Katharine Weymouth was named publisher of The Washington Post and chief executive of Washington Post Media on Thursday, giving her oversight of The Washington Post newspaper and its online version, washingtonpost.com, The Post reported Friday.

Weymouth, who will take over from her grandmother and late Washington Post Co. Chairman Katharine Graham, will examine the newspaper and Web site's business and advertising departments, which could lead to merging some operations.

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Montreal-based Transcontinental Media is closing the Halifax Daily News to put out a new free paper in the city instead.

The newspaper “will close immediately,” and the first edition of the free Metro paper will be published Thursday, the Canadian Press reported Monday.

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Promotora de Informaciones SA (Prisa), will sell minority stakes in its businesses to cut debt and finance expansion, Bloomberg reported Monday.

Prisa CEO Juan Luis Cebrian said the media company will continue what it started in December, when it sold 16 percent of its radio operations to 3iGroup Plc for €225 million, and sell of pieces of its other divisions.

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The Irish-language daily Lá Nua is likely to close at the end of February, the paper's editor said he believes. Conchubhar O'Liatháin said the paper's closure would be due to a withdrawal of funding by Foras na Gaeilge, the governing body of the Irish language, the Sunday Business Post reported.

Lá Nua announced last week it would stop publishing print editions, and switch to online publishing only, as Belfast Media Group, which publishes the paper, could not absorb losses from the print side.

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Belo has completed the spin-off of its original newspaper division. The new broadcast-focus company, which operates 20 local stations in seven markets in the United States, began trading Monday.

The newspaper operations, including The Dallas Morning News and Providence Journal, are now a new separate public company, A.H. Belo, which also began trading on the NYSE Monday, Media Post reported Monday.

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According to a Nielsen Online survey, books are as popular as ever, and buying them online is growing in popularity.

In fact, books are the most purchased item online. The survey found that 41 percent of online users had bought a book online, while two years ago, only 34 percent of Internet users did so, according to eMarketer.

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Yahoo turned down Microsoft's US$44.6 billion takeover bid as “inadequate” Monday, without explaining how its management will match the payoff that the shareholders would have received if the offer had been accepted, MSNBC reported.

The rebuff had been widely anticipated due to the leak of Yahoo's intention during the weekend.

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Marcus Wilding of the Carat Global media planning agency has joined the programme of the World Newspaper Advertising Conference & Expo in Budapest next month, where he will share his views on the changing advertising environment and what it means for newspaper advertising sales.

The world of advertising agencies is undergoing powerful changes as fragmentation continues and new forms of advertising emerge. Wilding, who will deliver the conference keynote address, will examine how these changes will affect newspapers and how to sell advertising effectively in the new environment.

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