newspapers begging for bailout?
This piece by Jon Fine raises the question of whether newspapers should get in on the U.S. financial bailout. Although it’s labeled as tongue-in-cheek, perhaps there’s something there. As he notes, newspapers are an institution that is essential to democracy. After seeing the car companies go begging after even more years of incompetent management than newspapers, why shouldn’t the media get a little help?
This would make the public service aspect even clearer. At the same time, this would open the whole issue of media independence. Perhaps there’s a middle ground that could be found.
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Tags: financial bailout, media independence, newspaper budgets
I left a comment on the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog about what I think is a delusional posting arguing that newspapers aren’t doing enough to engage audiences. I think the post is fundmentally confused about what’s going on in journalism. The problem is not reaching audiences. If you look at Web traffic, news organizations are reaching more people than ever all around the world. However, readers don’t want to pay for the physical paper when they can read online for free, where they can also pick and choose just the stories that interest them.
It’s the business model that is the problem, and finding a way to make money from all those online eyeballs. Part of this needs to come from news organizations reclaiming the value of their own content by standing up to news aggregators and search engines.
Filed under: Future of Journalism, Media suicide | Leave a Comment
Tags: business model, finding audience, newspapers
pressed into a press gang?
Dave Winer of Scripting News suggests that a new model for journalism could resemble jury duty, where citizens are pressed into press gangs and given some brief training before they are sent out to report. The problem with this is that it fails to address the real issue of why professional journalism is floundering: the broken business model. Who will pay for all these citizen journalists that he proposes?
I don’t think there’s any shortage of people out there willing to commit acts of journalism, professional or amateur. What we need to figure out is who is willing to pay to have these watchdogs on the beat. Millions of readers are flocking to news Web sites, as I have mentioned. Journalists are finding innovative ways to report in new media. But the lights will indeed go dark for professional journalists if they can’t make a living, and then the real value of content will finally become apparent.
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Tags: business models, citizen journalism, monetizing content
The audience is definitely out there, and Web sites posted huge traffic on election day. I’m sure many people were doing like me and had two screens going — watching TV and checking the laptop for more detailed info.
I was at an event at the Stanford d.school (design school) last night and one instructor mentioned an idea about trying to reach audiences in this way by keeping them engaged simultaneously online and on TV. Perhaps that’s just an interim step before people drop TV altogether.
Filed under: Future of Journalism | 1 Comment
Tags: audience, Election Day, Web traffic
election newspapers selling out
Newspapers around the country sold out of their post-election day issues, as people sought to remember the day the race barrier was swept out of the White House. While this one-day spike in sales will not be the salvation for print media, it does show people want something they can hold in their hands and keep when history is made. Real paper still has emotional resonance.
The New York Times is even selling copies of the issue for $14.95. Despite the price, which is 10 times the regular newsstand rate of $1.50, the store is getting heavy traffic and doesn’t appear to be working properly on this Thursday morning. Maybe they should have charged more?
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Tags: historic, New York Times, print
nytimes election words
This is a really nice multimedia feature tied to the election on The New York Times’ Web site, cool way to offer interactivity. Basically, it’s like a one-word Twitter stream.
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Tags: interactivity, multimedia, reader involvement
no pizza for you
This is a rather amusing leaked memo from the Raleigh News and Observer. It’s just another example of the unenlightened management that is leading newspapers to their death. The executive editor perhaps deserves some credit for letting the masses eat pizza, but this still basically just saddens me. Look at companies like Google and Facebook where employees can gorge on free gourmet meals — the totally opposite way to treat employees.
Filed under: Media suicide | Leave a Comment
Tags: free food, unenlightened management
gannett ceo feels your pain
Gannett’s CEO Craig Dubow is trying to show he feels his staff’s pain after announcements of layoffs, and is taking a $200,000 pay cut. So that means his salary will only be $1 million. But before you play the world’s smallest violin for him, remember that he also gets other compensation through bonuses, stock, etc. for a total $7.5 million a year. Nice work if you can get it.
Filed under: Media suicide | Leave a Comment
Tags: budgets, CEO pay, layoffs
it’s not about a huge staff
Pretty interesting traffic numbers and staffing figures from the Nieman Lab. It puts all the media layoffs into perspective when you realize how large an audience some sites are drawing with so few actual workers. I assume they are mostly outsourcing the technical site production to concentrate on content.
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Tags: business models, new news organizations, staffing
Some interesting debate here about The New York Times and ProPublica teaming up to ask for $1 million from the Knight News Challenge. With loads of debt, the NYT could use any infusion of cash it can get, but is it in the spirit of the grant to help fund such a media organization?
Many have talked about the non-profit model being the way for media to go, like NPR and AP. Maybe there’s room for a combination of the two, such as a news organization that seeks to break even on its own but relies on some outside donations to make ends meet. Still, it doesn’t quite feel right that this means a small startup relying on Knight News Challenge funds could be aborted before birth just to add a little money to the already large Times budget.
Filed under: Future of Journalism, Media suicide | Leave a Comment
Tags: business models, donations, funding, grants, knight news challenge
The Naked Journalist 