Results matching “criticism and s”

The man behind Google News page - criticized by news publishers for offering their content for free - thinks Google is simply helping them monetize their news content.

"We certainly see the value, and we think most of the publishers do too," Josh Cohen said at a PaidContent 2010 event last week, according to Media Post News.

Cohen explained that the aggregator only provides links to news sites, allowing them to earn more dollars or charge visitors.

AOL is building a "newsroom of the future," reported BusinessWeek. What this means in practice is that AOL is using software to determine which articles readers might be interested in and then giving journalists detailed data on how much traffic and advertising revenue these articles generate, BusinessWeek said.

More than 500 full-time journalists now work for AOL, which has traditionally been a distributor rather than a creator of content. 150 were hired last year, and according to BusinessWeek, "As demand dwindles for the dial-up Internet service that made AOL (AOL) a tech powerhouse in the 1990s, Chief Executive Tim Armstrong wants to jump-start growth by creating original online content and selling ads to appear with it."

The Newspaper Publishers Association (the representative body for all big UK publishers) is stirring up a backlash against the BBC, following news that the corporation is to launch three iPhone apps from April 2010. The NPA is adamant that such a move will step on the toes of traditional print publications seeking to generate revenue in the mobile news arena.

In a staunch statement emailed to paidContent:UK, the NPA's director Director David Newell wrote:

"Not for the first time, the BBC is preparing to muscle into a nascent market and trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers.

Carlo de Benedetti, president of Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso, whose publications include the daily newspaper La Repubblica and weekly magazine L'espresso, spoke in Paris about his support for paid content online and his belief that both Google and Internet providers should be pushed to share income with content producers.

De Benedetti gave a speech at SciencesPo university entitled "Internet and newspapers: the voice of democracy against populism," in which he outlined his belief that the Internet is crucial for spreading information more widely and is a force to be reckoned with, but that this does come with definite risks to democracy.

In terms of democracy, the fact that the Internet gives a clear platform to public opinion and allows any citizen to contribute to this, constitutes "extraordinary progress," De Benedetti said. However, there are serious dangers that accompany such a transformation, said De Benedetti, as such a system also gives a voice to the uninformed and the demagogues.

The importance of newspapers over other media

The vast abundance of information available online (although in many ways welcome) also leads to a complete lack of hierarchy of information. The fundamental role of newspapers, to organize and analyse the public debate, is threatened by this 'open-source' landscape.

Expanding on the importance of newspapers to a democracy, De Benedetti explained how unlike Internet or television, newspapers are capable of offering their readers not only information but the structure and context to allow them to come to their own conclusions on issues and events.

De Benedetti expressed concern and criticism about the state of television in Italy: as prime minister Silvio Berlusconi owns or controls a significant number of channels, and "commercial television imposes a kind of cultural hegemony." A citizen who stays informed only via television is weaker, he maintained, However, as De Benedetti noted, "television is already last century. It will continue to exist, but as a part of the Internet."

He does not believe that the Internet will soon replace newspapers, but suggests that newspapers can retain their traditional role as the "sherpas of information" on the Internet. "The presence of islands of quality news in the ocean of fragments of information... is absolutely necessary," he said.

Paid online content

De Benedetti is a strong supporter of paid online content. Consumers need to pay for news, he argued. Without the readers who were paying €1 each day for the print copy of La Repubblica, the paper would not have been able to carry out its ten questions to Berlusconi campaign, to which the prime minister eventually responded in November, hence proving its validity, De Benedetti said. "News that is free is worth nothing," he said: if you want your content to be valued you have to charge for it.

He admitted that what people require from a newspaper is changing, and that newspapers must embrace these changes and adapt their offering. "Now news is a commodity. You don't buy a paper to learnt what has happened: rather to understand why it has happened."

 "The news that goes deeper, that explains clearly, that verifies sources and adds context, is news that costs and as such, must be protected... whether on paper or on the web, on television or on the radio," De Benedetti said. Although the web has allowed newspapers to reach a large number of readers, continuing to offer news free of charge will soon "annihilate" daily newspapers and all quality news, he maintains. "Anybody can understand that paying for a good product is reasonable, even if it is online."

However, to make online content work, payment must be simple, De Benedetti stressed, something like Apple's iTunes. "Simplicity and 'automisation' of payment is absolutely key," he said. Journalism Online's Press+ has potential, he believes, as "it is difficult to imagine that consumers will willingly purchase content from multiple publishers who all use different platforms," and Journalism Online is offering a single payment system.

Charging online might have to be a gradual process, he explained, first involving making users pay for content that is not currently available online, and for content that is specially created for this aim, "if possible exclusive and elite."

Contributions from search engines...

Publishers should take a strong stance against search engines, De Benedetti suggested. "Google cannot exploit the content created by others without giving anything in return," he argued. "Aggregators do not respect the rules which protect intellectual property rights."

He pointed to the UK's Newspaper Licensing Agency's scheme as something which could serve as a model for the industry regarding obtaining proper compensation for copyrighted content. The NLA works on behalf of the UK's newspapers and licenses businesses organisations to make paper and digital copies of newspaper content, its website explains. The collected fees are distributed to the publishers.

... and internet service providers

It's not just Google who should have to share revenue with publishers, believes De Benedetti, but also internet service providers, who he said "continue to exploit - just like the search engines - the traffic generated by quality news content." Paradoxically, he added, "the more content that is free, the more the revenue of internet operators increases, and the more that of the publishers who created this content decreases." Publishers must seek to persuade telecom companies to share some of their revenue linked to Internet access.

De Benedetti's views on the necessity for paid online content seem clearly in line with those of several other publishers as charging consumers online seems to be becoming an increasingly more attractive and feasible option, as the New York Times and other smaller newspapers jump on board.. L'Espresso group's star newspaper, La Repubblica, currently offers free online access, however, charging only for e-editions and archives. The paper just started to charge for its iPhone application, offering subscriptions for €4.99 per month or €44.99 per year.

His interest in coming to some kind of revenue sharing agreement with search engines and aggregators is also something which is shared by other publishers, some of whom are demanding more control over their content. As De Benedetti noted, Google has recently been presenting a more conciliatory face to publishers, by making its 'First Click Free' scheme more flexible, for example. The Internet giant also offers newspapers a revenue-sharing opportunity on Google News in the form of Fast Flip, and more user-friendly ways to display news, such as Living Stories or Timeline. But it seems unlikely that the company is planning to offer any direct cut of its main ad revenue to publishers in the near future.

Suggesting that ISPs also have an obligation to pay content providers appears more controversial, but it is an idea that has arisen before. Last year in France Laurent Joffrin, editor of Libération, suggested a kind of tax on ISPs which would then be distributed to content producers. The UK National Union of Journalists proposed a similar measure to support public service broadcasting in April 2009. Such legislation would be likely to face significant opposition, however.

Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle will not be the new editor of the Independent after its acquisition by Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, the Guardian reported last Friday.

The decision to look elsewhere for new leadership was taken by Lebedev and Simon Kelner, editor-in-chief and managing director of the Independent, last Thursday after more than nine months of negotiations with Liddle.

Is Obama trying to avoid the White House press corps? Articles published last week and this in the New York Times and Washington Post suggest that the president's team has been less than willing of late to organize meetings with those news outlets who have traditionally covered the
 
"President Obama hasn't held a full-scale news conference since July," said WP's Howard Kurtz. Rather, said NYT's Peter Baker, he has "taken questions from unemployed workers in Ohio, students in Florida and a cancer survivor in New Hampshire. He took questions from YouTube users, Senate Democrats and even House Republicans." But not from the White House press Corps, and this decision "is no accident," according to Kurtz. 

There's more fuel for the debate over council-run newspapers in the UK today, with one local newspaper revealing that its council-supported rival costs taxpayers almost £28,000 a month.

In the town of Salford, near Manchester, the council magazine Life in Salford competes with newspapers the Salford Star and Salford Advertiser. The Salford Star filed a freedom of information request to determine the cost of producing the council magazine. It determined that the council spends £27,797 per month, or an average of £333,564 per year.

By contrast, outside advertising income for the paper totaled just over £19,000 for eight issues.

Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, in exclusive talks to purchase the Independent newspapers, may attempt to bring an Egyptian partner into the deal, according to reports in The Guardian.

Lebedev is trying to persuade Egyptian billionaire Samih Sawiris to join him in investing in The Independent and Independent on Sunday, according to sources close to the deal. The details of the proposed agreement are unknown.

Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev's purchase of The Independent is likely to go ahead, although a month later than planned, according to Media Week.

The two parties are in exclusive talks with a February 15 deadline, which is likely to be extended to mid-March as some aspects are yet to be agreed upon.

Printing contract issues are still being resolved. The Independent holds a long-running printing contract with Trinity Mirror.

Another point of discussion is that Lebedev is considering dropping The Independent's £1 cover price and making the paper free, according to unnamed sources cited by Media Week.

Amid all the buzz about the potential to make money from mobile news, news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has become the latest news organisation to launch an iPhone app.

The application also works on the iPod Touch and costs $1.99 from the Apple store.

"It gives access to the global news agency's multimedia content in English, Spanish, Portuguese and German, including breaking world news from wars and conflicts to politics, sport and entertainment, as well as the latest major developments in health, science and technology," AFP said in a statement.

If the sale of The Independent to Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev goes ahead, outspoken columnist Rod Liddle is in line to become the next editor, The Guardian reports. The news has attracted widespread criticism from Independent journalists and readers, Roy Greenslade writes.

Liddle was previously the editor of BBC Radio 4's Today program, but resigned in 2002 to continue writing a column for The Guardian that was in conflict with the BBC's impartiality rules. He later became a columnist for The Sunday Times and The Spectator. His work has been subject to criticisms of racism and misogyny.

There is no denying that 2009 was an eventful year for both the staff at WaPo and its readers, and one that saw the newspaper lose tens of millions of dollars. In an attempt to counter this the publication implemented a number of significant changes to its newsroom operation, cut a fair few jobs, and underwent a complete redesign - receiving a lot of criticism and a little praise.

Yet the 132-year-old paper weathered the storm and looks set to bring about a number changes this year, too, which will mainly affect the look of things online.

Dissatisfaction with current readership surveys has led Australian newspaper publishers to tender a different research company to do the job. But one key publisher has withdrawn its support for the process, in a move that has left industry insiders wondering one thing: why?

Audience measurement research for Australian newspapers and magazines is currently undertaken by Roy Morgan Research. Their methods have received varied criticism from publishers, who complain of a lack of methodological transparency, the need for more frequent reporting, and the need for reporting on individual sections of newspapers. Publishers have also claimed that their surveys do not accurately measure audiences.

Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp and Time Inc. have announced plans to jointly develop an e-reading device/service with publishers interests at heart. Disillusioned with the 30-70 per cent revenue split offered by current market dominator, Amazon's Kindle, the group of publishers have decided to unite in their cause to make the e-reader opportunity more profitable. 

No details on how much each partner will invest in the venture have been released, though according to interim managing director, John Squires, there is enough in the kitty "to give us a good start". Information on staff size has similarly not been made public, nor has a company name been decided upon.

News Corp is joining Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith and Time in putting its publications up for sale in a variety of digital formats for various platforms on an online newsstand for both magazines and newspapers. Hailed as an 'iTunes for magazines,' the new company and service will have the four rival publishers as equity partners.

Fifty-six newspapers in 45 countries have published the same editorial today, calling for delegates at the climate summit in Copenhagen to take action on climate change.

The editorial is published in 20 different languages. Most of the participating newspapers feature it on their front page.

ImpreMedia, the biggest Spanish-language newspaper publisher in the US, is the latest to reveal it will outsource a sector of its workforce. Yesterday the company announced that it will farm out the design, formatting and production of its advertisements and editorial pages to Business News Group (BNG), a publisher based in Monterrey, Mexico.

"This move is consistent with ImpreMedia's goal to concentrate resources on content creation, audience growth and revenue generation," stated John Paton, Chairman and CEO of ImpreMedia.

The report is quite detailed, and includes various examples and covers many topics, but focuses on local news and the value of quality journalism. Beginning with a history of the newspaper industry that culminates in its weakness in the face of internet news, Downie and Schudson explain the importance of investigative and accountability journalism for a democracy, holding it as a public good. 

Much commentary and debate has arisen surrounding BBC climate correspondent Paul Hudson's October 9 article entitled "What happened to global warming?" in which he stated that the warmest year recorded globally was 1998 and therefore suggested that climate change may not necessarily be caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, which have continued to increase since the late 90s.

Hudson outlined the arguments of climate change sceptics, who believe that natural cycles that humans do not influence are in fact responsible for how warm our planet is, such as solar output and ocean cycles. Some argue that we are now in fact in a period of global cooling, rather than warming. 

French telecoms operator Orange announced on Wednesday that it is to expand its online news aggregation service to countries outside France. 2424actu aggregates French language text, television and radio content, working in partnership with news organisations just as Agence France-Presse, RTL, RFI, Le Monde and Le Figaro, AFP reported.

AFP quoted Laurent Frisch, head of media at Orange's division for internet innovation, NexT.com, who said that the company is considering "expanding into other countries, in Europe or elsewhere. We envisage going into countries where the media and advertising markets allow us to make such a service work." He suggested the UK or Poland as examples. 

Turkey's largest media company Dogan Yayin launched a court challenge yesterday to a demand by tax authorities for a guarantee for the $3.3 billion fine the group is facing, which was then rejected, according to Today's Zaman. The tax authorities are asking for the full value of the fine as collateral while the group makes an appeal in court. The company was ordered to pay $2.53 billion in early September for back-taxes and fines, a total which has since increased.

Dogan Yayin owns two out of the three top-selling newspapers in Turkey, Milliyet and Hurriyet, and two of the four most-watched television stations. 

Poynter contributor Dorian Benkoil has written an article entitled Journalism Online: Not Just a Pay Wall, in which he tries to offer "a fairer portrayal" of what the start-up "says it intends to do," in reaction to much reporting on the venture which he believes has been incomplete. Journalism Online, due to launch a prototype in the near future, promises to facilitate charging online.

Benkoil stressed that rather than a simple attempt to put up pay walls around content, Journalism Online offers a more complex service, involving helping publishers figure out whether or not they can charge and if so, how. And the concept is very much designed around the idea of only charging for some content, and of providing data to publishers so that they can make the best decisions. Gordon Crovitz, co-founder of the venture and former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, told Benkoil that "we managed to talk a few of our affiliates out of putting a complete pay wall around all their content."