My Mademoiselle Summer

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

The Barbizon Hotel for Women, 140 East 63rd Street, in December 1980; Meg Wolitzer recalls the summer of 1979 when she and other Mademoiselle magazine guest editors stayed there.

As I lay drowsing in bed at the Barbizon Hotel for Women, the maid began slamming her fist against my door like a D.E.A. agent, and I popped up, briefly disoriented, taking in the grim, narrow room, the orange and yellow bedspread, the clothes I’d laid out on the armchair the night before. Slowly, I rose from my bed and took my shower caddy down the hall, nodding to a few of the other girls â€" or were we women now? I wasn’t sure.

Four Mademoiselle guest editors from 1963: from left, Kathy van Leeuwen, Susan Clapper, Lise Christensen and Cindi Buchanan.

It was the summer of 1979, and we were all winners of Mademoiselle magazine’s Guest Editor competition; the same college contest that Sylvia Plath had once won, and which I had often thought of as “The Bell Jar contest.” I had entered in part because I had a bit of a preoccupation with Plath. Not seriously, not like someone I had known at Smith who dressed in black and called herself Sivvy, Plath’s nickname.

I wasn’t depressive, and I wasn’t even a poet, but at age 20 it was easy to feel a connection. Plath had also been a student at Smith when she won the contest 26 years earlier, and while I hoped my time in New York City would be happier than hers had been, I also hoped there would be some overlap. After all, despite the uneasy, increasingly desperate mood-state described in “The Bell Jar,” the first part of the novel is set against a backdrop of big-city glamour. I imagined a group of young women in chic little outfits striding across marble office-building lobbies, and going out at night for drinks with Yale men, to whom they might lose their virginity.

Mademoiselle, which published its last issue in November 2001, was known for more than just fashion and advice. One cover, in February 1954, boasted only two, telling headlines: “Romantic fashions, for spring, for brides, for tall girls”; and “Dylan Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood.’ ”

The magazine published an astonishing array of literary work (mostly fiction) by writers including Truman Capote, Albert Camus, William Faulkner, Carson McCullers and James Baldwin, and later, Alice Munro and Barbara Kingsolver. Its list of college competition winners was stellar, too: not just Plath, but also Joan Didion, Mona Simpson, Ann Beattie, Francine du Plessix Gray and Diane Johnson.

To me, Mademoiselle was to Vogue what Skipper was to Barbie: her younger, crisply put-together sister who read Mary McCarthy and attended a Seven Sisters college instead of lolling around the Dream House all day.

The night we 14 winners arrived in New York, it was hard not to notice that the city lacked the smooth, high shellac I associated with Plath’s era; instead, it partly resembled an episode of “Kojak.” We traveled in a pack to the premiere of the movie “Players,” starring Dean Paul Martin and the Mademoiselle contest alumna Ali MacGraw. The fact that I could immediately tell that no one would remember this movie had ever existed might have been a warning. But I partied as if it were 1953, wanting things to stay the same, even as I was antsy for them to change.

Mademoiselle seemed to feel similarly, wanting to be current and to compete, yet clinging to the wholesome collegiate sensibility that we, the guest editors, were meant to embody. In our summer at the Barbizon, I felt enclosed in the amber of the long-ago (not entirely an unpleasurable sensation) while craning to see what lay ahead.

There were still echoes of the world Elizabeth Winder described in her recent book “Pain, Parties, Work,” about Plath’s experience in the city. So much time has passed now that some details are murky, but I do clearly remember us with our slightly damp, fragrant hair (my shampoo of choice was “Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific”) and summer blouses, walking or taking the No. 6 train to the Condé Nast building, then on Madison Avenue.

Fairly soon, friendships were formed. I hung around with Nancy Davis, a student at Rhode Island School of Design with a chic and androgynous visual-artist style, who had entered the contest on a dare, and Jesse Green, who had a thick beard and a general air of amused detachment. (In a transparent bid for modernity, the contest had gone coed earlier in the ’70s, and there were three men among us.)

Meg Wolitzer’s most recent novel, “The Interestings,” was published in April.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 21, 2013, on page ST1 of the National edition with the headline: My Mademoiselle Summer.

F.C.C. Backs Plan to Update a Fund That Helps Connect Schools to the Internet

Nathan Lambrecht/The Monitor, via Associated Press

The McAllen Independent School District in McAllen, Tex., gave a number of its students iPads and iPod Touch devices last year.

WASHINGTON â€" The Federal Communications Commission voted on Friday to overhaul and possibly expand its E-Rate program, a $2.3 billion effort to provide schools and libraries with up-to-date telecommunications service and equipment, including high-speed Internet connections.

A proposal approved by the commission, which will be made available for public comment before a final version is completed, calls for funds to be moved away from outdated uses like paying for paging service and long-distance phone calls and into areas that will accelerate digital literacy, like Wi-Fi connections within a school or library.

The proposal also calls for measures that would drive down the cost of services, like adoption of purchasing consortiums, and the streamlining of administrative requirements â€" among them, shifting much of the required paperwork for applicants to electronic filings. “One of the biggest obstacles to seizing the opportunities of digital learning in America is inadequate bandwidth at our schools and libraries,” Mignon L. Clyburn, the F.C.C. chairwoman, said before voting. “Simply put, they need faster high-capacity connections and they need them now.”

Just last month in a visit to a North Carolina middle school, President Obama set a goal of connecting 99 percent of school students to the Internet through high-speed broadband and high-speed wireless within five years.

“To get there, we have to build connected classrooms that support modern teaching â€" investments we know our international competitors are already making,” Mr. Obama said on Friday.

The E-Rate fund has financed Internet connections to more than 95 percent of American public school classrooms, while only 14 percent were connected when E-Rate was established in 1997.

In 2010, however, an F.C.C. study found that more than half of the schools and libraries reported that their Internet connections were too slow to meet their needs. For the coming school year, libraries and schools requested more than $4.9 billion to pay for connections and equipment, more than twice the size of the fund.

“We fail our students if we expect digital-age learning to take place at near dial-up speeds,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, an F.C.C. commissioner. “Contrast this with efforts under way in some of our world neighbors. They are pouring resources into these subjects, into schools and connectivity.”

The E-Rate program has been faulted for inadequately allocating money in the fund, which is provided through a tax on consumers’ phone bills, a monthly charge between 50 cents and $1.

Commissioner Ajit Pai, the lone Republican on the five-member commission (where two seats are vacant), criticized allocations of the fund, saying an average of only $1.8 billion had been spent in each of the last 10 years, leaving more than $5 billion unused in the E-Rate account.

Mr. Pai also complained that the program placed greater emphasis on the wrong services.

“E-Rate today prioritizes long-distance telephone calls and getting phone service to a school’s bus garage over wiring up a classroom,” Mr. Pai said in a speech this week at the American Enterprise Institute. “How can it be that E-Rate in the last few years committed about $600 million, more than one-quarter of its annual budget, to support voice telephone services while at the same time denying eight out of 10 applicants’ funding for connecting classrooms?”

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing this week, both Republicans and Democrats spoke favorably of the fund, although some quoted Mr. Pai’s observations in a warning of reckless spending.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 20, 2013, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: F.C.C. Backs Plan to Update a Fund That Helps Connect Schools to the Internet .

Blogger for Times Is to Join ESPN Staff

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

Nate Silver, the statistician who attained national fame for his accurate projections about the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, is parting ways with The New York Times and moving his FiveThirtyEight franchise to ESPN, the sports empire controlled by the Walt Disney Company, according to ESPN employees with direct knowledge of his plans.

At ESPN, Mr. Silver is expected to have a wide-ranging portfolio. Along with his writing and number-crunching, he will most likely be a regular contributor to “Olbermann,” the late-night ESPN2 talk show hosted by Keith Olbermann that will have its debut at the end of August. In political years, he will also have a role at ABC News, which is owned by Disney.

An ESPN spokeswoman declined to comment on Friday night. Mr. Silver declined to comment. The employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Silver’s deal could be announced as soon as Monday.

Before creating statistical models for elections, Mr. Silver was a baseball sabermetrician who built a highly effective system for projecting how players would perform in the future. For a time he was a managing partner of Baseball Prospectus. At public events recently, he has expressed interest in covering sports more frequently, so the ESPN deal is a logical next step.

Mr. Silver’s three-year contract with The Times is set to expire in late August and his departure will most likely be interpreted as a blow to the company, which has promoted Mr. Silver and his brand of poll-based projections. He gained such prominence in 2012 that President Obama joked that Mr. Silver had accurately predicted which turkeys the president would pardon that Thanksgiving. “Nate Silver completely nailed it,” he said. “The guy’s amazing.”

Speculation about the future of Mr. Silver and FiveThirtyEight heated up shortly after last November’s election, and he was wooed by no small number of other news organizations. Jill Abramson, the newspaper’s executive editor, and Mark Thompson, the chief executive of The New York Times Company, said earlier this year that they would try hard to sign Mr. Silver to a new contract. NBC News, joined by its cable news channel MSNBC, and CBS News were also among the interested companies.

In an e-mail several weeks ago, Mr. Silver said negotiations were continuing with The Times “and I’m still trying to make a decision.” He informed The Times on Friday of his plan to leave.

The relationship between The Times and Mr. Silver was mutually beneficial. The news organization gained Web traffic and prestige by hosting his work, and he received a salary, a wider audience and editorial support. But he also occasionally hinted in interviews and public appearances that the relationship was tense at times.

James Andrew Miller contributed reporting.

At Comic-Con, Small Tribes Rule

Fans Follow Their Passions at Convention

Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Summit Entertainment

Hailee Steinfeld and Harrison Ford, who star in “Ender’s Game,” at this year’s Comic-Con.

SAN DIEGO â€" As the pop culture jamboree known as Comic-Con got under way on Thursday, there was an unusual sight outside the 6,500-person hall that in recent years has served as the convention’s movie epicenter.

The actor Jack Black in San Diego at this year’s Comic-Con. He is an executive producer of the Internet show “Ghost Ghirls.”

It wasn’t the nearly nude man with white and black body paint wearing a fearsome skull headdress and carrying a staff. That passes for normal here. What was startling was the lack of a defined crowd: the rows of the film studios’ white tents that were supposed to shade swarms of fans waiting to get into Hall H were ... empty.

After nearly a decade in the service of the major film studios and their blockbusters, Comic-Con appears on the verge of a next iteration. Smaller knots of fantasy, science-fiction and animation aficionados â€" at least as the 2013 convention got under way on Thursday and Friday â€" were stealing energy from the vast Hall H movie promotions that had become the convention’s defining events.

Instead of sweating in lines to see a couple of film clips and grab a glimpse of a star, fans were following their passions into the convention’s nooks and crannies that were offering a deeper level of engagement than the often banal presentations by big studios.

“People came here for an Internet show?” Jack Black said inside the Indigo Ballroom at an adjacent hotel, marveling at the hundreds who had turned up for a look at “Ghost Ghirls,” a Yahoo-distributed comedy of which he is an executive producer.

The ballroom crowd of roughly 1,500 roared as Mr. Black did battle with a wobbly, inaudible on-screen ghost, played by Jason Ritter, and promised to protect a couple of deliberately dizzy blondes, Amanda Lund and Maria Blasucci, who play clueless ghost busters in the new Web series. Meanwhile, Thursday’s lone major movie presentation, staged by Summit Entertainment to promote two science-fiction films, “Divergent” and “Ender’s Game,” was at times tense.

“I am never coming back here again,” muttered Harrison Ford, an “Ender’s Game” headliner, from his seat onstage. He looked only half joking as he became increasingly impatient with inane, prepackaged questions from the crowd â€" the Hall H studio presentations operate under rules that bar impolite queries â€" and the banter of an all-about-me moderator, the comedian Chris Hardwick.

(There was one meaningful question: A fan asked whether the author of the “Ender’s Game” novel, Orson Scott Card, had much involvement with the film, referring to a controversy over Mr. Card’s much-discussed opposition to same-sex marriage; Roberto Orci, one of the film’s producers, said the filmmakers had chosen to use the debate as “an opportunity” to show their own support for gay causes.)

Since about 2003, when media fragmentation started to speed up with the explosion of blogging and the arrival of Myspace, Hollywood has pushed Comic-Con as a crucial opportunity to directly engage its core customers. The goal is to create a buzz that spreads and gives movies and television shows a running start, particularly on social media. With overall attendance here expected to reach about 140,000 there was certainly plenty of opportunity to spread the word.

“Our business is about red carpets and stanchions a lot of the time,” said Lisa Gregorian, the chief marketing officer of Warner Brothers Television, “but we strongly believe â€" in the age of social media â€" that we need to also go directly to the fans and make them feel really special.”

Ms. Gregorian is true to her word; this year, her team is offering screenings, panels and autograph signings for 17 Warner-produced shows, including “The Vampire Diaries,” “Revolution” and “The Big Bang Theory.”

But many of her studio counterparts, particularly on the movie side of the industry, only pay lip service to fan engagement here, relying on dull dais chitchat to stir excitement. “There’s nothing all that engaging about those panels anymore,” said Anna Martinez, an attendee wearing pink fairy wings, of the Hall H presentations.

In other words, the old standoffish Hollywood attitude â€" just show up and go through the motions â€" no longer washes. Over the first two days of this four-day gathering, fans instead seemed to be demanding more close-up-and-personal experiences, like the “Godzilla Encounter,” a lavish walk-through experience that Legendary Entertainment had built in a nearby warehouse.

Replete with actors in gas masks and biohazard suits, a destroyed Tokyo street scene and a vibrating floor, the theme park-style attraction created a social networking thunderclap for the company’s “Godzilla” remake, which arrives next spring. “Ever since stepping inside and walking through the experience, all I’ve wanted to do is tell everyone about this place,” wrote Alex Billington on FirstShowing.net.

Attendees also fragmented into smaller sessions on topical matters, like “The Anatomy of Superhero Film Music,” where composers for movies like “Iron Man 2” and “The Wolverine” laid themselves unusually bare in a frank discussion about their sometimes second-class status; attendees ate it up. On Friday afternoon, the Casting Society of America turned up here for the first time to give behind-the-scenes insights into how movies like “X-Men: Days of Future Past” are assembled.

One of the hottest tickets on Friday was for “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” a coming ABC drama. The network opted to hold the gathering not in cavernous Hall H, but in an upstairs ballroom with half the capacity. The standard movie panels will return here in a cluster on Saturday, with Lionsgate staging a presentation for “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” Marvel trotting out its “Thor” and “Captain America” stars, and Warner Brothers and Legendary throwing a little “Godzilla” and “Man of Steel” red meat to the crowd.

Some or all of those presentations could recapture Hall H’s movie heat. By Friday morning, the throngs had returned to Hall H, outside of which hundreds had slept in line overnight. But many had actually come to see what they, and not Hollywood, had wrought.

That was certainly the case with the presentation for “Veronica Mars,” a major attraction on Friday. More than 90,000 fans had invested over $5.7 million in a Kickstarter campaign to finance the film â€" it is based on a television series that was canceled by the CW network in 2007 â€" and a fair number of those were most likely in the crowd that showed up to get a first look at scenes from the movie.

“You said you’d even pay for it,” read a crawl across the trailer for a picture that has become a poster-child for fan engagement.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 20, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: At Comic-Con, Small Tribes Rule .

Increasingly Child-Friendly, Comic-Con Can’t Hide Its Raunchy Roots

Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images for Saban Brands

At Comic-Con on Thursday in San Diego, Nickelodeon marked the 20th anniversary of the Power Rangers franchise.

SAN DIEGO â€" You might want to close your eyes, SpongeBob. There’s something across the aisle that will be hard to unsee.

Comic-Con, the sprawling convention here that celebrates “the popular arts,” as its slogan trumpets, has always been a sight to behold. Attendees often arrive in elaborate costumes â€" superheroes, minions, Stormtroopers from the “Star Wars” movies, ax murderers. (Any fake chain saws, swords or machine guns must be inspected upon arrival at the “weapons check desk.”) Then there are the movie and television stars, who appear on promotional panels.

But one of the most mind-blowing aspects of Comic-Con, which is expected to attract roughly 140,000 people this year, comes into sharp relief immediately inside the trade show floor. Nickelodeon, which has one of the more impressive pavilions, replete with costumed characters ready to pose with children and iPad stations for game-playing, sits immediately next to two booths selling erotic art.

“Ruin of Maude,” an old Playboy illustration of three topless women draped in apparent exhaustion over bedroom furniture, and “Moon or Bust,” featuring a bosomy, pouty-lipped woman riding a rocket with nothing on (unless you count one stiletto), hung on the walls of the booth of Grapefruit Moon gallery. “You might say we appeal to a different demographic, oh yes,” said the gallery’s co-owner, Sarahjane Blum-Murphy.

Next door is Jamie Tyndall, an artist specializing in fetish illustrations of large-breasted young women (often in pigtails) wearing fishnets, hot pants and bustiers and brandishing chain saws and crossbows. Deeper into the trade show maze are some booths offering truly bizarre adult products. Shopping for a stuffed toy in the shape of a uterus? Comic-Con has you covered.

“It can be a jarring juxtaposition, but you kind of have to go with the flow,” said Frank Tanki, Nickelodeon’s senior vice president of marketing.

When Comic-Con started in 1970, and for more than two decades afterward, it was attended primarily by adult men. In recent years, however, the convention has increasingly become a family draw, with Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney, the Hub and other children’s TV networks in attendance. The convention does not release statistics on its attendees, but longtime exhibitors say the number of children has skyrocketed over the last five years.

Responding to demand, Warner Brothers last year started offering something it calls Lawn Con, an outside picnic and play area for children and their parents that promotes cartoons like “Teen Titans Go!”

The problem: G-rated material mingles freely inside with the R-rated stuff. On Friday, young children could be seen everywhere, with a panel for Nickelodeon’s “The Legend of Korra” particularly mobbed. Down the hall, however, was a presentation dedicated to the extremely violent and foul-mouthed movie franchise “Kick-Ass.” That was followed by a presentation for “Phineas and Ferb,” the Disney Channel series.

Sometimes attendees themselves serve up clashing moments between children’s entertainment and diversions of a more adult variety.

On Thursday, for instance, a quartet of little girls dressed as Disney princesses â€" Belle, Jasmine, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty â€" soaked in the atmosphere, which included two adult men wearing tightfitting Spandex superhero costumes that left no asset unshowcased.

Comic-Con organizers take a laissez-faire attitude to costumes â€" except when it comes to weapons â€" but nonetheless have tried to clean up the salty language at some panels. The convention now prints a warning at each seat on the dais: “Please be aware that many members of your audience may be under 18.”

The actor William Shatner, appearing at a TV Land panel, read that admonition aloud and then immediately tested the boundaries of good taste with awkward sexual banter about his exploits. Presumably he was referring to the scripted adventures of his character, the ever-libidinous Captain Kirk. Or not.

Increasingly Child-Friendly, Comic-Con Can’t Hide Its Raunchy Roots

Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images for Saban Brands

At Comic-Con on Thursday in San Diego, Nickelodeon marked the 20th anniversary of the Power Rangers franchise.

SAN DIEGO â€" You might want to close your eyes, SpongeBob. There’s something across the aisle that will be hard to unsee.

Comic-Con, the sprawling convention here that celebrates “the popular arts,” as its slogan trumpets, has always been a sight to behold. Attendees often arrive in elaborate costumes â€" superheroes, minions, Stormtroopers from the “Star Wars” movies, ax murderers. (Any fake chain saws, swords or machine guns must be inspected upon arrival at the “weapons check desk.”) Then there are the movie and television stars, who appear on promotional panels.

But one of the most mind-blowing aspects of Comic-Con, which is expected to attract roughly 140,000 people this year, comes into sharp relief immediately inside the trade show floor. Nickelodeon, which has one of the more impressive pavilions, replete with costumed characters ready to pose with children and iPad stations for game-playing, sits immediately next to two booths selling erotic art.

“Ruin of Maude,” an old Playboy illustration of three topless women draped in apparent exhaustion over bedroom furniture, and “Moon or Bust,” featuring a bosomy, pouty-lipped woman riding a rocket with nothing on (unless you count one stiletto), hung on the walls of the booth of Grapefruit Moon gallery. “You might say we appeal to a different demographic, oh yes,” said the gallery’s co-owner, Sarahjane Blum-Murphy.

Next door is Jamie Tyndall, an artist specializing in fetish illustrations of large-breasted young women (often in pigtails) wearing fishnets, hot pants and bustiers and brandishing chain saws and crossbows. Deeper into the trade show maze are some booths offering truly bizarre adult products. Shopping for a stuffed toy in the shape of a uterus? Comic-Con has you covered.

“It can be a jarring juxtaposition, but you kind of have to go with the flow,” said Frank Tanki, Nickelodeon’s senior vice president of marketing.

When Comic-Con started in 1970, and for more than two decades afterward, it was attended primarily by adult men. In recent years, however, the convention has increasingly become a family draw, with Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney, the Hub and other children’s TV networks in attendance. The convention does not release statistics on its attendees, but longtime exhibitors say the number of children has skyrocketed over the last five years.

Responding to demand, Warner Brothers last year started offering something it calls Lawn Con, an outside picnic and play area for children and their parents that promotes cartoons like “Teen Titans Go!”

The problem: G-rated material mingles freely inside with the R-rated stuff. On Friday, young children could be seen everywhere, with a panel for Nickelodeon’s “The Legend of Korra” particularly mobbed. Down the hall, however, was a presentation dedicated to the extremely violent and foul-mouthed movie franchise “Kick-Ass.” That was followed by a presentation for “Phineas and Ferb,” the Disney Channel series.

Sometimes attendees themselves serve up clashing moments between children’s entertainment and diversions of a more adult variety.

On Thursday, for instance, a quartet of little girls dressed as Disney princesses â€" Belle, Jasmine, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty â€" soaked in the atmosphere, which included two adult men wearing tightfitting Spandex superhero costumes that left no asset unshowcased.

Comic-Con organizers take a laissez-faire attitude to costumes â€" except when it comes to weapons â€" but nonetheless have tried to clean up the salty language at some panels. The convention now prints a warning at each seat on the dais: “Please be aware that many members of your audience may be under 18.”

The actor William Shatner, appearing at a TV Land panel, read that admonition aloud and then immediately tested the boundaries of good taste with awkward sexual banter about his exploits. Presumably he was referring to the scripted adventures of his character, the ever-libidinous Captain Kirk. Or not.

Graphic Photos of Tsarnaev Capture Released

A Massachusetts State Police sergeant was relieved of duty Thursday after supplying Boston Magazine with graphic images from the capture of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the editor of the magazine said.

The sergeant, Sean Murphy, a tactical photographer, documented the dramatic manhunt for Mr. Tsarnaev, 19, four days after the bombs exploded, killing three and wounding more than 260, near the finish line of the marathon on April 15.

Mr. Tsarnaev was eventually captured hiding in a boat after the city of Boston was effectively shut down by state and local police officials. He pleaded not guilty this month to 30 federal charges in connection with the bombing. Mr. Tsarnaev’s older brother and fellow suspect in the bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died after a shootout with the police.

Mr. Murphy told the magazine that he decided to release his images â€" which show a bloodied and surrendering Mr. Tsarnaev â€" after feeling angered by this month’s cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which featured a softer portrait of Mr. Tsarnaev.

In a statement he accused Rolling Stone of “glamorizing the face of terror” and providing an incentive to others who might seek fame through similar acts. “This is the real Boston bomber,” he said of the Mr. Tsarnaev depicted in his images. “Not someone fluffed and buffed for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.”

In a series of messages posted to Twitter late Thursday night, the editor of Boston Magazine, John Wolfson, said Mr. Murphy had been “relieved of duty,” and had his gun, badge and computer taken. He has not been fired, Mr. Wolfson said, but will face a hearing next week.

Massachusetts State Police did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment Thursday night.

The White House Is Not a Metronome

In a series of articles last week, the writer Megan McArdle asserted that Republicans have about a 75 percent chance of winning the White House in 2016. “Mostly, the White House flips back and forth like a metronome,” she wrote. “Voters just get tired after eight years.”

As other commentators, like Henry Farrell, have pointed out, one can find almost any pattern in presidential results if one looks hard enough. By manipulating the definition of incumbency, the time frame that one examines or the measure of success (e.g., the popular vote or the Electoral College), or by selectively excluding “outliers” or exceptional cases, the potential for cherry-picking and overfitting is high. (In layman's terms, an overfit statistical model is one that is engineered to match idiosyncratic circumstances in past data, but which is not an accurate picture and makes poor predictions as a result.)

But let's evaluate a relatively simple version of Ms. McArdle's claim. What has happened, historically, after the same party has controlled the White House for exactly eight consecutive years?

Since the Republican Party first nominated a presidential candidate in the election of 1856, ushering in the modern two-party system, this circumstance has occurred either 11 or 12 times. The ambiguous case is in 1868. Abraham Lincoln, the great Republican president, had been assassinated and was succeeded by Andrew Johnson, his vice president, who is variously defined as a Democrat; as a member of the National Union Party, which Lincoln temporarily established in 1864; or as having no party affiliation.

Excluding 1868, the incumbent party has won the popular vote in 5 of these 11 cases, and the Electoral College in 4 of the 11 cases. Including 1868, when Ulysses S. Grant won a third consecutive election for Republicans but directly succeeded Johnson rather than Lincoln, the incumbent party's track record improves to 6-of-12 in the popular vote and 5-of-12 in the Electoral College.

Depending on your definition, then, the incumbent party's success rate in these elections has been anywhere from 36 percent (4 out of 11) to 50 percent (6 out of 12). Perhaps you could argue that Republicans' odds of winning in 2016 are slightly better than 50 percent on this basis, but claiming that their odds are as good as 75 percent, as Ms. McArdle does, doesn't seem to have any justification in this evidence.

However, as Jonathan Bernstein writes, looking at wins and losses in such a binary way is probably not the best way to evaluate the evidence. Many United States elections, as in 2000 and 1960, have essentially been ties, where the most minor variations in the flow of the campaign might have changed the winner of the Electoral College or popular vote. With this in mind, it is better to examine margins of victory.

Incidentally, this is close to a universal principle of statistical analysis. It's almost always more robust to evaluate the margin by which a given outcome occurs than to look at the variable as black or white, win or loss, hit or miss, on or off.

If we look at these elections by the margin of victory in the popular vote, we see either four or five clear wins for the incumbent party (depending on whether 1868 is counted; the unambiguous cases are 1904, 1928, 1940 and 1988), three clear losses (1860, 1920 and 2008) and four elections (1960, 1968, 1976 and 2000) that were very close. On average, the incumbent party won the popular vote by 0.7 percentage points if 1868 is excluded or 1.1 percentage points if it is included.

Alternatively, we can measure the incumbent party's margin of victory in the Electoral College. On average, excluding 1868, the incumbent party has won the Electoral College by a margin of 3.8 percent (as a share of the available electors), which is the equivalent of winning today's Electoral College 279-259. If 1868 is included, the incumbent party's average Electoral College margin improves slightly to 7.3 percent, roughly the equivalent of a 289-249 win today.

My point is not that the incumbent party actually has an advantage after two consecutive terms in office. (Some statistical models assume that it does, which I regard as just as questionable a claim as Ms. McArdle's.) Instead, I'd make the more modest assertion that its odds of winning a third term are, on first approximation, 50-50.

This contrasts with cases in which the incumbent party has won just one consecutive term in office. In those cases, since 1856, the incumbent party has won the popular vote in 14 of 18 elections and the Electoral College in 13 of 18, and its average margin of victory in the popular vote has been 8.5 percentage points.

This helps to put President Obama's win last year into context. How did he manage to be re-elected despite a below-average economy? Well, Mr. Obama's margin of victory was also below average compared with the most similar incumbents in the past. If the average first-term incumbent wins by eight or nine percentage points, you can have quite a few things go wrong and still win by some margin.

What about when a party has won three or more consecutive elections and seeks yet another term? If Ms. McArdle's fatigue hypothesis is correct, we might expect the incumbent party to do exceptionally poorly in these cases. (If eight years are enough to tire out voters, then 12 or 16 or 20 certainly ought to be.)

However, the incumbent party's track record in such cases is not all that bad, historically. Republicans won six consecutive elections from 1860 to 1880 (with some caveats: Lincoln's term was interrupted, and Rutherford B. Hayes won the Electoral College in 1876 despite losing the popular vote). Democrats won five consecutive elections from 1932 to 1948. On average, the incumbent party has lost the popular vote in these cases, but only by 1.3 percentage points - essentially a tossup.

On first approximation, then, presidential election results have resembled a random walk, with the important exception that an incumbent party has had a significant advantage when it has held exactly one term in office. I am suspicious of the patterns that people claim to identify beyond that, which may reflect the human bias toward detecting signal in random noise.

That's not to say there are no further complications.

One major question, for instance, is whether the one-term incumbency advantage pertains to the president himself or to his party. The evidence in Congressional elections, for what it's worth, mostly points toward the incumbent himself mattering. When an elected incumbent retires from the Senate in a swing state, for instance, the odds of his party's winning the next election are roughly 50-50 - not much better (as would be the case if there were residual benefits for the incumbent's party even after the incumbent himself retired) and not much worse (as might be the case if voters were fatigued by having the same party in office).

Also, appointed senators have a fairly poor track record compared with elected incumbents. Perhaps Congressional voting is not quite the same as presidential voting, but the data set is a lot more robust (with hundreds and hundreds of cases as opposed to a couple dozen), so it is worth some consideration - and it, too, points to 50-50 as the right baseline in an open-seat election.

Thinking carefully about these baseline tendencies is important, because in some ways the 2016 election will be unprecedented.

What do I mean?

Presuming that Mr. Obama serves out the remaining three and a half years of his term, he will be only the fifth president prevented by the 22nd Amendment from seeking further terms in office. The other four cases were Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1960, Ronald Reagan in 1988, Bill Clinton in 2000 and George W. Bush in 2008. Those four elections resulted in one clear loss for the incumbent party (2008), one clear win (1988) and two very close elections. But these are only four cases and so do not tell us much one way or the other.

It might be said that there was a de facto two-term limit before there was a constitutional one - in other words, that presidents almost always respected the two-term precedent that George Washington established. In that case, we could also look to cases where a president voluntarily retired after two consecutive terms as precedents for 2016.

But this is not really true. From the late 19th century through the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951, many presidents who were able to run for a third term showed some interest in one.

Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for and won third and fourth terms. Grant sought a third term (although not a third consecutive one) in 1880 and was nearly nominated before Republicans chose James A. Garfield instead on the 36th ballot. Woodrow Wilson, some historians now claim, was interested in a third term, but Democrats weren't interested in nominating him. Theodore Roosevelt ran for a third term in 1912, although as a member of the Progressive Party rather than the Republican Party. Harry Truman, who was exempt from the 22nd Amendment, initially sought a third term in 1952 but withdrew after the New Hampshire primary.

These distinctions matter because, unless a president is legally prevented from running for a third term, there are selection effects to which ones decide to do so. Popular presidents might seek and win another nomination, while unpopular ones might retire or be rejected by their party. It could be that voters react differently to parties seeking third terms in the era of the 22nd Amendment than they did in the years before it, and that the incumbent party's batting average will wind up being meaningfully higher or lower than 50 percent in the long run. But we have little empirical evidence for this yet.

Instead, some humility is called for when interpreting the evidence. On the eve of an election - when the polls have become very reliable, and we know the identities of the candidates and something about the state of the economy and the mood of the country - it is possible to make relatively bold and precise forecasts about the outcome. But none of this applies three and a half years in advance.

Another Rowling Mystery Solved: Behind the Tweet That Identified Her

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CBS in Contract Showdown With Time Warner Cable

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Vivendi Declined SoftBank's Lucrative Offer for Universal

Vivendi, the French media and telecommunications conglomerate, rejected an $8.5 billion cash bid from SoftBank for the Universal Music Group, even though it represented a premium of at least $2 billion more than some analysts' estimates of Universal Music's value, according to a person briefed on the offer.

SoftBank, a Japanese phone carrier, made its bid to Vivendi's board about three months ago, according to this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Spokesmen for Vivendi and Universal declined to comment, and representatives of SoftBank could not be reached Thursday afternoon. The news of the offer was previously reported by The Financial Times.

Vivendi has been under pressure from shareholders to sell assets or split, and while the company has tried to refocus itself around its media divisions, which include Universal, the video game company Activision Blizzard and the film and television company Canal Plus Group, it has had difficulty selling off telecoms. Vivendi canceled the sale of GVT, its Brazilian telecommunications unit, after failing to find a satisfactory price, and it is in the midst of selling its majority share of Maroc Telecom to Emirates Telecommunications, known as Etisalat.

SoftBank is buying Sprint Nextel for $21.6 billion, a deal that has been approved by Sprint's shareholders but still needs the blessing of the Federal Communications Commission.

The bid for Universal underscores the attractiveness of large music and media catalogs in the digital age, even as record companies struggle to replace revenue from lost CD sales. Consumers are increasingly turning for their entertainment to streaming services like Spotify and Netflix, which sell access to music or movies and rely on licensing deals with media companies.

Universal is the world's largest music company, with hundreds of artists including Kanye West and U2. In late 2011 it paid $1.9 billion for the recorded music assets of EMI, although European regulators demanded that Universal sell about a third of EMI, along with other assets; this month Vivendi reported that those sales raised about $850 million.

Last year Universal had $6 billion in revenue, and $694 million in earnings before interest, taxes and amortization.

The bid for Universal also comes as Sony faces pressure from Daniel S. Loeb, an American hedge fund mogul, to sell its entertainment arm, which includes Sony Music Entertainment, Universal's biggest competitor. So far Sony has rebuffed those demands.

Analysts expressed disappointment that Vivendi's board did not accept SoftBank's offer. Allan C. Nichols, a telecommunications analyst at Morningstar, valued Universal at about $5.8 billion after its EMI deal closed last year; Sanford C. Bernstein & Company's estimate is $6.3 billion. “I think it's crazy to have had that size offer and not taken it,” Mr. Nichols said. “It's a shame for shareholders.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Vivendi Declined SoftBank's Lucrative Offer for Universal.

Google Results Show Struggle With Mobile

SAN FRANCISCO - For more than a year, Google has been struggling to solve this riddle: Even though people are using Google on their mobile devices more than ever, how does Google make more money on mobile ads?

Despite a range of efforts by Google, the riddle remains unsolved, its financial report Thursday revealed.

Google reported second-quarter results that missed analysts' expectations for revenue and profit. They showed that its desktop search business continues to slow and ad prices continue to fall as it struggles to make as much money on mobile devices.

The report was particularly incongruous given how Google's share price climbed 27 percent this year.

It is a vexing problem for every company that has generated revenue through advertising, be it a century-old magazine with a mobile app or a new Web site aggregating the news. Mobile ads do not command the premium that Web advertising does (and Web ads do not make as much as print ads).

Colin W. Gillis, a technology analyst at BGC Partners, wrote a haiku before the earnings announcement: “The results should be/ pretty as a picture to/ justify the stock.”

They were not. Shares, which fell 1 percent ahead of the report on Thursday, fell another 4 percent in after-hours trading.

“One of the reasons why people like Google is you can look forward and see what they're doing with Glass and laying fiber and driverless cars and Chrome, chasing after new revenue streams,” Mr. Gillis said. “But those are still pretty far away. Google's core business is all about advertising and clicks, and the core business is absolutely maturing.”

Mobile ads, he added, are inexpensive yet “overpriced because the conversion rates are so low.”

“It's still too hard to transact on a phone,” Mr. Gillis said.

Google had seemed to have finally found a solution to the riddle, by making the biggest-ever change to its AdWords advertising product. The new program, called enhanced campaigns, which was introduced in February and will be mandatory for all advertisers on Monday, gives advertisers less choice about advertising on mobile devices by automatically including desktop, tablet and cellphone ads for all campaigns. Advertisers can choose not to buy cellphone ads but are required to buy tablet ads.

Google says that this simplifies the process for advertisers and makes it easier to reach customers who use devices indiscriminately. More important than the type of device, the company says, is whether someone is at a desk or on the sofa, in the mood to shop or eat.

But it also means that the price of mobile ads, which has been about half that of desktop ads, will most likely increase. Google's ads are sold at auction, and one reason mobile prices have been low is that there has been less demand. Enhanced campaigns should change that.

For example, the cost per ad click, known as C.P.C., for clients of the Search Agency, a search ad firm, rose 22 percent in the quarter, largely because of Google's ad-buying changes. It was the first time that tablet ads cost more than those on desktops, and advertisers increased spending on smartphones 25 percent, the most of any device category.

“There used to be a discount you would get for going after traffic on tablets instead of desktops,” said Keith Wilson, vice president for agency products at the Search Agency. “Now that is disappearing. That is what is going to drive up C.P.C.'s in the mobile space. This has been a catalyst for prioritizing mobile.”

But it was too early for the results of the new ad program to show up in Google's financial report, company executives said Thursday. The price that advertisers pay when Google users click on their ads decreased 6 percent from last year and 2 percent from the previous quarter, declining for the seventh quarter in a row and at a steeper annual rate than in the previous quarter.

Mobile ad pricing is “one of the many factors at work” affecting click prices, said Nikesh Arora, Google's chief business officer. Google is in the early stages of enhanced campaigns and it will most likely take a year for the results to become apparent, he said. He added that another important metric at Google, the number of clicks on ads, is up 23 percent over last year, partly because of increased mobile use.

Larry Page, Google's chief executive, said that six million advertisers had already switched to enhanced campaigns. American Apparel, according to Google, doubled its mobile conversion rate with the new ads, and M&Ms, the Mars candy brand, increased it by 41 percent.

In addition to enhanced campaigns, Google is doing other things to improve its mobile offerings and its profits from mobile ads. It has been encouraging Web sites to improve their mobile versions, and last month it said Web sites without easy-to-use mobile versions could fall in search rankings. And it introduced its product listing ads, for shopping, to mobile devices.

Google reported second-quarter revenue of $14.11 billion, up 19 percent from $11.8 billion a year ago. Net revenue, which excludes payments to ad partners, was $11.1 billion, up from $9.2 billion. Net income rose to $3.23 billion, or $9.54 a share, from $2.79 billion, or $8.42 a share. Excluding the cost of stock options, Google's second-quarter profit was $9.56 a share.

Analysts had expected net revenue of $11.33 billion and earnings, excluding the cost of stock options, of $10.78 a share.

Adding to the disappointing results was a $342 million operating loss at Motorola Mobility, which is expected to introduce a new phone, the Moto X, this summer.

As shareholders and analysts wait for Google to find the next product to reignite revenue growth as the core search business slows, Mr. Page acknowledged the challenges of building new products that reach people on the same scale as search.

“It's pretty easy to come up with ideas,” he said. “It's pretty hard to make them real and get them to billions of people. And that's to me what's so exciting.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Google Results Show Struggle With Mobile.

Seaworld's Unusual Retort to a Critical Documentary

Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times

Kelly Flaherty Clark, a trainer at SeaWorld, and Dr. Christopher Dold, vice president of veterinary services, with orca whales at SeaWorld in San Diego.

SAN DIEGO - Hollywood has just cast SeaWorld as a bad guy. But SeaWorld has decided to diverge from the story line.

The orca Tilikum in “Blackfish.” Tilikum attacked and killed a trainer in 2010 and has been associated with two other deaths.

In an unusual pre-emptive strike on the documentary “Blackfish,” set for release on Friday in New York and Los Angeles by Magnolia Pictures, SeaWorld Entertainment startled the film world last weekend by sending a detailed critique of the movie to about 50 critics who were presumably about to review it. It was among the first steps in an aggressive public pushback against the film, which makes the case, sometimes with disturbing film, that orca whales in captivity suffer physical and mental distress because of confinement.

Magnolia and the film's director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, shot back with a point-by-point rebuttal in defense of the movie.

The exchange is now promising to test just how far a business can, or should, go in trying to disrupt the powerful negative imagery that comes with the rollout of documentary exposés. That kind of dilemma has surfaced with previous documentaries like “The Queen of Versailles,” which last year portrayed the lavish lifestyle of the real estate moguls Jackie and David Siegel, and even with narrative films like “The Social Network,” which took an unflattering look at Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg in 2010.

Businesses accused of wrongdoing in films often choose to lie low, hoping the issues will remain out of the public mainstream and eventually fade away without much fuss. That's especially true of documentaries, which generally have small audiences.

SeaWorld, advised by the communications firm 42West, which is better known for promoting films than punching back at them, is taking the opposite approach. By midweek, the company was providing top executives and animal caretakers for interviews about the movie and its purported flaws.

It was also deliberating possible further moves, which might conceivably include informational advertising, a Web-based countercampaign or perhaps a request for some sort of access to CNN, which picked up television rights to “Blackfish” through its CNN Films unit and plans to broadcast the movie on Oct. 24.

Among other things, SeaWorld claims that “Blackfish,” which focuses on the orca Tilikum's fatal 2010 attack on a trainer, Dawn Brancheau, exceeded the bounds of fair use by incorporating training film and other video shot by the company. The company also contends that Ms. Cowperthwaite positioned some scenes to create what SeaWorld executives see as a false implication of trouble or wrongdoing.

Asked whether SeaWorld was contemplating legal action against the film, G. Anthony Taylor, the general counsel, said decisions about any such step would have to wait until executives were able to more closely assess the movie. “Blackfish” made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January and has since screened at other festivals in the United States and abroad.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Ms. Cowperthwaite said she stood by the film and described any quarrel with its construction as an evasion of her inescapable conclusion: “Killer whales are 100 percent not suitable to captivity.”

“For 40 years, they were the message,” she said, referring to SeaWorld. “I think it's O.K. to let an 80-minute movie” have its moment.

Since 1965, SeaWorld has kept and displayed dozens of orcas in parks here, in Orlando, Fla., and elsewhere. According to Mr. Taylor and other executives, at least 10 million people a year view some of the 29 whales now held. SeaWorld executives say that without access to the whales - which are now bred at the parks, rather than captured wild - humans would be denied a connection to large, intelligent animals with which many feel a bond.

“We're deeply transformed by them, the killer whale is an animal that does that,” said Dr. Christopher Dold, SeaWorld's vice president of veterinary services, who spoke at the company's San Diego park on Wednesday.

Dr. Dold, Mr. Taylor and others point out that only one trainer has died in a whale encounter at SeaWorld parks, though Tilikum has been associated with three deaths. One of those was at another park, and one involved a man who somehow wound up in his tank at night.

On watching “Blackfish,” Kelly Flaherty Clark, who works with Tilikum as the curator of trainers at SeaWorld's Orlando park, said she was stunned by the presentation of her testimony at an Occupational Safety and Health Administration hearing, at which SeaWorld was cited for violating trainer safety - claiming it was selective in a way that did not accurately represent her views.

“We sleep and breathe care of animals,” said Ms. Clark.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: An Unusual Retort to a Critical Documentary.

Advertising: Instead of a Sale, Hulu Concentrates on ‘The Awesomes\'

Instead of a Sale, Hulu Concentrates on ‘The Awesomes'

Netflix has had success with original programming, and Hulu hopes it will, too, with an animated series, “The Awesomes.”

MOST of the news about Hulu recently has focused on whether the popular video streaming site would be sold. Last week, the owners of Hulu - 21st Century Fox, the Walt Disney Company and NBCUniversal - provided a reprieve: instead of selling Hulu, they said it would invest $750 million in the site and increase competition with Netflix, which has had tremendous success with its slate of original programming, including a handful of Emmy nominations Thursday.

Michael Shoemaker, left, and Seth Meyers are the creators, executive producers and writers of the animated series “The Awesomes,” which will start broadcasting on Aug. 1.

With a sale averted, Hulu executives can now focus on more important matters - promoting the site's highly anticipated animated series “The Awesomes,” which will make its debut Aug. 1. The show stars Seth Meyers as the voice of one of the main characters, Prock.

Mr. Meyers is also a co-creator, executive producer and writer along with Michael Shoemaker, whose production credits include “Saturday Night Live” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”

“The Awesomes” is Hulu's first original series this year and its first animated series. The show follows a team of less-than-stellar superheroes called “The Awesomes” who come together after the original team of elite superheroes by the same name is disbanded.

In addition to Mr. Meyers, the show features the voices of other “Saturday Night Live” stars including Bill Hader and Taran Killam.

In an interview, Mr. Meyers and Mr. Shoemaker described the show as a “passion project” that they shopped around to different networks until they found the right fit with Hulu.

“Hulu was willing to turn it over to us creatively,” Mr. Meyers said. “Hulu was the first place that really understood it.”

“The Awesomes” also secured a sponsor in Jack Link's Beef Jerky. The brand partnership includes product integrations in the show and short episode extensions that involve the characters from “The Awesomes” and Sasquatch, the beef jerky mascot. There will also be traditional 30-second and 60-second ads with Mr. Meyers and Mr. Shoemaker writing the copy for the ads.

In one episode extension, two of the characters are talking about the free food perks the group no longer receives. “No more lobster Mondays? Make-your-own-taco Tuesdays?” says Muscleman, a brawny character who wears a bright red wrestling leotard. “All gone,” says Prock, adding that he has, instead, “lots of Jack Link's jerky.”

“I love that stuff,” says Muscleman. But the characters also acknowledge, in a tongue-in-cheek way, that what they are doing is a paid advertisement.

According to data from Kantar Media, a unit of WPP, Jack Link's spent $13.1 million on marketing in 2011 and $8.8 million in 2012. Hulu spent $9.3 million on advertising in 2011 and $63.6 million in 2012, according to Kantar.

Mr. Meyers said brand partnerships like this one were necessary. “I'm a realist and you have to pay for these shows,” he said. “It's how this stuff works. I think it's been helpful for me to work in TV for 12 years. No one's paying to watch ‘Saturday Night Live' but I still get a check every week.”

Andy Forssell, acting chief executive and senior vice president of content at Hulu, said, “You want this to be a beacon to show how this can be done well,” referring to the brand integration. “You don't want to have to make any creative sacrifices.”

Jeff LeFever, vice president of marketing for Jack Link's, said: “We want to become part of the everyday vernacular and everyday culture that's out there, not just a transactional product. In this media landscape it takes everybody out of the traditional way of doing things. The studio, the media partner all leaning together.”

Unlike Netflix, Hulu derives revenue from both subscriptions and advertising. Mr. Forssell said subscription fees and ad revenue from Hulu Plus, its paid subscription business, made up more than half of the company's revenue. “Both businesses are critical and will be part of our identity for years and years to come,” he said.

In addition to brand integration with Jack Link's, Hulu has a separate plan to promote and market the show, whose target audience is adults ages 20 to 39.

Digital banner ads promoting the show will run on Hulu and Hulu Plus, including personalized ads that prompt viewers who like a certain show - for instance, “Family Guy” - to watch “The Awesomes.”

Digital ads will also run on sites like BuzzFeed, Pandora, the Onion, Yahoo and AOL.

Hulu will show an episode of the show and host a panel with some cast members at Comic Con, a convention in San Diego on Saturday.

On July 25, Xbox Live users will be able to watch an ad-free preview of the show.

Billboards and other wall postings will be displayed in New York and Los Angeles.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2013, on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Instead of a Sale, Hulu Concentrates On ‘The Awesomes'.

Tony Metcalf, Editor of Free City Newspapers, Dies at 50

Tony Metcalf, the editor in chief of Metro US, the free newspaper that offers a quick read to bus and subway riders in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, particularly young working men and women who might never dream of buying a newspaper, died on Sunday in Darlington, England. He was 50.

Tony Metcalf was editor in chief of Metro US, a weekday paper.

The cause was colon cancer, said a company spokesman in New York, where Mr. Metcalf was based.

At his death, Mr. Metcalf, a newspaper veteran from Northeast England, was considered a rising star in the free-newspaper empire of Metro International, a spinoff of a Swedish media company that started its first free newspaper in Stockholm in 1995. Metro International now publishes about 100 such papers in 27 countries.

Starting in 2000 as editor of the company's first giveaway newspaper in England, the short-lived Metro Newcastle, Mr. Metcalf was named global editor in chief in 2001 and dispatched to start similar newspapers in a dozen locations, including Toronto, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Hong Kong and Seoul. (All are still operating.) He was named editor of Metro US in 2008.

Mr. Metcalf worked from an established template. Metro papers are thin, colorful tabloid digests of news that are published only on weekdays and typically hawked at or near subway and bus stations. News staffs are skeletal. The pages often have wire service reports or material acquired under arrangements with CNN, as well as several magazines and Web sites.

Mr. Metcalf described the target readership as “the hard-to-reach metropolitan” - the young, employed city dweller who is more apt to get news online or from television. The Metro ads are mainly directed at them, and the articles can easily be read between stops, running about 300 words each. (A word count ending about here, for example.)

Metro US said that under Mr. Metcalf's leadership, the three American dailies' readership had grown to about one million at a time when the newspaper industry as a whole has lost vast numbers of readers.

In addition to the three major daily newspapers based in New York City, Metro's main competition for the mass-transit audience in New York is amNew York, a free daily started by the Tribune Company in 2003 and now owned by Cablevision. (Since 2005, The New York Times Company has owned a 49 percent stake in the Metro newspaper published in Boston.)

A committed purveyor of journalistic Britishisms, Mr. Metcalf was known to egg on his overworked skeletal staff with compliments and other noncash rewards. A well-done article was “a belter” or a “bobby dazzler,” staff members said. Announcing an office party, he would say he was “planning a bit of a knees up.”

Mr. Metcalf was born on June 12, 1963, in Newton Aycliffe in the north of England and received a journalism degree from the Darlington College of Technology in the early 1980s. He went on to work as a reporter and editor at The Northern Echo, a regional newspaper, from 1987 to 2000, when he left to edit Metro Newcastle.

He left Metro International in 2004 to edit 7Days, a free newspaper in Dubai, of which he was a part owner, before returning to the company in 2008.

He is survived by his wife, Lesley; two children, Alex and Freya; and a brother and a sister.

Mr. Metcalf straddled the lines between journalism, showmanship and marketing. He wrote occasional commentaries on events like the London Olympics and the death of Margaret Thatcher, hired Alex McCord of “The Real Housewives of New York” to write a column, and recently offered readers a chance to win an iPod by “liking” Metro on Facebook.

His most animated encounter with American readers came after his decision to run a Reuters article about Europeans' revulsion at American celebrations in 2011 over the killing of Osama bin Laden. Readers were angry and in some cases threatening.

Mr. Metcalf's response was at first diplomatic and then stern: “Democratic states do not execute people without first going through the judicial process,” he wrote on the Metro editor's blog. “If that process is circumvented, then you are no better than the terrorists.”

He added: “I defy you to argue with that logic.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2013, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Tony Metcalf, 50, Editor of Free City Newspapers.