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It has been an action-packed few days for News Corporation. On Sunday night, Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars, gilding an already remarkable investment. NewsCorp's Fox Searchlight division acquired the movie for $2.5 million and has earned back over $100 million in ticket sales.
Then on Monday it was announced that the firm's long-serving president, Peter Chernin, won't be renewing his contract, sparking another round of guessing which child of Rupert Murdoch will succeed him.
Chernin's decision also revived grumbles from investors about the $5 billion Rupert Murdoch blew on acquiring The Wall Street Journal, which is struggling, along with every newspaper in America. With NewsCorp's share price 75% off its peak, they may have a point.
Then there's Murdoch's other New York paper, the Post, where Australian editor Col Allan is expected to lose his job over a cartoon he published last week showing two policemen shooting a chimp. The caption read: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus Bill."
The Post said it referred to a story about a 200lb pet monkey which attacked a woman in Connecticut. Critics said it compared Barack Obama to a chimp and suggested he be killed. The backlash has been furious. Like it or not, no other media firm makes so much of its own news.
* Latest terms to enter America's economics lexicon are “Freakoutonomics” and “recession rage”. Both have been in evidence at Microsoft, which has admitted overpaying some of the 1400 employees fired last month in its first-ever layoffs. It wrote to 25 of them seeking repayments of between $4000 and $5000. But when one of the letters appeared on a popular tech website, Microsoft backtracked, apologising and saying the fired employees could keep the extra cash.
* An answer to why new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has seemed so unprepared in his new role. Due to increased scrutiny of political appointees, he still only has 10% of the staff that served his predecessor, Hank Paulson. It's not a reassuring picture. The man charged with resuscitating the world's largest economy is said to be figuring out a solution pretty much all by himself.
