The WIT Network  

When author Catherine Orenstein ("Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked") noticed that fewer than 20% of newspaper op-ed pieces were written by women, she did something about it. She founded The Op-Ed Project, a company that helps women find their voices -- and express them in the venues that matter. Why does it matter to have more women's voices on the nation's op-ed pages? What do women need, in order to be heard? Tune in to find out.

When author Catherine Orenstein ("Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked") noticed that fewer than 20% of newspaper op-ed pieces were written by women, she did something about it. She founded The Op-Ed Project, a company that helps women find their voices -- and express them in the venues that matter. Why does it matter to have more women's voices on the nation's op-ed pages? What do women need, in order to be heard? Tune in to find out.

The Big Money’s
James Ledbetter

Veteran business-news journalist James Ledbetter, who has held senior editorial positions at Time magazine, CNN Money and The Village Voice, discusses his latest media venture, The Big Money. A member of the Slate Group of digital-media news outlets, The Big Money “focuses on all important aspects of economics and money without getting bogged down in arcane statistics or impenetrable jargon.” “It’s a tough time across the board, but one of the things about The Slate Group is that the sites are launched with relatively low cost structures,” Jim, who serves as The Big Money’s editor in chief, tells host Bill Brazell. “So I do not have a big staff. We do not stay in five-star hotels. We don’t throw lavish parties – like Condé Nast once did. And while there’s no question it’s been challenging to get advertising revenue, we are growing and . . . starting to reconnect with the advertising community.” Jim is also the editor of Dispatches for the New York Tribune: Selected Journalism of Karl Marx and of Made Possible By ...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States.

Creative Capital Author
Spencer Ante

BusinessWeek Associate Editor Spencer Ante, author of Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital, traces the roots of venture capital in America – and how the lessons the founding fathers of this growth engine taught us are more relevant than ever today. “One of the big discoveries of my research was that the venture capital movement was born in direct respotnse to the Great Depression,” Spencer tells host Bill Brazell. “A group of businessmen and financiers in the New England area by the mid to late 1930s realized that the economy – because of the increasing role of government, and the excessive taxes that had been levied under the New Deal – had been supressed, or even extinguished to a certain extent. So they came up with the term ‘the riskless economy.’”

“Only morons and kids click on ads,”
Michael (above) tells us.

AdAge’s Michael Learmonth:
The Online Search Biz
Needs to Be Blown Up

Yahoo’s 10-year partnership with Microsoft, which the Internet giant expects to generate $275 million annually, will disrupt the digital-search industry to the point where it needs to be rebuilt from scratch. That according to Michael Learmonth, senior editor at Advertising Age, who broke the news of the historic deal on July 27, 2009, two days before it was announced. Interviewed on The WIT Network, Michael says the agreement – stipulating that Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88 percent of search revenue generated on Yahoo’s owned-and-operated sites through 2015 – will likely allow the companies to control 30 percent of the entire market, thus putting a significant dent Google’s business.

“This whole economy is going to be shaken up, because many, many agencies and advertisers buy search through technology that links directly into ether Yahoo or Microsoft’s search-buying system,” Michael tells host Bill Brazell. “And all that needs to be sort of blown up and sorted out now – now that they’ve decided to join up and compete against Google.”

“Advertisers fundamentally want more markets. They want more options,” Michael adds vis-à-vis Google’s dominance in the current search marketplace. He also affirms the notion that banner ads have become ineffective: “Marketers are thrilled if they get a one-percent click-through. They’ve done studies. Basically, only morons and kids click on ads.”

Recessionwire.com cofounder Laura Rich talks about the upstart website that chronicles the downturn: Why she helped launch it, what she's learned, and where it all may lead.