'Stabilized' Newspapers Boost Tribune 

Tribune Co, which plans to spin off its newspapers to focus on TV, received a financial boost as the eight-paper group reported a three-fold surge in 2Q profit to $59.6M on a four percent revenue dip to $470M.

CEI Peter Liguori, said Tribune "stabilized" the newspaper collection of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Morning Call and Daily Press.

Tribune's broadcasting unit suffered a 59 percent drop in operating profit to $50.5M on a 20.2 percent drop in revenues to $260M.

In July, Tribune announced a $2.8B deal to purchase 19 TV stations from Oak Hill Capital.

With the closing of that deal, Tribune's 42-station network will be the largest commercial network in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Mark Walter, controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and CEO of Guggenheim Partners, is mulling the purchase of the LAT and Trib.

GP is a financial services firm headquartered in Chicago.

Coatney Tumbles to Aja

Mark Coatney, who as media director at Tumblr was responsible for more than 700 brands, has joined Al Jazeera America as senior VP/digital media.

In his three-year stint, Coatney was in charge of media outlets and corporate offerings from NPR, BBC America, New York Times, IBM and Walt Disney Co. Tumblr grew from five to 135M blogs during that period.

Coatney joined Tumblr from Newsweek where he managed its Twitter, Facebook and other engagement platforms.

He has editorial experience as writer/editor at Time and its website.

Coatney said he's excited for the opportunity "to help shape a great journalistic organization and reach a new audience."

Grieve Named Nat Journal EIC

Tim Grieve, the Politico vet who recently joined the National Journal, will succeed Charlie Green as editor-in-chief upon his end of the year departure.

He joined NJ in May after edited Congressional coverage at Politico and launching its enhanced features offering. Earlier, he was senior writer at Salon and reporter at the Sacramento Bee.

David Bradley, chief of NJ parent Atlantic Media calls Grieve a "force of nature and a professional on a vertical trajectory through life."

Green will exit after a 16-year NJ stint.

WaPo Offers Print 'Native Advertising'

The Washington Post, which has been selling "native advertising" on its website to marketers such as Audi, Mercedes and Dairy Management, plans to offer a print version of sponsored content by the end of the year.

Chief revenue officer Kevin Gentzel said his goal to create ads on printed pages in places where advertising didn't exist.         

Unlike advertorials, the print native ads are promised to be timely with narrative that argues a marketer's policy position.

The print units will be clearly labeled a sponsored content.

Zeneca Sponsors AP's Twitter Feed

AstraZeneca, the drug giant, sponsored the Twitter feed of the Associated press on Aug. 27.

The Zeneca messages targeted AP's audience who suffer from acid reflux disease, which affects about 15M Americans.

They suggested a visit to Zeneca's YouTube channel that offers information about the illness.

Zeneca markets acid reflux-fighting drugs Nexium, Entocort and Losec.