for my economy coverage round up. ah-the continuing failures of the MSM.

"I've seen a lot of dumb news reports in my life, but I'm not sure anything can quite match this one from ABC News. The premise of the report is this: Barack Obama plans to raise taxes on people who make more than $250,000, so the reporter has gone and found people who earn a little more than that sum who plan to decrease their income so that they come in underneath the magic line.

Now, the obvious objection here is that the tax code doesn't work that way. A tax increase affects the marginal dollar that a person gains. That's means only every dollar over $250,000 is taxed at a higher rate. Obama is not proposing a tax system whereby somebody who goes from $249,999 to $250,000 suddenly becomes poorer. Nobody has ever enacted a tax hike like that in the history of the United States."

Read on for more…

Blog network Gawker Media's ad revenues are up 20% year-over-year, according to an internal memo obtained by the Poynter Institute. Not bad, considering the recession.

The secret, says Gawker owner Nick Denton in the memo, has been those big, bold site-skinnings that look like this, the one they did for HBO show "Entourage":

And a couple tips from Ad Agency Razorfish:
# Quit thinking about advertising as something that belongs on the periphery of your site. Package your unit as a "sponsorship." Advertisers love to convey the feeling that your brilliant content is "brought to you by" their brand clients. "Sponsorships will always be valuable," said Terri.
# Here's are two words Terri and Sarah love to use: "Personalization" and "depth."
# A premium ad unit needs premium content (and a premium sales force to push it). Terri: "The publishers that are having problems are the ones that haven't invested enough in their content or their ad sales team."

I'm going to be searching for different ways the media is covering the economic crisis and recovery over the next few months If you see different interactive, citizen journalism and/or multi-platform examples, send them my way. Also always looking for great investigative journalism…