The Inquisitr » newspapers

The stupid line-up continues to grow as more newspapers commit to following Murdoch

Steven Hodson — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:25:21 +0000

Yesterday I wrote here at The Inquisitr about how stupid I thought the idea of Microsoft paying News Corp to pull its media properties from Google’s search index. Of course this is something that Rupert Murdoch; the power behind News Corp, has been advocating for sometime in the hope that he would be able to bluff Google into coughing up money for access.

Well so far Google isn’t blinking, and to be honest I don’t expect them to, but news out today shows that some more newspaper owners are swallowing the Murdoch proposal hook, line and sinker. Bloomberg is reporting that several MediaNews Group newspapers are considering the cut off your nose to spite your face action of pulling out of the Google search index.

A.H. Belo, based in Dallas, hasn’t decided if it will block Google News and any action isn’t “imminent,” said Moroney, who is also publisher of the Morning News. Blocking Google would be part of a larger strategy, he said.

A.H. Belo is considering models for charging for some of its Web content and plans to implement a pay wall within six months at either the Morning News, Rhode Island’s Providence Journal or Riverside Press-Enterprise, published in Riverside, California, Moroney said. That may require Web readers to go directly to the newspaper’s site to read stories, he said.

“This is traffic that’s not being monetized to any great degree,” Moroney said. “It’s akin to a person who drops into town, buys one copy of your newspaper and leaves town again and yet you spend a whole bunch of time building your business around that type of customer.”

The whole problem with that argument is that none of these newspapers are international, or even national to any large degree. Unlike newspapers like the Washington Post, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal their typical markets are regional at best in a world where borders are meaning less and people are looking to get their news from more globally oriented newspapers.

Where once this might have meant having a subscription to those large papers and waiting for delivery of them the reader can now get that news immediately on the web. Those types of newspapers could foreseeably survive on subscriptions and no presences in the Google search index.

The smaller regional / city newspapers however don’t have that big brand name luxury to bring in readers. For them survival may just very well rely on getting the best position they can in any and all search engine results.

By pulling out of search indexes like Google’s shows a total lack for foresight from the people involved. All they will be doing is hastening up their eventual demise.

What might work for the big boys like Murdoch could very well have the opposite effect on his competition; but then maybe that is what is hoping for because Google isn’t going to have any sleepless nights either way.

The coming world of the multimedia journalist

Steven Hodson — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:32:53 +0000

We hear the scare tactics everyday. The news industry is tanking and the only way to save it is by returning to putting everything behind the paywall or instituting some sort of micro-payment schemes. News can’t survive by being given away for free is the mantra of the old school media companies.

News organizations after news organizations are crying the blues and cutting back on staff in order to keep the industry profitable enough for the owners and well placed editors. You would think that the coming news Armageddon will see the end of news as we know it.

The problem is that this is a specious argument that is put forth in order to protect the status quo of the news delivery systems. News will never die. Seriously. News is something that happens around us every day, every minute and nothing we do will ever stop news from happening.

What will change is the way in which we get our news and this is what is scaring the shit out of the old guard of the news industry – because at its root news isn’t an industry, we have just been led to believe it is.

While the boardrooms of the old world media companies are struggling to maintain any control they can over their profits that feed their million dollar lifestyles there are journalists and reporters who are finding a whole new freedom that comes from being exactly that – reporters of the news as it is happening. They are finding new freedom in being able to create content that will outlast even the outmoded methods of our current news delivery systems.

Even as these dinosaurs of newsprint carry on about returning to behind the paywall long time journalists are say no to the idea. Case in point is Saul Friedman who has been writing a column for Newsday since 1996.

Then he found out that Newsday, owned by Cablevision, would be returning its content back behind a paywall. It was a paywall that saw anyone other than a Cablevision and Newsday print subscriber having to pay $5 a week to access the site. This for Friedman was the breaking point and decided the time to quit had come. The idea of losing readership because of this paywall wasn’t acceptable to him.

Just as some journalists and reporters are deciding that the time is coming where they have to consider doing their job outside of the normal confines of a newspaper there are also a growing number of them that are looking to expand the way that they can keep on reporting on the news.

It is people like long time crime and court reporter Ron Sylvester who have seen the future of the business and realized that it is no longer just about the written word as published under some newspaper’s masthead. For Sylvester the role for journalists is going to become one of being a multi-media journalist where things like the written word are included with podcasts and videocasting.

As well it will mean being a part of the social media movement both as a way to promote one’s work as well as a way to find out about new stories that might be of interest. Journalist and reporters are becoming their own editors and ad departments. They are becoming their own sound man and videographers.

In Sylvester’s case he is also lucky enough to be able to draw on the skills of like minded contemporaries for projects that exceed his abilities to properly cover a story. This is almost the beginnings of the independent mobile teams of experts who can react quickly and without having to deal with the bureaucracy of an established newsroom.

While there is plenty of room for the independent journalist maintaining their own blog or being a part of a larger one I think the real power of a new world of news delivery will come from people like Ron Sylvester and other like him who will utilize all the aspects of technology in order to bring the real news to their readers. It will be the news without the preconceived filters that established old media organizations dole out what they think we need to read.

Regardless of what the dinosaurs of news might have us believe with their scare tactics news will never stop being delivered – only the methods of delivery will change.

Mainstream Media’s Death – Pending

Kyle Brady — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:10:10 +0000

Everyone has seen it coming but those effected by it: the mainstream media has been in a long, slow slide that will inevitably end in its death, and they have long since decried this as outrageous – but the cracks are beginning to show. Newspapers are asking for federal permission to collude as an industry, magazines are failing left and right, and all forms of publishing media has seen extensive layoffs and the closure of “extras” like non-local bureaus.

But what about the venerable media institutions that fall somewhere in-between newspapers and magazines? These are the TIME Magazine’s, Newsweek’s, and U.S. News‘ of the world.

TIME, along with it’s weekly brethren, typically has historically had more journalistic integrity per paragraph than any newspaper does per page – this is common knowledge, and it was assumed by many that they would weather the perfect storm of media collapse better than most. This, apparently, was an incorrect assumption.

Looking over the last three issues, disturbing trends begin to emerge.

The November 9th, 2009 issue of TIME has 64 pages: 25 are ads, and 11 are the beginning filler nonsense no-one reads – that’s over half the magazine, and another 5 pages are dedicated for entertainment “news” that doesn’t belong in a publication like TIME. But here’s where it gets good: there’s two “book adaptation” articles that total 6 pages. All told, that leaves just 17 pages for true journalism, half of which are actually commentary pieces.

The November 2nd, 2009 issue has 80 pages: 44 are ads, 11 are introductory filler, 10 are entertainment “news”, and there’s another 5 for commentary – leaving just 10 pages for journalism. The trend continues in the October 26, 2009 issue: 64 pages in length, 17 are ads, 5 are full-page “infographics”, 12 are intro filler, 3 are full-page pictures, 5 used for entertainment, and another 5 for commentary – 17 for journalism.

Did TIME think its readers wouldn’t notice? That people who care enough about politics and world issues to read lengthy stories are somehow too busy or ignorant to realize the content they pay for is dwindling substantially? The content I personally pay for now only represents somewhere around 20% of the magazine each week, and this is somehow supposed to be acceptable?

There was a time, just a few years ago, where the magazine took well over an hour to read – and it was an enjoyable, informed, educational timesink. Now it takes less than half an hour of mostly brainless reading, depending on the week’s content, because the majority of the magazine gets ignored. It’s understandable that such publications are going through tough financial times, due to a decreased readership and a number of other issues, but the way to increase your membership, or even maintain the status quo, is most definitively NOT to follow TIME’s current behavior.

To all the media moguls out there, here’s an important point you might want to write down for future use: when you need to increase your publication’s readership, replacing content with ads and journalism with reprints or filler is not going to net you the results you desire. This, in all honesty, should be common sense.

It goes without saying that I am not only disappointed in TIME for such behavior, but also that it deserves to fail in a miserable and public fashion, because it has proven itself incapable of making rational editorial decisions when threatened with existential questions. Since I don’t subscribe to Newsweek or U.S. Magazine, it’s hard to say definitively whether they are acting similarly, but this industry has proven to be very open to groupthink…

In short, let TIME and its ilk die the slow, painful death that they deserve.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

The fallacy of using “the public’s right to know” to support traditional media

Steven Hodson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:39:39 +0000

It is a well accepted fact that once survival instincts kick in we will use anything and say anything in order to survive. This isn’t an instinct just regulated to men and woman as we have seen companies that are drowning in their own missteps and mistakes come out fighting using specious and ridiculous arguments as to why they shouldn’t be left to rot by the roadside.

Both the music and video, albeit movies or television, are famous for trotting out all kinds of dire warnings about how we will lose those industries if something isn’t done to save them. Things like a 3-strike law that will see people kicked off the Internet if they are caught “stealing” music or videos. Of course this is all under the assumption that these businesses are doing to save the artists involved from never being able to earn an income.

Then we have the news industry which is currently performing the waffle dance about going back to a paywall subscription system in order to save the news industry. After all without the corporations being able to make massive profits as they have in the past we all know that news will disappear forever.

One of the arguments that the news industry likes to trot out as a reason why we can’t afford to have their businesses go tits up is because with out the news industry the way it is now the public’s right to know is in danger of being taken away from them.

Bullshit.

Besides the fact that there has never been a better informed public than ever before (as long as they are willing to get up off their asses to look for it) the idea that the news industry is our conduit to all that we have the right to know is stupid.

What it really boils down to is that the news we get is only the news that news organizations feel will bring them the biggest viewership numbers and what they – and them alone – decide they want us to see or read. There is no public right involved in any of this. It is all about them being the gatekeepers and deciding what is best for them – we don’t enter into the picture.

An open letter to President Obama – Stay out of the newspaper business

Steven Hodson — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:03:59 +0000

See that slippery slope over there?

That’s the slope you will slide down President if you even consider any legislation to “rescue” the newspaper industry. It is a never ending slope that will morph into a bigger albatross around your neck than even the healthcare debate and the war in Afghanistan. With each of those two things there is a definite end point that will be reached.

The healthcare issue will either be solved or it will disappear into Congressional and Presidential history as yet another attempt as it did with Clinton. The war in Afghanistan will end at some point with either the total removal of troops due to political and public pressure or because of some type of victory – limited or otherwise.

With newspapers there is no endpoint other than withering on the vine. The industry is in a battle of Darwinian evolutionary change and no amount of ‘government’ intervention can change that. Even now predictions still suggest that the money drain isn’t slowing as the industry looks to an additional drop in advertising revenue by 25% in the third quarter.

In an interview with the editors of the Toledo Blade you said

"Journalistic integrity, you know, fact-based reporting, serious investigative reporting, how to retain those ethics in all these different new media and how to make sure that it’s paid for, is really a challenge," Mr. Obama said. "But it’s something that I think is absolutely critical to the health of our democracy."

It is not the responsibility of the government President Obama to codify into law that journalistic integrity, fact-based reporting be supported by an increasingly outmoded method of delivery. Because that is all newspapers are Mr. President – they are delivery system for something we have been doing for hundreds of years. From the Town Crier to the first newspapers printed to the revolution of the Internet we have had a basic need to share the events of the day – except now we can do it as it is actually happening.

If you are concerned about what is critical to the health of your democracy don’t look to businesses that are resistant to change to the point that they are willing to doom their profit machines to the trash heap. Instead look to those companies that want to find new economic models that will support them as we grow into a new world of information distribution. Democracy is only as strong as the people and companies that flourish under it. When democracy relies on support from business that are dying from internal rot it can become just as infected.

Part of that innovation that strengthens your democracy are the cornerstones of the new media: blogs, Twitter, Facebook and news organizations that are truly trying to come to grips with the news ways of distributing news. Yet as Michael O’Brien quotes you in a post you seem to think those things are less important than ‘traditional news’

"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.

I find this dichotomy of thinking hard to understand given that it was your use of these very tools and services that helped propel you into the White House. Yet you would have us believe that blogs aren’t capable of doing the same, or better, jabs as newspapers do. Michael Masnick from Techdirt eloquently provides a counter argument:

First, it seems odd to lump the medium in with a certain type of reporting. There are plenty of "real reporters" who do plenty of "serious fact-checking" within the blog world too. Blogs are just a publishing medium. Yes, because there’s a lower barrier to entry, you do end up with a much larger absolute number of bloggers, many of whom are just giving opinion. But the idea that there aren’t blogging reporters is pure folly. In fact, I’d argue that the serious blogs on certain subjects to a lot more to "put stories in context" than your average newspaper reporter, who writes up a quick take and moves on to the next big thing. Topic-specific blogs are often much more accurate, much more detailed, and much more willing to focus on context than newspaper reporting.

The idea that newspapers are some sort of paragon of virtue and independence is ridiculous as we have seen with major organizations being hit by plagiarism and increasing polarization. To suggest that just because a single individual who devotes their time and energy in a particular news niche is of any less value or brings less to the table than any news organization is wrong. Blogs and even services like Twitter are the beginnings of a new news distribution and a re-alignment of the economics surrounding the reporting and delivery of the news.

For too long now ‘traditional’ news media have behaved as if they have some iron grip on the news when in fact their head in the sand approach to new technology has only hastened their demise that as Jack Shafer suggests started happening before the “new media” of the Internet began hitting its stride.

Remember, the decline of newspapers is multifactorial, and it didn’t start yesterday. As early as 1992, Warren Buffett was counseling investors against newspapers, saying they had already lost their economic advantage. This was a full three or four years before the commercial World Wide Web took off.

Just as you campaign on the idea of “a coming change” so to must the news industry finally realize that no amount of government help, non-profit classification, or instituting paywalls is going to stop the coming change that will sweep them up as well. Just as there is suppose to be a separation between church and state there also needs to be a separation between government and journalism.

Journalism will always survive and will continue to a cornerstone of democracy as you phrase it. It will survive because it is an integral part of our DNA – the desire to collect and share information – to let our fellow citizens know what is happening in our world. That desire has nothing to do with archaic delivery methods and no amount of intervention will change that.

So Mr. President do yourself, us, and the industry a favor – stay out of the newspaper business.

Google Fast Flip is just the ammunition newspapers wanted

Duncan Riley — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:11:33 +0000

Google today launched Google Fast Flip, a new reading services that allows users to (as the name suggests) flip through content on various sites without leaving Google itself.

The new service includes content from the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, ProPublica, among others, and is being pitched by Google as “a new reading experience that combines the best elements of print and online articles.”

To Google’s credit Fast Flip only includes content from partnership deals with media outlets, and the search giant is promising to “share the revenue earned from contextually relevant ads.” The problem though lies with what Google Fast Flip does with the content, and what it may mean in the fight between Google and newspaper publishers.

Google Fast Flip displays an ad-less snap shot of each page, which while constrained by size mostly includes the full content from each item. It works to some degree for reading, but at the same time it negates the need to click thru to the outlet hosting the content. Without the clickthru, Google’s argument about how many page views it sends through to publishers is undermined. They are ad sharing, but a single Adsense unit won’t come close to competing with display advertising on the actual source page, and that’s a risk for sites who are offering their content on the service.

To actually affect the bottom line of sites, Fast Flip would need to become popular, but it’s the precedent it sets that will scare newspaper publishers, and rightly so as Google now offers a service that doesn’t deliver traffic back. You can already hear some Google haters preparing to cite the service the next time they go on a Google bash, only this time their arguments might actually make some sense.

Michael Moore: In 1 to 2 years we will not have daily newspapers [Video]

Steven Hodson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:05:41 +0000

You may not agree with Michael Moore regarding a lot of the things he makes films about but at a press event in Toronto for a film festival he said something that most people involved social media and Web 2.0 would be hard-pressed to disagree with.

During the conference that was primarily about his new film, Capitalism, Moore went off on a four minute tangent where he said that the Internet is what is responsible for the killing of newspapers. Moore suggests that it is greed, pure and simple, that has brought the newspaper industry to this point in time.

“These newspapers have slit their own throats,” he said. “Good riddance.”

Moore said that newspapers, bought up by corporations in the last generation, have pursued profits at the expense of news gathering. By basing their businesses on advertising over circulation, newspaper owners have neglected their true economic base and core constituency, he said.

Source: The Wrap – Michael Moore Says U.S. Newspapers ‘Slit Their Own Throats’

How News Corp slandered this site

Duncan Riley — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:44:11 +0000

There’s nothing funny about being defamed and accused of undertaking illegal activities, and that’s precisely what Australia’s biggest newspaper group is currently doing to The Inquisitr, and by extension myself today.

Over two posts Wednesday evening (Australian Eastern) we covered the raid by Anonymous against the Australian Government. Those posts relied heavily on information publicly available on another site (which was linked to in the first post) about the raid, and included statements of intent from Anonymous itself. The second post was an attempt to live blog the raid by monitoring sites Anonymous are known to frequent, Twitter, and by checking whether any Australian Government sites were slow to load or offline (you know, basic journalism.) Both posts were clearly written under my name, and quotes from the group were clearly marked as such, and in one case in a block quote gray enclosure.

Indeed, I even went as far as saying in the first post

I legally can’t say I’m in favor of what Anonymous is doing here, and I won’t be participating in the raid, however there will be many who support any effort to highlight the Australian Government’s attempt to introduce Chinese style censorship in a country that is suppose to be democratic and free.

Incitement to commit a crime in Australia is illegal, and not only didn’t I endorse the effort, I specifically said I had nothing to do with it.

So how it is then that the News Corp papers in Australia are running stories claiming that among other things that the “hacker” wrote the posts here at The Inquisitr. To quote the article:

A message posted on the Inquisitor website by the hacker, identified as Anonymous, stated that the action was in response to a Federal Government proposal to introduce mandatory internet filtering….

The posting complains that the proposal to introduce internet filtering would block legal content, and take censorship to levels like that seen in China.

It should be noted that the China reference was one that I made, they didn’t actually split the quotes and my commentary, but instead lumped it all as “the hacker” talking.

But it gets better, because then they extensively quote my live blog post as coming from the hacker.

The posting, titled “Anonymous vs the Australian Government”, also gives a blow-by-blow account of the hacker’s progress.

“In two minutes from when I type this, Anonymous is declaring war on the Australian Government over its decision to implement Draconian internet censorship,” the post said.

“Tick tick tick.

“Update: 7pm: and so it begins.

“7:05pm (AEST), Ministers page is slow to load, but still up.

“7:11pm weve confirmed on site (via a source) that the sites due to be attacked have been taken down from the coordination page, possibly before the raid.

“7:18pm pm.gov.au DOWN!

“7:21pm Kevin Rudd’s page is down completely. Strike one to Anonymous.”

News Corporation is fond of attacking new media, with John Hartigan himself having a particular dislike of bloggers and blogging. Yet what we have here is yet another case of even the most basic fact checking not being undertaken, and in the process The Inquisitr, and by extension myself (as the author of the posts referred to in article) being accused of undertaking serious criminal activities, activities which I would note are currently subject to an investigation by the Australian Federal Police.

Despite emailing the editor of News.com.au, The Australian Newspaper, and The Herald Sun, I’ve not had one response. The Editor of the rival newspaper The Age, who ran a similar story, not only immediately responded, but pulled the references to The Inquisitr in less than 30 minutes

Google working on micropayment platform with newspapers in mind

Steven Hodson — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:52:48 +0000

According to a post by Zachary M. Seward over at the Nieman Journalism Lab blog it appears that Google is working on an extension to its Google Checkout payment platform that is aimed at bring a new micropayment system to the web – and particularly to the newspaper industry.

In an eight page response to the Newspaper Association of America’s request for paid content proposals Google outlines its “vision of a premium content ecosystem” that would include subscriptions across multiple news sites, syndication on third-party sites, accessibility to search, and various payment options for individual pieces of content. As stated in the documents:

Google believes that an open web benefits all users and publishers. However, “open” need not mean free. We believe that content on the Internet can thrive supported by multiple business models — including content available only via subscription.

At this point Google describes the new e-commerce option as “in production” and “currently in the early planning stages”. Isn’t it nice to see companies get past their differences and come together in the heart warming embrace of making money.

hat tip to @mathewi on Twitter

Freedom Communications To File For Bankruptcy This Week

AHN — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:00:25 +0000

New York, NY (AHN) – Freedom Communications, the owner of more than 30 newspapers and eight TV stations across the country, is expected to file for bankruptcy this week, possibly as early as Tuesday.

The owner of the Orange County Register in Santa Ana, CA, may hand off ownership of the media empire to its two largest lenders, the Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners. The transaction would wipe out the investment groups’ 45 percent equity in the company.

The Hoiles family is majority owners of Freedom, which was founded more than 70 years by R.C. Hoiles.

Cutbacks were already underway at Freedom. In July, salaries were cut 5 percent at WPEC in South Florida. That followed layoffs in January and unpaid one-week leaves in March.

The Stars Will Align For New Media In 2010

Duncan Riley — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:28:44 +0000

The landscape for media globally in 2009 has never in recent history been in a more state of flux. The rise of the internet, coupled with old media asleep at the wheel even before they were hit by the global financial crisis has seen unprecedented upheaval and change.

Economies run in cycles, and already things are starting to look up for those left standing. I spent the last two weeks in the United States talking to a variety of people in new and old media, and in the advertising industry. The message from most was the same: we’ve past the bottom of the market, advertisers are starting to spend more, and the quarter ahead and into 2010 will see more money in the space.

An often overlooked consideration of any economic downturn is that what emerges at the end is often more efficient, and advertising is no different. Advertisers are looking for better value and better reach, and online is the space that many are heading. That money needs to find a home, and old media is poised to cut themselves off.

The Newspaper suicide pact

2010 will be the year newspapers throw themselves off a collective cliff with only the strongest to survive, some by sheer luck. Headed globally by News Corp, newspapers will collectively throw up paywalls around their content, cutting off the very readers who drive the page view counts that advertisers are looking for. Whether you believe or not that newspapers might be able to make pay for view work, everyone agrees that page views will suffer, and that means a big drop in available inventory for advertisers.

Newspapers with paywalls will not only affect advertising, but will also drive a huge shift in reading habits. Online newspaper readers will look elsewhere for their news, and new media is poised to grab a big slice of those readers. You couldn’t paint a better scenario for new media: some of the biggest competitors in old media taking themselves out of the market, first with a paywall, and then later altogether as they die from their collective suicide pact.

The stars align

Taking newspapers out of play will see a boom for new media readership, but couple that to an increased advertising spend that is already starting to gather steam, and you have the stars align. New media gets more readers, and more ads, driving a cycle of upwards growth.

The combination of the two will also drive further innovation in the space. Already hyperlocal is experiencing a second renaissance, and unlike last time round there’s some serious money (and even some traditional media companies) getting involved. Hyperlocal is a difficult space for the one reason: scale, specifically lack there of, but smarter people than I think that this time it can work. If hyperlocal can be successful, the future is even brighter for new media that does compete on scale.

Conclusion

Even the most hardened skeptic of new media would agree that what we are witnessing now is a diametric shift in the overall media landscape. Newspapers are dying, helped along the way by their failure to take full advantage of what an online, always on world has offered. New media doesn’t really need to prove itself; it already has, but collectively the space is poised to become the biggest media source online, and eventually as heritage media assets fade, the dominant force of media across the globe.

News Corp building newspaper pay cartel

Duncan Riley — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:11:57 +0000

Rupert Murdoch is reported to be building a newspaper pay cartel that will see free newspaper sites disappear along with News Corp sites in the next 12 months.

According to the LA Times, News Corp’s Jonathan Miller mas met with major news publishers including New York Times Co., Washington Post Co., Hearst Corp. and Tribune Co. The report did not note the success or otherwise of the talks

The move by News Corp makes sense form their perspective: they can’t put up the pay wall and succeed if the competition continues to offer their content for nothing. In theory, most major newspapers doing pay at the same time would maximize sales opportunities for the pay sites; well, that’s the play book News Corp is running by.

The move though raises serious anti-trust issues; the four companies named account for around 80-90% of the US newspaper market, and collusion would lessen competition.

On a bright note, the market in 12 months time for new media startups is going to be even better now all the newspapers are signing up to commit ritual suicide.

Is Newser the most overrated site on the internet?

Duncan Riley — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:25:49 +0000

News aggregator Newser is getting a lot of attention lately as enemy number one in the battle between newspapers and news aggregation sites.

If you believe some of the coverage, Newser steels page views from newspapers, and along with The Huffington Post, occasionally Google news and others, is destroying the news business. Founder MIchael Wolff even boasts that he’s “proud to kill the news.”

Newser is an attractive looking aggregator, and it’s obviously well known in certain circles. The paranoia and/ or hype though about the danger is presents news isn’t justified by numbers. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the pious nature of some of the journalists attacking the site, I’d even go as far as suggesting that the attacks are part of a stealth promotional campaign for Newser.

According to Quantcast direct measure, Newser does 1.4 million page views a month on 546,000 people. While they aren’t terrible figures, some context: Newser was founded in 2007 and has banked $2.5 million in VCl funding. By contrast, The Inquisitr has 3x as many visitors, and 2x the amount of traffic. We’re 15 months old and were built on the fumes off an oily rag. The highest ranking newspaper website in the United States, the New York Times does 17 million visitors a month on according to some reports around 110-140 million page views a month.

I don’t actively tell people that The Inquisitr is going to kill news, because we’re not. But neither is Newser. If Newser was pumping through 100 million page views a month and was growing, maybe it would be some sort of credible threat, but 1.4 million page views a month? Give me break.They’re no more going to kill news than I’m going to win the 400 meters at the 2012 Olympics.

The hype and fear doesn’t match the numbers by such a wide margin that you could easily suggest that Newser is the most overrated site on the internet. Until I find a better alternative, that’s the label I’m giving it.

Tribune exec’s memo to staff over reorg

Steven Hodson — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:00:00 +0000

To try and clear up any confusion over what is happening with the company’s reorganization Randy Michaels sent out the following memo to the staff.

From: Tribune Communications
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 2:05 PM
Subject: RE: Message from Randy Michaels/The Restructuring Process

I’m sure you’ve seen the recent media speculation about the progress of our restructuring process. Some secondary publications have printed inaccurate stories about what is happening or is likely to happen, and some of those reports have been picked up by the trade press.

Here is what is going on: We are having good discussions with our creditor groups and making progress on a plan for emerging from bankruptcy. It is a slow process because we and they are trying to be very deliberate along the way.

We’re guided by a few fundamental principles during the negotiations:

* We believe there is tremendous value in our current asset mix. By operating media businesses online, over the airwaves and in print, we can maximize the use of our content across all platforms, making it available to consumers and advertisers whenever and wherever they want it. That doesn’t mean we wont do deals where it makes sense (like monetizing the Cubs), but we believe the whole of Tribune is greater than its sum of parts.

* We are working to emerge from bankruptcy with a level of debt that gives us flexibility to operate our businesses and to take advantage of opportunities going forward. We want to grow our business, and we need liquidity to do that.

* We are working to ensure that we can provide market-level competitive wages and benefits for employees.

* Our entire management team is engaged and involved in executing on the vision for the company. Weve made tremendous progress in the last 18 months. We’re innovating like never before. There is a lot more to do, but we are way ahead of our competitors, who haven’t acted as aggressively.

In many respects, we’re finding that our creditor groups agree with these principles, but of course, there are a lot of details to be worked out. We hope to have a restructuring plan fully fleshed out in the fall.

Our business units, including all of our newspapers, are profitable. It would be absurd to think that this company will be "liquidated". While the ownership structure of the company is likely to change, current operating management is committed, and intends to remain in place during and after the restructuring.

Don’t let the noise get too distracting. Many other media companies are about to go through their own process, and not all will have the positive outcome we expect. By being in and out early, we will have the opportunity to grow our company in size and value.

Finally, as I have said before, thank you for all your efforts. Our employees are easily our most valuable assets. You make this place go. Together, we are creating a company worthy of the people working here and the jobs they do day-in and day-out.

Randy

Source: Poynter Online/ Jim Romenesko

Amid their decline newspapers still trying to figure out social media

Steven Hodson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:20:00 +0000

I really don’t envy journalists in today’s tumultuous world of changing media boundaries. One minute they are expected to behave as journalists have have for decades and the next they are have to navigate the new world of Twitter and Facebook – often without any “established” guidelines.

This has resulted in many news organizations to finally face facts – social media isn’t going anywhere so we had better figure out how to finally use in a way that is on one hand ready for the future but still tries to maintain journalistic ethics. Sure it is one thing to be willing to jump in with both feet and harness the power of social media and all it can add to journalism, the trick is how to do it without impugning the integrity of the organization, the reporters, photographers and editors.

To do this news organizations like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Associated Press, Roanoke Times along with many others have been trying to hammer out a code of ethics guidelines that they can live with when it comes to dealing with social media.

Mary Hartney, director of audience engagement at the Baltimore Sun, says reporters, editors, managers and others will help shape the new guidelines. "The technology is changing, so I hope the ethics policy is a living document," says Hartney, who estimates about half the Sun’s newsroom actively uses social networks. "All of this stuff is changing very rapidly. So, anything you write down in an ethics policy or as a best practice is liable to change next week."

On social networks, you should identify yourself as a journalist, tell recipients if you’re using social networks in a professional capacity and remain mindful that people will regard you as a representative of your newsroom, says Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute.

"For journalists, transparency is one of the most important values," she says. "That doesn’t mean you don’t act as an individual, but there should be a caution gate if there’s anything that might embarrass your newsroom."

Source: American Journalism Review :: The Limits of Control

With MSNBC entering the hyperlocal space, could TV networks be Newspaper killers?

Duncan Riley — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:35:21 +0000

Yesterday MSNBC acquired hyperlocal startup Everyblock for an undisclosed sum, but believed to be in the low millions.

Everyblock aggregates publicly available information by locality, for example police reports, restaurant inspection data, community service releases and more. It’s not a hugely innovative service, but it does offer a low cost, hyperlocal model that actively competes with local newspapers.

The entry by a television network into the hyperlocal space through acquisition isn’t terribly surprising, but it could be the start of an interesting trend: TV networks owning local news online in place of local newspapers.

Television isn’t immune to the downturn, and advertising has declined in the sector. Compared to the newspaper industry though, they are mostly worlds apart. Smarter, newer television networks (although MSNBC is a division of NBC, they are newer) are more nimble in production and management, vs the newspaper industry that is still heavily burdened by archaic management and oversight structures that unfortunately for the sector end up burdening acquisitions and in house hyperlocal plays.

Whether television networks can make a go of hyperlocal is another matter: the notoriously difficult space is paved with the bodies of startups that have failed. Likewise though the leverage opportunities may give the networks a strong base from which to become successful hyperlocal players. Either way, the days of local newspapers will continue to be numbered, and someone or something will fill the void.

Are we all watching the world’s biggest game of bluff poker?

Steven Hodson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:54:35 +0000

The newspaper world is changing and struggling to find its way online in a fashion that will see the leaders of the conglomerates that own them maintain their wealth and power. Zachary M. Seward on the Nieman Journalism Lab blog thinks that The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are heavy into the quietest newspaper war in the country.

As papers like the Globe suffer, the Journal and the Times are engaged in a pitched but unusually quiet battle for readers outside the New York metro area who might be persuaded to abandon their local dailies. In a small development on Friday, the Times announced a deal that will extend newsstand sales and home delivery of the newspaper to Nashville, Tenn. That becomes the 26th North American city where the Times is printed, and I’ve mapped them above.

Both the Times and the Journal are working to make themselves more appealing as first-read newspapers for national readers in largely affluent markets.

Meanwhile Ryan Tate at Gawker: Valleywag lets us know that both Rupert Murdoch and Steven Brill are promising to have all their newspapers charging for content by next year.

Today in the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz writes that there’s an "emerging consensus" that Murdoch and Brill are leading the way to the future, in which people pay to read news on the Web. The only trouble: Whichever publishers are first to charge for content will be first to see their Web traffic drop — like 90% — if they wall off everything to just subscribers. Especially if their competitors don’t also erect their own paywalls. It could be catastrophic for smaller brands who wall off their content while everyone stays free.

Beating the drum of paywalls Murdoch is quoted in a Financial Times post saying

"We intend to charge for all our news websites," Mr Murdoch said.

"If we’re successful, we’ll be followed by all media," he added, predicting "significant revenues" from charging for differentiated news online.

Here’s the thing though, as Tate noted in his post the first company to actually cross that line and erect paywalls across all their online news outlets is going to take a heavy hit because people at this point will not fork over their hard earned money for something they can get elsewhere for free. It’s not like Murdoch and Brill can get together over dinner and decide on a day and time where both their online news empires start charging money. Well they could but if they got caught the penalties because of antitrust laws would make it a painful exercise – not to mention potentially very expensive.

So here we have two the biggest players in the newspaper industry threatening to start making people pay for the news; but who’s going to do it first and take the hit they have to know will come as a result?

Then can that person be assured that the other(s) will do the same or will they bask in the increase of traffic that will come at the expense of their competitor?

Who is going to blink first?

Memo to newspapers: Please, please follow Murdoch example.

Steven Hodson — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:00:51 +0000

Would it be safe to say that we could be looking at either the revival of fee charging online newspapers that will nickel and dime us for the piecemeal delivery of news, or could we be seeing the signing of their own death warrants. With the news from the News Industry Mount and the lips of it’s most powerful mouthpiece the new commandments of how online news will make its money has been pronounced by the mighty Rupert Murdoch.

In all the news last week was his announcement that all News Corp properties would start instituting a paywall of varying degrees and if you wanted anything beyond the fluff they deign to be free then you had better be ready to start coughing up more than your outrage.

For England this sill start with The Times and Sunday Times as soon as November, with the rest of the UK titles getting all dressed up with paywall access by June 2010. In the US Murdoch plans on using the model that the Wall Street Journal does for News Corp properties in the States – totally ignoring the fact that the WSJ actually produces enough quality and unique content that it is worth paying for. The same can not be said for 99% of the rest of the papers in the US let alone the ones controlled by Murdoch.

The thing is that we are approaching a point where it is a case of shit or get off the pot for the newspaper industry. IT is time for both them and us, the consumers, to once and for all make it clear which model is going to work when it comes to the collection and dissemination of the news. Will it be the Murdoch’s of the world with their billion dollar empires that are built around deciding what news deserves to get published and as a result increase their profit margins.

Or will it be the world of journalists, and their recently discovered brethren the bloggers and other citizen reporters, who believe that the news is free but discover new and different ways to use their skill and knowledge to earn a living at the same time.

Martin Bryant says in a post on TheNextWeb.com

So, it’s a case of ‘Work for free and die’ or ‘Charge and probably die’.

I don’t think it is either because that is assuming that there aren’t other business models that negate either of those two options – we just haven’t found them yet; but that doesn’t mean they are out there. Nor does it mean that news has to be distributed the same old Murdoch way that involves charging readers for the right to read News Corps interpretation of the news.

In the end I hope that every single newspaper out there decides to follow the Murdoch way and start slapping up paywalls. Then we’ll see exactly how much people are willing to pay over and over for the same news from different organizations. If anything this move to institute paywalls may actually force the issue in such a way that as people have to decide who of all the newspapers that are available globally is worthy of any money from their limited resources.

This forcing of the paywall system could have the opposite effect of hastening the demise of newspapers because they are to concerned with maintaining their status quo rather than trying to discover new and better ways of monetizing what is basically nothing more than a distribution chain.

So please all you newspaper editors and owners go right ahead and institute paywalls and the sooner the better so we can get this stupid argument settled once and for all.

image courtesy of TheNextWeb.com

All News Corp news sites to start charging

Steven Hodson — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:13:44 +0000

Well it looks like Rupert Murdoch didn’t get Chris Anderson’s memo about everything on the Internet being free.

Word is that the News Corp chairman told analysts in a earnings conference call that while the newspaper industry has to change to keep up with the time it doesn’t mean that everything will be free – especially his newspapers.

"The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution," Mr Murdoch said.

"But it has not made content free. Accordingly we intend to charge for all our news websites," he said.

He said News Corp would use the Wall Street Journal’s online vehicle as a model.

"The extended downturn has only increased the drumbeat for change," he said, arguing that classified advertising for online news would never reach the levels once offered by print.

"Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content, is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting," Mr Murdoch said.

Source: Business Spectator :: News Corp to charge for all news websites

Time to get the comfy chair and popcorn ready because the blogosphere is sure to get going full force pontificating over this news.

Could radio and newspapers save each other?

Steven Hodson — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:36:28 +0000

There is no denying the fact that both terrestrial radio (and probably satellite as well) and the newspaper industry are facing some dire times as they try to find their way in this new media world. A lot of talk has been floating around lately about the online versions of newspapers moving to a paywall subscription type of thing. As well you have the Associated Press seriously thinking of committing hari kari by killing off links and quoting unless you pay for it.

Radio on the other hand is facing a growing pressure from the entertainment industry to change the rules of the game and as a result make playing music on the radio prohibitively expensive. Satellite radio may not survive just out of plain economics and the rapidly changing technology of the web.

With this as the backdrop it was rather interesting to read Doc Searls this morning where he was talking about the conversation that had developed around his earlier post that talked about the sale of WQXR radio station to WNTC, a public radio station in New York. One of the points Doc made was that for much of history of both industries newspapers owned radio stations. This all changed however when the FCC changed the regulations and prohibited that kind of ownership.

That however was back in a time when both industries were more the most part in their golden era as businesses. The idea was that it was wrong to let one buy out the other and as a result consolidate all the news distribution. It was felt that if such a consolidation of news providers did happen it would be detrimental to the public as there would be less choice of where we got our news, and to a certain extent – entertainment in general as well.

But a lot has changed since those FCC regulations were created. The Internet didn’t even exist let alone the growing number of ways that we can get our news. In this new media world those old regulations could actually turn out to be one of the nails in the coffin of old media.

Competition for news delivery to the public is like it has never been before. It is that very competition that is the biggest threat to traditional news distribution like newspapers and radio. It is also the same competition that if they were allowed to merge could see radio and newspapers turn into a smaller better combination of previously separate dinosaurs.

It’s not like it hasn’t happened in the past as Sean Reiser commented on one of Doc’s posts

One of the unique things about the QXR was it’s relationship with the Times. The Times owned QXR before the FCC regulations prohibiting newspapers ownership of a radio station were enacted. Because of this relationship, QXR’s newsroom was located in the NY Times building and news gathering resources were shared. In a precursor to newspaper reporters doing podcasts, Times columnists and arts reporters would often appear on the air doing segments.

There is no reason why something like this couldn’t happen again and who knows maybe it would be the best thing to happen to both of those dying industries.