Big bonuses for Murdochs, but aren’t papers dying? I looked hard through the business pages of The Australian this morning, but nowhere could I find any coverage of the new remuneration system for Rupert and James Murdoch, Chase Carey and David DeVoe, the big four of the paper’s owner News Corporation.

There was a story locally on the eye-popping plan by 81-year-old Bruce Gordon to put his 19-year-old daughter on the board, where she would also join her mother. The James Chessell drop came after the Australian Financial Review‘s Neil Shorbridge got his drop earlier this week, with Gordon saying he was interesting in buying the Nine Network stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. It’s a continuing source of wonderment how Gordon manages to juggle his responsibilities to both papers and writers, handing them a tidbit or three on each trip.

From The Australian‘s head office (business) — aka the Wall Street Journal — we had a couple of media stories, the CBS quarterly figures and another report on the sale of Newsweek, but not a word from New York on the new remuneration structure at the top of News Corp, even though there was a report issued on the Dow Jones Newswire.

The Australian did publicise on its website the silly report from Macquarie media analyst Alex Pollak, who seems to have issued it for the publicity factor only. In it he suggested Fairfax to close its Sydney and Melbourne papers and go all online with e-readers and the like. Naturally that received a prominent play on the paper’s business website (which now seem to have completely infiltrated business websites of the News Ltd tabloids, such as the Herald Sun and Courier Mail).

No mention in the coverage that getting out of newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne would turn both cities into local monopolies for News Limited: The Australian, Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun. No wonder The Australian fell upon the report and devoured it. And not a mention of all that newspaper advertising revenue dropping into the News Ltd coffers and onto the profit line in the accounts.

Recruitment companies wouldn’t advertise online for the sorts of jobs that The Age in Melbourne and the Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney still attract. All the remaining classified would all end up in the Tele or Sun. Why not recommend that News Ltd get rid of its papers in both cities — the rationale applies to them as much as it does to Fairfax. — Glenn Dyer

Murdoch on the election: ‘just read our newspapers’

“Rupert Murdoch said today he was keeping a close watch on the federal election but declined to nominate a preferred candidate.” — The Australian

Ray Martin blasts Nine over ‘consumer affairs’ show

“I used to sit there when I was hosting A Current Affair at times and say ‘Who cares about this story?’ I think the audience is much smarter than we give them credit for.” — TV Tonight

Google on Wave: it didn’t really catch on

“But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product …” — Google Blog

Tweeting on the company dime

“A study of half a million tweets from Sydneysiders suggests that compared to other countries, workers are using Twitter to send more personal tweets in work time and using it less in their own time.” — mUmBRELLA

Time‘s cover model hits back

“She cannot read or write and had never heard of Time magazine until a visitor brought her a copy of this week’s issue, the one with the cover picture of her face, the face with no nose.” — New York Times

Will Ferrell stars in Wired iPad spruik

“What should magazines do to differentiate their iPad offerings from their conventional print or online content, in order to entice users to pay for what they are accustomed to getting free-of-charge? In the case of Wired, four short comedy videos featuring Will Ferrell can’t hurt.” — WebNewser

Katie Couric on Palin kids: ‘where the hell do they get these names?’

“Katie Couric has fallen victim to leaked footage again. This time, Couric is seen rehearsing for the CBS Evening News during the 2008 Republican National Convention and mocking the names of Sarah Palin’s children.” — Huffington Post