasing New Jersey.”

“In light of WWOR’s decision to drop their nightly news programming, a decision which affects millions of New Jerseyans, it is becoming increasingly critical that the F.C.C. make a determination about WWOR’s license and whether they are adequately serving New Jersey as the law and F.C.C. rules stipulate,” Mr. Menendez wrote to Mignon L. Clyburn, the acting chair of the commission.

WWOR, the only big commercial station in the state and wedged between the New York and Philadelphia media markets, has been controversial for some time because its license specifically asserts that the station must pay special attention to the people of northern New Jersey. Since 2001, the station had been owned by the News Corporation, which last month split into two companies, the News Corporation and 21st Century Fox. WWOR is now part of 21st Century Fox.

When the station’s license expired in 2007, the F.C.C. declined to renew it, but did not revoke it either, allowing the station to continue operating in the interim. Station licenses are typically renewed every eight years, so WWOR is now approaching its next scheduled review period.

In his letter on Tuesday, Mr. Menendez hinted that he believed that the license should be taken away from 21st Century Fox. Such a move by the F.C.C. is extremely rare.

With the letter, Mr. Menendez appeared to be picking up where his late Senate colleague, Frank R. Lautenberg, left off. Mr. Lautenberg, a longtime critic of WWOR, died last month. The New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, appointed Jeffrey Chiesa, the state’s attorney general, to be Mr. Lautenberg’s interim replacement in the Senate. A special election to fill the seat is scheduled to take place in October.

“It is my hope and will be my mission to see that Senator Lautenberg’s longstanding and well founded concerns are not forgotten,” Mr. Menendez wrote.

A spokesman for the F.C.C. declined to comment. A spokeswoman for WWOR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New Village Voice Editor Says Paper Is Healthier Than It’s Been in Years

After months of editorial changes and staff upheaval, the newly appointed editor of The Village Voice, Tom Finkel, said he was walking into his new job well aware of the turmoil that precedes him.

Voice Media Group, the weekly’s parent company, announced on Monday that Mr. Finkel, the editor of The Riverfront Times in St. Louis, would begin editing The Voice sometime this summer. In an e-mail exchange, Mr. Finkel said he would be starting sooner, “if it weren’t for trivial matters like moving my family halfway across the country.” He added that he recognized that those changes are part of business.

“No business is immune to economic realities -- not even the media -- and The Village Voice was slow to come to grips with that," he said. "But right now the paper is healthier than it has been in more than a decade.”

Mr. Finkel added that many of the challenges for The Voice stem from its celebrated past.

“The Voice’s history makes it susceptible to a reflexive kind of nostalgia that can distract folks from its actual purpose,” he said. “Our aim should be to provide New Yorkers with constantly smart takes on New York news and culture.”

In May, Will Bourne, the paper’s editor, and Jessica Lustig, the paper’s deputy editor, both resigned because they said they could not carry out the layoffs the Voice Media Group insisted they make. The following week, a spokeswoman for The Voice confirmed that Michael Musto, the paper’s gossip columnist, and Robert Sietsema, its restaurant reviewer would be leaving. Michael Feingold, the Voice’s longtime theatre critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist, also left.

Mr. Finkel is joining the paper after it hired three new writers from other weekly papers. They include Albert Samaha, Tessa Stuart and Anna Merian.

New Village Voice Editor Says Paper Is Healthier Than It’s Been in Years

After months of editorial changes and staff upheaval, the newly appointed editor of The Village Voice, Tom Finkel, said he was walking into his new job well aware of the turmoil that precedes him.

Voice Media Group, the weekly’s parent company, announced on Monday that Mr. Finkel, the editor of The Riverfront Times in St. Louis, would begin editing The Voice sometime this summer. In an e-mail exchange, Mr. Finkel said he would be starting sooner, “if it weren’t for trivial matters like moving my family halfway across the country.” He added that he recognized that those changes are part of business.

“No business is immune to economic realities -- not even the media -- and The Village Voice was slow to come to grips with that," he said. "But right now the paper is healthier than it has been in more than a decade.”

Mr. Finkel added that many of the challenges for The Voice stem from its celebrated past.

“The Voice’s history makes it susceptible to a reflexive kind of nostalgia that can distract folks from its actual purpose,” he said. “Our aim should be to provide New Yorkers with constantly smart takes on New York news and culture.”

In May, Will Bourne, the paper’s editor, and Jessica Lustig, the paper’s deputy editor, both resigned because they said they could not carry out the layoffs the Voice Media Group insisted they make. The following week, a spokeswoman for The Voice confirmed that Michael Musto, the paper’s gossip columnist, and Robert Sietsema, its restaurant reviewer would be leaving. Michael Feingold, the Voice’s longtime theatre critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist, also left.

Mr. Finkel is joining the paper after it hired three new writers from other weekly papers. They include Albert Samaha, Tessa Stuart and Anna Merian.

Meredith Vieira to Return to Daytime TV as Talk Show Host

Meredith Vieira will return to daytime television as the host of a syndicated talk show in the fall of 2014, NBCUniversal announced on Tuesday.

Meredith Vieira embraced her co-host, Matt Lauer, during her final days on the "Today" show in 2011. She will be hosting her own talk show in 2014.

NBC’s syndication division did not say whether it had completed any deals with local television stations. But executives involved with the production of “The Meredith Vieira Show” expressed confidence that stations, including the 10 owned by NBC in big cities, would snap up the rights to the show in short order.

NBC has been pursuing Ms. Vieira, a former host of the network’s “Today” show, about hosting a talk show since late last year. Daytime television, with its blend of information and entertainment, is terrain she knows well: she was one of the original hosts of “The View,” the ABC talk show that Barbara Walters started in 1997. Nine years later she signed off “The View” to succeed Katie Couric on “Today,” and helped keep that show on top of the ratings.

However, Ms. Vieira left “Today” in 2011, exhausted by the early-morning hours and eager to spend more time with her family. She remained with NBC as a special correspondent. (The “Today” ratings winning streak ended 10 months later.)

In a statement on Tuesday, she said that she wanted the show to embody what she called the “three H’s”: heat, heart and humor. “And speaking of the heart, I want to thank my husband, Richard, and kids, Ben, Gabe and Lily, for strongly encouraging me to take this incredible opportunity … or else they really just want to get me out of the house,” she said.

Syndicated talk shows can be very lucrative for their hosts and corporate backers. But they can also be immensely challenging, as Ms. Couric has demonstrated in her first year as the host of “Katie,” a product of the Disney-ABC Domestic Television division of the Walt Disney Company.

Since its debut last September, “Katie” has not lived up to the expectations of Ms. Couric or the stations that paid a handsome license fee for it. While the show has been renewed through summer 2014, many syndication observers expect it to end at that point, either because Ms. Couric will choose to do something else â€" she has been unhappy at times with the fluffy nature of daytime TV â€" or because stations will choose to put on a different show.

“The Meredith Vieira Show” could be a replacement â€" which would be an interesting wrinkle, given the intertwined history of the two women. But NBC is trying hard to manage expectations about the show, having concluded that Ms. Couric and Disney excessively hyped “Katie” ahead of time.

The company will most likely seek out early afternoon time slots for “Vieira,” not the late afternoon slots that are typically highly rated and more highly sought after. Also, the show could be televised in the late mornings by some local stations, putting it into direct competition with Ms. Vieira’s old show “The View.”

NBC’s announcement suggested that Ms. Vieira would play up her lighthearted side. “She creates an instant connection with audiences with her smart, quick-witted and down-to-earth style," Ted Harbert, the chairman of NBC Broadcasting, said in a news release. "This entertaining and substantive show will be a great way to reach her loyal daytime fans as well as new ones who will discover why Meredith is one of America’s most loved television personalities.”

Rubio Is Losing Support Among Republican Voters

Until recently, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida had occupied something of a sweet spot in Republican politics: a favorite of the Tea Party but also trusted by the establishment wing of the G.O.P.

Mr. Rubio’s embrace of comprehensive immigration reform, however, appears to have upset that delicate balance, and his support has slipped among the Republican base. The mention of his name drew boos at an anti-immigration reform Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill in mid-June, and recent public opinion surveys, taken amid the debate on immigration legislation, found his favorability rating falling and his standing in 2016 Republican primary matchups eroding.

Only two surveys, one by ABC News and The Washington Post and one by Rasmussen Reports, have tested Mr. Rubio’s popularity since the Senate reached the final stages of passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Both measured double-digit drops in his net favorability rating among Republicans.

Mr. Rubio is still very popular among Republicans, just not as popular as he once was, particularly in the days after the 2012 presidential election when he became a leading Republican voice and began being discussed as a top contender in the 2016 presidential race.

Indeed, Mr. Rubio led in an average of the first few 2016 Republican primary polls released after the 2012 election, but support for him has faded in more recent 2016 primary surveys.

In the four national surveys conducted in January, an average of 20 percent of Republicans said they would support Mr. Rubio for the party’s nomination in 2016. That number dropped to an average of 11 percent in the four primary polls conducted in June.

Before the Senate took up immigration reform, Mr. Rubio was largely a blank slate, upon whom both establishment Republicans and Tea Party supporters could project what they wanted (a dynamic that Barack Obama benefited from in 2008). Now Mr. Rubio has chosen a side, at least on immigration, and as long as it is a top issue in the news, Mr. Rubio may be identified more with the moderate wing of his party.

Had he stayed on the sidelines for immigration reform, Mr. Rubio’s wide popularity among Republicans might have lasted longer, but it is unlikely it would have remained so high indefinitely. At some point, he would have been forced to take stands on other issues that divide the Republican establishment from the base. And if he runs for president in 2016, he will have to differentiate himself from other conservative candidates with stands on virtually every issue imaginable.

In other words, Mr. Rubio and his strategists may be playing a long game, sacrificing some support on the right they were likely to lose anyway for support in the middle. And while his stance on immigration reform has not yet earned Mr. Rubio a robust increase in his support among independents, that could still come.

Voters who are not particularly roused to either party tend to follow politics less closely than partisans and are less likely to be focusing on Mr. Rubio’s role in the immigration debate. Mr. Rubio’s support for immigration reform may earn the support of more moderate, unaffiliated voters once they start paying more attention to politics.

Of course, if Mr. Rubio does run for president in 2016, favoring comprehensive immigration reform might make winning the Republican nomination harder (although polls show a majority of Republican voters favor a conditional path to citizenship, primary voters tend to be more conservative than Republican voters over all). But Mr. Rubio will still be able to point to a deeply conservative record on many other issues.

And were he to emerge as the Republican nominee in 2016, his stance on immigration could help him in a general election.

Ultimately, Mr. Rubio’s political talent will help determine whether he can minimize his losses on the right and maximize his gains in the middle.

After Four Years, Lowe Agency Gets a New U.S. Partner

For almost two decades, the Interpublic Group of Companies has tried to figure out the right way to beef up the United States operations of one of its global agency networks, Lowe & Partners. On Tuesday, Interpublic announced that it would go back to the drawing board again, undoing one alignment and forming another.

In October 2009, Deutsch, an autonomous agency under the Interpublic umbrella since 2000, became the United States hub of Lowe, which works for marketers around the world like Ikea and Unilever. The alignment was formed by combining the New York office of Lowe with the New York office of Deutsch; an office of Deutsch in Los Angeles was largely unaffected by the merger.

The merger took place after Interpublic had sought to bolster the Lowe American operations by merging several agencies into the New York office of Lowe, among them Ammirati & Puris Lintas, Bozell, Goldsmith/Jeffrey and Scali, McCabe, Sloves.

On Tuesday, Interpublic realigned the realignment, designating another of its autonomous agencies, Campbell Ewald, based in Warren, Mich., as the United States hub for Lowe, which has its headquarters in London and offices in about 80 countries. Campbell Ewald will be renamed Lowe Campbell Ewald â€" and Deutsch, which had been officially called Deutsch, a Lowe & Partners agency, goes back to being called Deutsch.

Accounts that Deutsch in New York had absorbed from the New York office of Lowe will remain with Deutsch in New York. They include the Milk Processor Education Program, known for its “milk mustache” campaign, and Outback Steakhouse.

The realignment is taking place after Lowe collaborated with Campbell Ewald â€" along with another autonomous Interpublic agency, Hill Holliday, based in Boston â€" to wrest the assignment to create ads for the Cadillac division of General Motors from Fallon Worldwide in Minneapolis, part of the Publicis Groupe.

Campbell Ewald, Hill Holliday and Lowe are all part of a new Interpublic agency, dedicated to Cadillac, being named Rogue. The headquarters for Rogue will be in the Lowe Campbell Ewald headquarters in Warren.

The collaboration between Lowe and Campbell Ewald on Cadillac is clearly a reason to align the two agencies. The fact that the Deutsch Los Angeles office creates campaigns for another automotive company, Volkswagen of America, is also a reason to separate Lowe and Deutsch.

Also on Tuesday, Interpublic named a new top leader for what is now Lowe Campbell Ewald. Jim Palmer, who had been chief client officer at Campbell Ewald, becomes chief executive at Lowe Campbell Ewald, succeeding Bill Ludwig, who, Interpublic said in a statement, is working on a new venture that “could see him remain connected to” Interpublic.

Kathleen Donald, who had been president at Campbell Ewald, was named chief operating officer at Lowe Campbell Ewald, taking on additional duties. Mark Simon continues as chief creative officer at the renamed agency.

Two offices of Campbell Ewald, in Los Angeles and San Antonio, will also be renamed Lowe Campbell Ewald. The agency previously announced plans to leave its headquarters building in Warren and relocate to downtown Detroit in early 2014.

Other clients of Lowe Campbell Ewald, in addition to Cadillac, include Alltel Wireless, Chicken of the Sea, Kaiser Permanente and the United States Navy. For decades, Campbell Ewald had created campaigns for the Chevrolet division of General Motors, an assignment that is now handled by an Interpublic agency named Commonwealth.

The senior management of Lowe remains unchanged with Tony Wright as chairman and Michael Wall as chief executive. Lowe is the smallest of Interpublic’s three global agency networks; the others are McCann Erickson Worldwide and DraftFCB.

HBO to Produce Documentary on Gay Marriage Legal Fight

Drew Angerer for The New York Times

HBO plans to air a documentary from filmmakers who had behind-the-scenes access to the legal team led by David Boies, left, and Theodore B. Olson that challenged California's ban on same-sex marriage.

LOS ANGELES â€" HBO on Tuesday announced a documentary film project that will chronicle the court battle to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

HBO said that two directors, Ben Cotner and Ryan White, have for years had exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the legal team that argued the recent Supreme Court case over Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative that banned gay marriage in the state. The Supreme Court late last month declined to rule on the case, effectively ending the ban.

The still-untitled documentary will be completed by the end of the year and make its debut on HBO sometime next year. Michael Lombardo, HBO’s programming president, in a statement called the movie “the story of a modern-day American revolution” and said it was intended to be “the film of record on this landmark case.”

Mr. Cotner, a first-time director, and Mr. White, known for the documentary “Good Ol’ Freda,” about the woman who served as secretary to the Beatles, gained access to the Proposition 8 legal team - led by the liberal David Boies and conservative Theodore B. Olson - through the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the nonprofit group that brought the challenge.

“Their willingness to give us such amazing access speaks to how confident they were about where history would end up,” Mr. Cotner said in a telephone interview.

The documentary will also tell the story of the couples behind the case. “I’ve always said that the best evidence in this case is to hear our clients tell their stories,” Mr. Olson said in a statement.

Opponents of same-sex marriage succeeded in blocking video coverage of the case as it made its way through lower courts. “But they cannot block this documentary,” Mr. Boies said in a statement.

HBO to Produce Documentary on Gay Marriage Legal Fight

Drew Angerer for The New York Times

HBO plans to air a documentary from filmmakers who had behind-the-scenes access to the legal team led by David Boies, left, and Theodore B. Olson that challenged California's ban on same-sex marriage.

LOS ANGELES â€" HBO on Tuesday announced a documentary film project that will chronicle the court battle to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

HBO said that two directors, Ben Cotner and Ryan White, have for years had exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the legal team that argued the recent Supreme Court case over Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative that banned gay marriage in the state. The Supreme Court late last month declined to rule on the case, effectively ending the ban.

The still-untitled documentary will be completed by the end of the year and make its debut on HBO sometime next year. Michael Lombardo, HBO’s programming president, in a statement called the movie “the story of a modern-day American revolution” and said it was intended to be “the film of record on this landmark case.”

Mr. Cotner, a first-time director, and Mr. White, known for the documentary “Good Ol’ Freda,” about the woman who served as secretary to the Beatles, gained access to the Proposition 8 legal team - led by the liberal David Boies and conservative Theodore B. Olson - through the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the nonprofit group that brought the challenge.

“Their willingness to give us such amazing access speaks to how confident they were about where history would end up,” Mr. Cotner said in a telephone interview.

The documentary will also tell the story of the couples behind the case. “I’ve always said that the best evidence in this case is to hear our clients tell their stories,” Mr. Olson said in a statement.

Opponents of same-sex marriage succeeded in blocking video coverage of the case as it made its way through lower courts. “But they cannot block this documentary,” Mr. Boies said in a statement.

National Book Foundation Names 3 Board Members

In its latest effort to expand its profile beyond the publishing world, the National Book Foundation has appointed three new board members from the fields of academia, journalism and education. The foundation is the presenter of the National Book Awards, which are given every fall.

The new board members are Anthony W. Marx, the president and chief executive of the New York Public Library; Deborah Needleman, the editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine; and Annette Gordon-Reed, the historian and Harvard professor.

Board members cast votes for two awards presented by the foundation, but do not vote on the actual book awards, which are presented to authors in four categories â€" fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature. Separate panels of judges made up of writers and others in the literary community vote on those awards.

David Steinberger, the chairman of the foundation’s board, said in a statement: “Our goal is to increase the impact that the best American writing has on our culture. With that objective in mind, we are gratified to be welcoming three new board members of such extraordinary stature.”

Mr. Steinberger has pushed for more visibility for the awards, which have historically had a lower profile than the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes.

Legendary Entertainment Said to Be Near Deal to Move to Universal

LOS ANGELES â€" Legendary Entertainment, the fast-growing movie financing and production company involved in hits like “Man of Steel” and “The Hangover” franchise, is nearing a deal with Comcast that would move its operations to Universal from Warner Brothers.

No agreement has been signed, according to a senior studio executive with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. But this person said that negotiations have proceeded to the point that an announcement is expected within days.

Representatives for Legendary and Universal declined to comment.

Legendary, which picked up more than $700 million in new financing last year, has been headed toward Universal for months, with the Hollywood trade news site Deadline.com reporting again on Sunday that a deal was “likely.” Aside from its movies â€" which also include the robots-vs.-monsters tale “Pacific Rim,” opening on Friday â€" the company has a budding television business and a digital operation.

Legendary and Warner have had a frosty relationship, with Legendary’s chief executive, Thomas Tull, clashing with Jeff Robinov, who was Warner’s movie chief until late last month. Although Warner executives have said that the loss of Legendary would not be a crippling blow â€" the studio, owned by Time Warner, has other sources of outside financing â€" the departure would sting nonetheless.

That’s because Legendary, despite a few duds (“Jack the Giant Slayer”), has had a remarkable track record, particularly in the fanboy arena, which can be one of Hollywood’s most lucrative. Moreover, Universal’s schedule is typically light on those kinds of movies, which â€" if successful â€" would fit nicely with its worldwide theme park operation.