Wednesday Morning Links

Some E.W. Scripps Co. (NYSE: SSP) top executives could be selling off company stock under the so-called “Rule 10b5-1” trading plans that let offers make arrangements at a time when they have no insider information about the stock for the later automatic sales of shares.

Scripps officers -- including CFO and Treasurer Timothy Stautberg, Senior Vice President/Newspapers Mark Contreras and  Senior Vice President/Television Brian Lawlor – are parrt of a larger group of executives who will be receiving Class A Shares in 2010 as restricted awards vest. The sales, which depend on certain criteria set  by the executives, may begin in February and would be completed by June. The sales “under these trading plans are intended to help diversify the officers' personal investment holdings and fund the payment of tax liabilities created by the vesting of the awards,” Scripps says in a statement.

Canada’s Supreme Court has early Christmas gifts: Rulings in separate libel cases against The Ottawa Citizen and The Toronto Star that significantly increase libel protection for journalists. The court even concurred with the contention of journos in Canada and U.S. that the nation’s libel laws are more restrictive than even Britain’s. (New York Times via Media Decoder)

Economist Robert G. Picard on the business implications of becoming a multi-platform deliverer of news and information. (Hint: simple repurposing of material devalues it.)

In a bad year for gay newspapers, Chicago may lose one of its GLBT weeklies. Chicago Reader media writer Mike Miner reports much of the staff of the Chicago Free Press has walked off the job in protest of a missed paycheck and other grievances. This is a feisty group that walked out of the rival Windy City Times, which continues to publish, to form the Free Press.