And Mr Fox's propensity for careless talk, providing fodder to the newly querulous media starved of hard news, does not help.

ECONOMIST: Government in Mexico

The digital partnerships reflect a convention reality for the media despite the absence of hard news, the gatherings remain a forum for news organizations to market their brands.

WSJ: Online Media Will Star at the Conventions

Especially in light of the news media's increasingly brazen partisanship, it's hard for us to imagine how we'd defend the free speech of journalists if we didn't also do so for everyone else.

WSJ: Centrist Censor

Great news, you placeshifting fiends of the world: we've learned that Sling Media is hard at work crafting new versions of its SlingPlayer Mobile for S60, Windows Mobile Standard, and Windows Mobile Professional devices.

ENGADGET: New SlingPlayer Mobile versions on the way Mobile

Elizabeth Demers, a professor at INSEAD, a business school near Paris, points out that what companies lose in terms of hard cash in the early days can often be made up for in terms of the publicity they get when the news media applaud the explosive rise in their share prices.

ECONOMIST: Social-media firms see champagne; others see bubbles