National Briefing | Washington: Times Reporter Seeks Subpoena’s Withdrawal

Times Reporter Seeks Subpoena’s Withdrawal

A lawyer for James Risen, an author and a reporter for The New York Times, has asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to withdraw a subpoena requiring him to testify about a confidential source, in light of the Justice Department’s new guidelines for obtaining information from journalists in investigations. On July 19, a federal appeals court ruled that Mr. Risen must testify in the criminal trial of a former C.I.A. official, Jeffrey Sterling, who is charged with leaking classified information. The case involves material published in Mr. Risen’s 2006 book, “State of War.” The ruling came a week after Mr. Holder released a report on “significant revisions” to Justice Department policies intended to “strengthen protections for members of the news media.” The amended guidelines call for tactics like subpoenas to e treated as “extraordinary measures” to be used as a “last resort,” noted David N. Kelley, Mr. Risen’s lawyer, in a letter to Mr. Holder. “We urge you to apply those principles to this case,” Mr. Kelley wrote. A spokesman for the Justice Department said it was “examining the next steps in the prosecution of this case.”

CNN Tweaks Its Lineup Amid Executive Changes

One day after revamping its evening program lineup, CNN continued a week of change on Wednesday with announcements affecting the assignments of a range of executives.

The news network has hired Andrew Morse as senior vice president in charge of domestic news gathering and digital news. He had been the head of United States television at the Bloomberg News organization.

At the same time, CNN reported the departure of Scot Safon, the general manager of its sister network, HLN (formerly Headline News). Mr. Safon sent word of his resignation in a memo to staff members, saying he was leaving after 22 years at the company for an undisclosed future position. He described the decision to leave as “admittedly bittersweet.” HLN has had several bursts of increased ratings in the last year, mostly tied to coverage of criminal trials.

Mr. Morse’s appointment was one of a series of changes announced by Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide, that also included a new reporting structure affecting executives in New York, Washington and Atlanta. They followed the fine-tuning of the network’s program lineup, announced on Tuesday.

CNN will revise its nightly lineup to add a new version of “Crossfire” â€" a program from its past â€" and to revamp the 10 p.m. hour anchored by Anderson Cooper.

Starting Sept. 16, “Crossfire” will return with new hosts at 6:30 each weekday evening. The panelists on the political debate show will be Newt Gingrich, Stephanie Cutter, S. E. Cupp and Van Jones.

Mr. Cooper will preside over a reconfigured hour at 10 p.m. starting the same night. He has been anchoring that hour in a program that is either a repeat of his nightly 8 p.m. broadcast or an update with new developments. The new program will not be a repeat of the 8 p.m. hour. Like “Crossfire,” it have a panel format, made up of CNN correspondents as well as newsmakers.

The addition of “Crossfire” at 6:30 means the holdover series “The Situation Room” will be cut back to 90 minutes, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. But CNN is not going to shortchange the anchor, Wolf Blitzer, of any daily airtime. He will add a new hour from 1 to 2 p.m. weekdays.

AOL Revenue Increased 2% in 2nd Quarter

AOL, the online portal that owns The Huffington Post and Patch, on Wednesday reported second-quarter revenue of $541 million, up 2 percent from the same quarter a year earlier.

In line with its ambitions to become a platform for live broadcasting and programming, the company also announced the purchase of ADAP.TV, a video advertising company that allows purchases across the Internet and television. The cost was $405 million.

AOL executives said in a phone interview that the acquisition was not so much about increasing their own content as it was to diversify the company’s earnings into a revenue stream that it thinks has tremendous potential.

AOL trumpeted the fact that its ad sales were up 5 percent, but overall digital ad spending in the United States grew by 14.8 percent, to $10.01 billion, in the second quarter of 2013 over the same period last year, according to eMarketer, an online advertising research firm.

Despite positive growth in advertising and traffic, up 3 percent year over year, the earnings revealed the company’s continued dependence on revenue from subscriptions to the AOL portal, a declining business. Looking at adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization â€" or income earned from regular operations â€" the membership business was a net positive at $151.6 million, but still down 4 percent year over year.

Still, Wall Street reacted positively to what it saw, largely because AOL seemed to be cutting losses and heading in the right direction. The brand groups, for example, cut losses from $15.2 million for the quarter a year earlier to $1.4 million this last quarter. Losses increased in this area for AOL networks; the chief executive, Tim Armstrong, said that was because the company was in “investment mode.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 7, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the quarterly revenue for AOL. It was $541 million, not $361 million, for an increase of 2 percent, not 7 percent. The error was repeated in an earlier version of the headline.

Graduation Speech by George Saunders to Become a Book

Most graduation speeches, full of platitudes and pat advice, are instantly forgotten. Not the one given earlier this year by the writer George Saunders at Syracuse University, where he teaches.

The speech â€" a moving reminder of the power of kindness â€" was reprinted on The 6th Floor, a blog of The New York Times Magazine, and widely e-mailed and posted on social media.

On Wednesday, Random House said it would publish an expanded version of the speech in book form.

The book, “Congratulations, by the Way,” will be released in spring 2014.

The deal drew comparisons to “This Is Water” by David Foster Wallace, a published version of his widely quoted commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005.

Graduation Speech by George Saunders to Become a Book

Most graduation speeches, full of platitudes and pat advice, are instantly forgotten. Not the one given earlier this year by the writer George Saunders at Syracuse University, where he teaches.

The speech â€" a moving reminder of the power of kindness â€" was reprinted on The 6th Floor, a blog of The New York Times Magazine, and widely e-mailed and posted on social media.

On Wednesday, Random House said it would publish an expanded version of the speech in book form.

The book, “Congratulations, by the Way,” will be released in spring 2014.

The deal drew comparisons to “This Is Water” by David Foster Wallace, a published version of his widely quoted commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005.