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One of the latest products to appear on the market for newspaper publishers looking to improve their revenue is Circulate, from new start-up CircLabs. The Editors Weblog spoke to co-founder and executive vice president Martin Langeveld, former newspaper editor and executive who now also writes for Nieman Journalism Lab, about the project.

The CircLabs team decided to look for a user-centric solution to monetise online content through improving the user news experience, as opposed to what Langeveld sees as publisher-centric solutions that focus on how to charge users for content. Charging users for content could indeed be incorporated into Circulate, but he does not see it as the main source of revenue. Rather, what Circulate hopes to do is essentially make it easier for people to find the news they are interested in, hence encouraging them to read more and therefore increasing traffic to and engagement time on newspaper websites, offering greater advertising opportunities.

The Circulate concept evolved out of research carried out by Bill Densmore at the Reynolds Institute of the University of Missouri into a project he called the Information Valet. This, Langeveld explained, is a more "comprehensive and very complex system" and Circulate hopes to be a starting point for something similar. The founding CircLabs team consists of four: Langeveld and Densmore plus Jeff Vander Clute and Joe Bergeron. The University of Missouri offered initial funding and Langeveld is confident that the company will soon announce its first round of seed funding, which would include investment from the industry and private investors as well as from the university.

What Circulate actually is

As the consumer will see it, Circulate will consist of a narrow strip that will appear within the user's browser window that will be branded and recommend journalistic content throughout the user's time online. The bar will be along the top of the window and generally narrow enough to include one line of type, though would have the ability to expand when necessary. A small programme must be downloaded to install the strip, but a user can log in to their account on any computer that has the programme. There will also be a destination URL that users can access on computers on which they cannot download the software, and the team plans to develop applications for smartphones, and offer email alerts.

When the user installs it, it will ask them some questions about them and about their interests and preferences. The user is not obliged to enter any information, but the more that they do, "the better Circulate can bring content to you," Langeveld explained. He added that his team understands how important privacy is to consumers and stressed that Circulate will be very clear with regards to the amount of information it stores about its users and will give them an easy option to access or delete this.  "It won't just be buried in one of those user agreements that everybody just clicks through," Langeveld clarified.

The programme will also track your movements online and make recommendations for content based on these and the information you provide. Article suggestions will appear as links in the Circulate strip, and it might expand to offer the user three or so recommendations on a specific topic, or to ask or answer a user's question. As the technology develops, it will be able to gather new applications, so additional icons might appear on the bar that could offer a user access to their Twitter feed, for example.

A home base for users

Users will sign up for and download Circulate via a 'home base' which is likely to be their local newspaper. The Circulate strip will be branded according to the home base, so this newspaper brand will 'travel' with the user throughout their online experience. The user would be free to change their home base at will. Eventually the local newspaper, as a Circulate partner, would be able to sell advertising and do other kinds of marketing and promotion through the strip.

How it can make money for publishers

Although Langeveld does not believe that revenue from charging users will be "more than the smallest fraction of the total potential of Circulate," it will be possible to do that within the Circulate framework. If newspapers decide that they do have premium content which is unique and valuable enough that people are willing to pay for it, Circulate will facilitate this through a universal subscription to all multiple papers' premium content, or on a per item basis.

However, as stated above, Circulate's main aim is to increase traffic to newspaper websites. Langeveld pointed out that his team's research shows that in the US, web users spend only about 1.2% of their time online on newspaper websites, and traffic to newspaper sites accounts for only 1% of page views. "That really is the challenge for newspapers, to increase that percentage," said Langeveld. And Circulate hopes to do this by "constantly recommending journalistic content from newspapers and other news outlets the other 99% of that time."

The possibility for the papers acting as homebases to brand the strip also "has value" for local papers, according to Langeveld, as it means that their brand travels round the web with the user whenever they are online, thus constantly reminding them of their relationship with the paper. Circulate also intends eventually to include advertising on the bar itself, although the format has not yet been developed. Langeveld believes that there are opportunities for both national and local advertising. There would be the possibility to target users and therefore create more value, and participating papers could sell space to local businesses. He sees this as a good selling opportunity: "now you can reach our readers all the time when they're online rather than just the one or two percent that they're on our site."

Will it work?

Software development has already started and the Associated Press has agreed to allow Circulate access to its content. Langeveld confirmed that the company is planning a beta rollout with a group of newspapers and users in autumn. Could it be the solution that newspapers have been waiting for?

Many publishers seem to be concretely moving towards charging online, and others seem to be contemplating it as a solution to their financial difficulties and in an attempt to restore value to news and prevent it from becoming a commodity. The fact that Circulate would be able to incorporate this is thus a point in its favour. When asked if it could be compatible with Journalism Online, a start-up aiming to facilitate charging for content that has reportedly been in talks with many publishers, Langeveld said that it is something that his team has not explored, but that it was "certainly possible."

Increasing engagement time does indeed seem to make sense, although in terms of monetising it means that newspapers are still dependent on the advertising market. It is clearly something that newspapers should be working on themselves or through companies like Apture that try to keep readers on news sites through multimedia enhancements, but it does seem that Circulate can help in actually getting readers onto a site. Persuading readers to sign up could be tough, most likely requiring an aggressive marketing strategy, and the CircLabs team is wise to anticipate privacy concerns. Assuming that users do sign up, it is hard to say how many people will click through links and how often, but it seems as if it could well contribute to an increase in traffic. 

Twenty-five American nonprofit news organisations have decided to come together to form an Investigative News Network, following a three-day conference at the Pocantico Conference Center in New York. Its mission is to aid the work and public reach of its members, and to foster the "highest quality investigative journalism" to hold those in power accountable.

The Pocantico Declaration anticipates an increase in the number of investigative news publishers, and hence seeks to establish "basic shared goals and news values." It identifies several different forms of potential collaboration. Firstly, editorial: meaning that nonprofits could carry out joint accountability projects. Secondly, administrative: organisations could exchange information about organisational functions and even possibly centralise some of these. Thirdly, financial, which could consist either of just sharing information and jointly fundraising, or even of "pioneering new economic models to help to monetize the shared, combined content of the member organizations, in order to achieve a more sustainable journalism.

Citizen photojournalism agency Citizenside has partnered with French free daily 20minutes to launch a citizen journalism portal on the paper's website 20minutes.fr. In the area "la une des lecteurs" (the readers front page) there is a new section called "vos images" (your images) where readers can upload their photos and see them sorted and published.

Hélène Fromen, new media editor at 20Minutes said in a press release that "putting this contributative platform in place "confirms 20minutes.fr's capacity for innovation." She added that "with this service, we are deploying a true participative ecosystem around 20minutes.fr that treats our Internet readers as a potential new source of verified information and gives value to their contributions."

Average time spent per visit decreased for more than half of the top 30 global news websites in May compared to last year, according to the latest Nielsen data. The trend mirrors the drops seen at the top newspaper sites.

The biggest gains came from two non-traditional news sources. Google News upped the average time spent on its site to over 22 minutes, a gain of over ten minutes from May 2008. Similarly, the average visitor stayed on the Huffington Post for about 15 minutes, an increase of more than six minutes.

We live in a world, not a village

The directors of international journalism courses talked about the importance of internationalisation and giving students a chance to interact with other students from around the world in a bid to understand the effects of global media in a local context.

According to Eric Scherer at AFP, the future of journalism will lie in enterprising journalists and their efforts to come up with journalistic solutions that will facilitate the communication process and continuously revise the business models in place. He also believes that a new mindset will eventually need to replace the typical journalist's attitude of today, as well as in the value of a broad general knowledge base - something that internationalisation makes possible.

The recently released iPhone 3GS, the third generation of the revolutionary mobile device from Apple, offers many new features that have generated excitement about its potential to greatly expand citizen journalism, a field becoming increasingly important in areas of the world where press freedom is in jeopardy. The prevalence of publicly generated content has risen considerably this year already, with incidents such as the war in Gaza and the election protests in Iran spurring a surge in camera phone video uploads to news sites and YouTube, offering perspectives on events often unobtainable by traditional media outlets.

For the iPhone 3GS, the newly added video recording and editing capabilities as well as direct to YouTube uploading will make capturing that newsworthy event much easier for the layman dabbling in citizen journalism, an aspect of the phone noted by founder and CEO of citizen journalism site GroundReport, Rachel Sterne. Sterne explains that "Helping people report on the ground, wherever they are, will only increase the speed of newsgathering." However there are a few features Apple did not add to the iPhone 3GS and its new OS that could present frustrating limitations to the phone's functionality as a tool for journalists in the field.

As online news becomes more and more prevalent, with an unimaginable amount of information available at users' fingertips and Internet now ranked as US consumers' top way to access their news, how can media organisations make sure that readers find their articles?  Part of the answer is search engine optimisation, which is becoming an essential part of the daily life of a newsroom. For the printed product, newspapers must try to sell the paper as a whole; online, articles can attract traffic individually as readers come across them while searching for specific topics. It is therefore important that each story, rather than simply the site as a whole, is 'optimised' to appear higher in search results. Aside from highly technical aspects like HTML meta tagging, URL structure or site navigation, what can a newspaper do to optimise its content for search engines?

How to introduce SEO to the newsroom

One major potential stumbling block is that journalists might view SEO as a way to manipulate their stories and take away their true value. So the way it is presented to staff is extremely important. And indeed, it is crucial that newspapers do not get carried away with prioritising SEO above all else. Even Google advises creating content "primarily for your users, not search engines:" it is important to make your site easily accessible to search engines but still remain focused on your visitors' needs.

Clearly, it is important for all reporters to be aware of the ways that they can make each individual article more search-friendly. After all, journalists have always wanted their stories to be as widely read as possible, in print as well as online, and are likely to be willing to help make that happen. And often, the principles of SEO echo the principles of writing a good story: such as the idea that the first sentence should be a summary of the rest of the article, containing relevant concepts or keywords. One difference is that less generic, more specific works for SEO in terms of names or concepts. Google recommends shorter rather than longer titles.

Esa Peltonen, who has been working as a web analyst at the largest Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat for three years, said that he has worked extensively with editorial staff, for example on how to use Google, to get an idea of how users will be searching and what kind of search words people are using. Head of audience development at the Telegraph, Julian Sambles, said in March that the paper was trying to give journalists "the knowledge and understanding that they need so they can apply it to their daily production process and make informed decisions about content when they're writing or publishing it." Thinking about SEO should be second nature, he added.

Papers must also consider their goals in optimising content for search engines. As Drew Broomhall, head of search at the Times explained, if you rank success by sheer volume of traffic, then you should "write the same as everyone else but more of it and more frequently updated." However, if you are looking to increase engagement on a specific subject you need more detailed keyword analysis and niche research.

One straightforward course is the need to stay ahead of the trends: predict what people are going to be talking about in upcoming months and provide appropriate content. "Fix SEO requirements into the editorial calendar," Broomhall suggests. Obviously much news is unpredictable, but there are some events that are year-in-year-out, or which are easy to prepare for in advance, such as an election or a festival. It is necessary to consider both specific, distinct events, such as religious holidays, and longer, less defined periods such as winter travel. Articles that contain links and that have been linked to by others appear higher in search results. Therefore, with annual events, it is beneficial to link to last year's coverage and make use of old content that already has inbound links to help promote the new content.

Hiring a SEO specialist?

As well as training all reporters to be aware of the principles of search engine optimisation, many newspapers have taken the step of hiring an in-house specialist. Ideally such a person would have deep technical knowledge combined with considerable journalistic experience, but such candidates might be hard to find. Peltonen comes from a business background, Broomhall from journalism and technology.

There are also many third party services available to news outlets, supplementary to the guidance of an in-house expert, such as Thomson Reuters' OpenCalais which recently announced deals made with the Huffington Post, DailyMe and the Mail Online. OpenCalais offers an 'Archive Express' feature which can tag an archive of up to 20 million documents in 24 hours. The service 'reads' and breaks down articles into their essential elements - who, what, when, where, how - and tags and sorts them so that it is easier to bring archived articles into 'related stories' sections and improve their search relevance.

Analysing traffic

A SEO specialist would be responsible for analysing traffic to a news outlet's site, looking at how readers find content, readership patterns and what methods of optimisation work best. Peltonen explained how he started off looking at basic data such as what are the top news stories, how many people are going where on the site, and started to work out how to increase traffic. His paper partnered with Microsoft to further analyse traffic data. Such traffic data analysis can be used to spot and develop potential niche verticals to focus on, for example, by looking at repeat visitor figures.  

Google keywords

Purchasing Google keywords to guarantee that news articles appear higher on search results is one of the more costly ways for news outlets to promote their content. Peltonen said that his paper frequently buys specific words, for instance for sports events, but stressed that it would be cheaper to improve the paper's SEO. Buying keywords could also raise ethical issues, depending on the words and their context. The Sun, for example, reportedly purchased the key words 'Natasha Richardson' immediately after the British actress's sudden death in March, in what appears to be a blatant attempt to profit from the tragedy. The Guardian came under considerable criticism last August when, apparently accidentally, it purchased the Google keywords "Madeleine McCann," giving any searchers the link to its coverage of the child's disappearance. The Guardian promptly relinquished the rights, and said it would review its list of keywords. Purchasing Google keywords in order to promote a product is common practice, but is it ethical for newspapers?

Evidently, SEO strategies are necessary in today's media landscape, not only to make more money but also to spread awareness of stories and help readers find what they are looking for and therefore should be embraced by journalists and editors as well as publishers. Search engine 'friendliness' should not be prioritised over good, accurate stories but it should be used to promote such content. Journalistic training is vital in order to optimise each individual article, and larger strategic steps should be taken by editors in conjunction with SEO specialists.

On Tuesday 23 June at 14.00 London time, Drew Broomhall, Head of Search at the Times of London will be speaking at a WEF webinar on "How to teach your journalists to write for the web." More details here.

On Wednesday, Clarity Media Group announced that Rubert Murdoch had sold the Weekly Standard to Phillip Anschutz. The Huffington Post was one of the first sources of the rumor that emerged speculating that media groups News Corp. and Anschutz were discussing the transaction, more than ten days ago.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Murdoch may not necessarily "need" the right-wing political magazine, since its editorial tone echoes that of the more influential Wall Street Journal, a publication that Murdoch recently added to his media portfolio.

French regional La Provence just announced that it is dropping its subscription to the Agence France-Presse news wire. The paper came to the decision after realising that it uses only 20 dispatches per day for an annual cost of 550,000 euros, a journalist for the Marseille-based paper told Le Monde.

AFP CEO Pierre Louette played down the announcement and said he is ready to negotiate. "I am not convinced that the rupture with La Provence is definititive," he commented. "We are ready to make an effort for the regional press, which we feel bound to almost like a cooperative." In fact, six out of the 15 members of AFP's board are from the regional press. However, it represents only 7% of the organisation's turnover.

As editorial teams the across the globe seek to increase and diversify their papers' revenue streams, a wealth of diverse ideas and business models have appeared.  One of the latest to be aired comes from Laurent Joffrin, editor of the French national La Libération.   He suggests that editors of the press, publishers and website unite in the request that the leading internet servers providers (ISP or FAI's in France) Free and Orange add a few extra euros to their clients' bills.  This would serve to finance the costs of the services provided by publishers.  The fees would then be invested back into newspapers and other productions, the amount corresponding with the title's popularity and size of its newsroom.

The concept of a mutually rewarding financial model has a strong precedent in France.  The French cinema industry is financed this way, which according to Joffrin, 'has saved the industry and allowed its expansion', as reported by Challenges.fr. The editor is convinced that newspapers are an essential component in a democratic state, thus highly worthy of greater financing. 

News publishers, moving with the irrepressible technological pull of modern readership desires, and the financial necessity of adapting to advertising changes, have shovelled huge amounts of money and effort into the development of online editions of their titles. The aim was to increase revenue from the Internet editions faster than money was being lost from the printed editions. This was a risky, but apparently necessary gamble and the final result is yet to be seen.   The latest rounds of industry analysis, however, suggest that online editions will not be able to save their printed sisters financially, as the latter's traditional sources of revenues continue to drop disproportionately to the incomes generated by new ventures.

The analysts at 24/7 Wall Street maintain that even at companies of which 15 per cent of their sales are generated by online projects, this does not provide a sufficent base to maintain a substantial editorial and business staff.  Moving content online is a palliative, which may "bring in additional sales but it will not do anything more than buy time for the industry to find other solutions".

Associated Press CEO Tom Curley said that the organisation is hoping to locate new sources of revenue and better licensing deals to make up for reduced income from newspapers and broadcasters in an interview after a meeting with employees on Tuesday. He also discussed initiatives to protect online content, according to a press release.

Although Curley did not offer details, he said that the AP expects its revenue to fall this year and next. The AP is lowering its fees for newspapers and broadcasters by a total of $45 million this year, following a reduction of $30 million this year. Such concessions reflect the need to take into account newspapers' and broadcasters' increasing financial difficulties. As a first step to survive with falling revenue, the organisation is planning to eliminate about 10% of its payroll costs by the end of the year through attrition and early retirement offers, and "hasn't ruled out layoffs."

The National Union of Journalists has urged the new Culture, Media and Sport Minister, Ben Bradshaw to take action in the campaign to reinvigorate local journalism in the UK.  General Secretary, Jeremy Dear has also requested a meeting with the Minister to discuss the specific issue of industry job cuts.

The minister, who only assumed the role last week through a ministerial reshuffle, is under pressure from the NUJ to support an economic stimulus package designed to boost the newspaper industry.   The need for a comprehensive financial policy is evident; regional newsrooms across the UK have been subjected to sizeable staff cuts and reduced budgets as they strive to cope with the double burden of the recession and the decline in circulation.

Classifieds website Craigslist has provided a noteworthy boost to alt-weeklies' adult classifieds revenue after its recent policy change that requires closer regulation of its adult-services classified ads.  This is an ironic turn of events for the online colossus of classifieds that has wrought havoc on its competition, in print and online, ever since 2005.

The Washington City Paper reported increases in adult ads of 38% compared to one year ago, a change Andrew Beaujon from the paper's City Desk blog correlates directly to Craigslist's tougher regulation of their adult ads. Beaujon reminisces that for alt-weeklies like his, "Craigslist's free classifieds were an extinction-level event." But now Craigslist's requires would-be adult-services advertisers to waver that their posts contain no "content that is unlawful, pornographic, or which advertises illegal services", no ads "suggesting or implying an exchange of sexual favors for money", and no "pornographic images, or images suggestive of an offer of sexual favors.". These stricter standards have driven adult advertisers away from Craigslist, resulting in the higher figures for the local papers and free weeklies that used to account for so much of the classifieds market.

A new daily newspaper serving the Detroit area will be launched within the next 60 days, it was announced Tuesday. The Detroit Daily Press, a project of the two experienced publishing brothers, Mark and Gary Stern, arose to compensate for the reduced home delivery of the city's two main daily papers earlier in the year.

"There is a definite need here," Mark Stern asserted at a news conference in the Detroit suburb of Southfield. "People are used to having a newspaper in their hand. ... That's what we're going to do -- provide a newspaper."

According to Mark S. Luckie of 10000words.net, a website dedicated to advising journalists and web aficionados on how to use multimedia efficiently, the answer is yes. Luckie points to five iPhone applications that revolutionize mobile journalism as such apps "elevate journalism beyond just reading stories [by] interacting with them in new and different ways."

1. Kindle for iPhone

The success of Kindle for iPhone has demonstrated that readers are not only willing to read extensive text on a hand-held digital device, but that they are also willing to pay for that content. This gives media outlets room to speculate that readers will similarly be willing to pay for in-depth news coverage that goes beyond the encapsulated resume of a story, whether in the form of a subscription plan or in micro payments for individual stories.

Pess freedom in Italy has come under international scrutiny in recent weeks as a down-grading of the press's freedom status by US non-profit Freedom House has coincided with an increase in prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's aggression towards media outlets which oppose him. Leading left-leaning daily La Repubblica has even attempted to take on the premier directly, publishing a list of questions concerning his relationship with a young girl, to which it believes he owes answers. A Dutch politician has threatened to take action in the European parliament against the Italian leader because of journalistic constraints. Should a newspaper be demanding such information which concerns a politician's private life? Is the press freedom situation as bad as it seems?

The La Repubblica crusade

On May 14 La Repubblica journalist Giuseppe D'Avanzo published ten questions directed at the prime minister concerning his involvement with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia. Berlusconi's relationship with the girl gained mass media attention when, four days after the prime minister dropped in on the girl's 18th birthday party in Naples, his wife issued a press release accusing him of "consorting with minors" and pressing for a divorce. Berlusconi promptly went on a late-night political chat show to defend himself, but the holes in his story which have gradually emerged have attracted even more attention than the original incident. D'Avanzo's questions address these holes and ask the premier to come clean about the nature of his encounters with the girl. Berlusconi has not yet answered the questions and has given no indication that he intends to. The paper has put a timer on its website to indicate the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the questions were issued, and even offers them in English.

Berlusconi himself has tried to present the left-leaning paper's campaign as a left-wing plot to undermine his authority, accusing the paper of lying and adding in an interview on TV-channel Sky that he believes many readers will abandon the paper because of this. His office issued a statement saying referring to the "campaign of denigration" and saying that the paper is driven by "jealousy and hatred."  The prime minister has fought back as the story developed, with his lawyers applying for the seizure of photos taken at his Sardinian villa (where Letizia reportedly attended parties with other young women) before they could be published, and a journalist from Berlusconi's brother's Milan-based daily Il Giornale posing as a member of the foreign press to get an interview with Ms Letizia's former boyfriend in an attempt to discredit him.
 
 
The international reaction 
La Repubblica has defended its actions, with editor Ezio Mauro saying that "There are contradictions here and when the powers that be don't explain something, journalism has a job to do." And foreign journalists seem to agree. The paper also featured an interview with Bill Emmott, former editor of the Economist, who said that "for a newspaper, asking a political leader questions is not only legitimate, but part of its mission to inform the people." According to the International Herald Tribune, "for the first time in recent memory, the Italian press is shining a bright light into the dark recesses of a politician's personal life." The Times wrote that the premier's campaign against La Repubblica "looks ominously like an attempt to cow dissent rather than protect a private reputation" and that "his newspaper critics are performing a public service for a badly governed populace." A Financial Times editorial criticised the way that Berlusconi turned on La Repubblica following the questions, and stressed that part of the "danger of Berlusconi... is that of the media sapping the serious content of politics, and replacing it with entertainment."

Berlusconi has reacted with anger and scepticism to such foreign criticism. He seems to refuse to believe that papers might be acting of their own accord, announcing that "the international press's campaign is being orchestrated by an Italian group" and referring to it as a left-wing "plot." He insists that the foreign press is misrepresenting the Italian situation, and a rift in his relationship with Rupert Murdoch seems to be further deteriorating following the Times' article and others. He has accused the Times of writing critical editorials about him because his government is in dispute with News Corp. Il Giornale, owned by the prime minister's brother Paolo, ran a story discussing the FT editorial entitled "The left has also enlisted the Financial Times."

One of a newspaper's main goals should be to act as a watchdog over the government, but it is unusual for a paper to take on a country's leader so directly, particularly over a matter which is largely private. In the UK, the Daily Telegraph's recent campaign over MPs' expenses was firmly in the public interest, as it dealt with public money being used by members of parliament for personal gain. Berlusconi has been derisive of the media discussing what he says is his private life. Should a paper be putting so much focus on an issue that is arguably unrelated to the prime minister's ability to govern the country? Is this indicative of media trivialisation?

The Times editorial does not see the questions as intrusive, as they relate to Berlusconi's "public roles as politician and media magnate". The Independent's Peter Popham said that the media "cannot be accused of muck-raking on the issue because it was Mr Berlusconi himself who drew attention to the relationship" by attending the 18-year-old's party and not only posing for photographs but publicly giving the girl a 6000euro gold necklace. And the fact that a politician might have lied to the public is probably enough of an incentive to investigate.
 
Press freedom in Italy
 
Italy has a fairly unique media situation, which makes confrontation between a newspaper and the prime minister even more pertinent. The country's press freedom status is clearly in question. A Dutch politician who is leader of the Green Left party in the European Parliament, Judith Sargentini, has said that her party is considering taking legal action against Berlusconi because of the press freedom constraints in his country. Amongst her complaints is the fact that the premier blocks critical questions at press conferences. If a majority of the European Parliament were to agree to the initiation of legal proceedings, then the matter would come before the European Court of Justice.

US-based nonprofit Freedom House recently downgraded Italy's press freedom status from 'free' to 'partly free' for 2008. In conversation with Karin Karlekar, editor of the report, she explained that the main reasons given for this were the unusually high level of media concentration, particularly in broadcasting, threats from organised crime and others, and attacks on journalists, mainly from far right groups. During Berlusconi's former term as prime minister, the country was also given partly free ratings, and Karlekar added that the media concentration was "one of the highest levels anywhere in the world."

Daria Gorodisky, a veteran Corriere della Sera journalist who is also a union representative for the paper, told the Editors Weblog that she believes there is a "truly enormous press freedom problem in Italy" which will be "extremely difficult to resolve." She does not place blame for this directly on the government but on the fact that there are no "pure" newspaper owners, rather, those who publish newspapers also run other businesses and therefore have aims and interests aside from their papers. She also believes that the quality of Italy's journalism schools have deteriorated as more and more have sprung up. She did, however, point out that this is not the first time that Berlusconi has threatened the press.

Internet penetration is low in Italy in comparison to that of its Western European neighbours: about 48%, compared to 72% in the UK or 66% in France, for example. This low figure would suggest that many people are more likely to get their news from television and one or two newspapers, rather than the range of sources that online readers might visit. Despite this, however, Karlekar noted the country's "very vibrant and influential" blogosphere, particularly politically-orientated blogs.

Gorodisky commented that although some journalists were "very worried" by the situation, she did not think that there was enough widespread concern about Italy's press freedom status. Karlekar said that her organisation's report had sparked considerable debate and she had received both praise and hate mail from Italians. Niccolo Ghedini, lawyer to Berlusconi, dismissed the report on a TV show called Anno Zero, saying it was a private organisation and took its information from only two sources, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera. Karlekar responded that she was "not sure where he got that" and was clear that "the range of sources is large and our authors would never just rely on one or two." She added that it was "interesting that the government felt compelled to respond in some way."
 
Karlekar did say that Berlusconi did not seem to be "exerting the same amount of influence over the broadcast media" as he did during his previous term as prime minister; there seems to be less "overt political manipulation." She was also clear that she did not think that the high media concentration had "stifled" the whole media, and drew attention to the diversity in terms of political opinion in the print sector.

Arguably there are far more important questions that the Italian press could be asking its country's leader, rather than focusing on the somewhat sordid details of his involvement with a teenage girl. But as a vital part of the press's role in a democracy is to play watchdog on the government, the fact that a paper is challenging the prime minister to clear up inconsistencies is something that must be welcomed. And even though the original issue may not be crucial in itself, the other questions it has brought up concerning use of government planes for private use, for example, are very pertinent. Given how much of the media the prime minister does control, and the fact that even the journalists who do not currently work for Berlusconi know that they may well some day, the press freedom situation could undoubtedly be worse than it is, and it is important that journalists keep fighting.

Alan Mutter has confirmed that he was one of three people who made a presentation at the 'secret' newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago last week. The product he was discussing, which he has developed in conjunction with tech entrepreneur Ridgely Evers is ViewPass: a single, industry-owned brand that would enable consumers to access paid content on websites and mobile platforms from all participating publishers.

Mutter compared ViewPass to a Visa card, and clarified that it would consist of a "simple, one-time registration system that would remember users as they moved among participating websites." It would support micropayments, subscriptions and bundles of content, similar to Journalism Online. "To address the concern that many consumers may rebel against pay walls," reads the document given to publishers at the meeting, obtained by NiemanLab, ViewPass also gives publishers the option of letting users "pay" for content with time or information rather than just cash.

First we had the Amazon Kindle, then Plastic Logic came along - yet to go on the market - and now Michael Arrington and the team at TechCrunch bring us the CrunchPad.

It all started with a dream

Last July, Arrington posted an article with the following headline: "We Want A Dead Simple Web Tablet for $200. Help Us Build It." Arrington went on to describe what his dream tablet would look like and how it would function: Running as an open-source device, the screen would be Apple-thin with an iPhone-like touch screen keyboard. There would be a headphone socket, a built-in camera, speakers and microphone and the tablet would function on Wifi, be Firefox-enabled, support Skype (or other VOIP service) and be fitted with an internal battery and solid hard drive. The goal? "To keep the machine very simple and very cheap."

The proposed merger of two Polish dailies and the launch of an entertainment version of a political weely, both intended to conquer a new public and consolidate readership, have raised some doubts in the Polish newspaper industry.

Poland's largest business and legal daily Gazeta Prawna (87,000 paid circulation) will merge with the second quality news daily Dziennik (147,000 readership), in a 51/49% partnership between Infor Biznes and Axel Springer, their respective owners. The transaction, which will result in a combined newspaper strong in economics on one side, and politics, culture and sports on the other, is still subject to approval by the authorities.

Yesterday in Washington D.C. the creation of CircLabs was announced, a technology company that hopes to build a new service to finance online news, based on a personalisation strategy. Based in Silicon Valley, the founders are Bill Densmore, Martin Langeveld, Jeff Vander Clute and Joe Bergeron. Langeveld and Vander Clute announced the formation of the venture a conference entitled "From Gatekeeper to Information Valet: Work Plans for Sustaining Journalism."

CircLabs' first product, which should be launched later this year, is code-named "Circulate." It will "address the challenges of how to increase traffic to media-affiliated websites, secure relationships with online users and enhance the value of news," according to Nieman Journalism Lab's Langeveld. This will include providing "new and convenient ways for the Web to 'come to' users, including social functionality that integrates, at their option, with their social network accounts."

According to a study by BIA, local advertising is set to slump over the next four years - however it predicts that local mobile advertising will saw. A drop of approximately $10 billion is foreseen for local advertising across newspapers, direct mail, TV, radio, yellow pages, outdoor, magazines and online, but BIA forecasts a $1.5 billion increase for mobile advertising in the same period.

The figures are indicative of the changing nature of news; digital and online advertising are included with newspapers in terms of an advertising decline, whilst it is mobile devices which currently seem to have the brightest future. The Associated Press has just revealed that a year after the launch of its mobile site, 55 million local stories have been read on it. The advent of e-readers such as Amazon's Kindle, as well as the wide range of news applications on iPhones and Blackberries have undoubtedly had an impact on these figures.

Source: Media Buyer Planner

A Nielsen Online data report for April has suggested that Internet users are yet to spend a significant time reading newspaper sites.  An individual spends an average of eleven minutes a month on the top 30 US newspaper sites.  Only half of these papers succeeded in increasing the amount of time spent per person on their sites in the past month.  

Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, the Minneapolis paper, the Star Tribune keeps viewers reading its website for longer than any other US paper.  The site clocks up an average of 40 minutes a month per reader on the site, surpassing the nationals such as USToday.com, NYTimes.com and WSJ.com.

A new report, "Analyzing the Australian Media & Advertising Industry" has concluded that the Australian newspaper industry is currently outperforming its British and American counterparts.  

The May 2009 report, published on the business intelligence website, Report Buyer, focuses on the importance of advertising revenues to the health of the newspaper industry. In order to clarify the dynamics, the researchers drew clear lines between its components, the top spenders and service providers within a global framework.

April's figures from the Audio Bureau of Circulations Electronic see Guardian.co.uk leading the pack, overtaking last month's victor Telegraph.co.uk. Guardian.co.uk attracted 27,324,309 unique users in April, representing a 4% increase from March - Independent.co.uk also saw a 4% month-on-month rise, and an impressive 63% increase year-on-year, putting it in 7th place.

Jemima Kiss attributes Guardian.co.uk's success this month to content including an exclusive video of a policeman attacking protestor Ian Tomlinson shortly before he collapsed and died at the G20 protests, as well as the controversial Damian McBride e-mails and the "Guardian goes Twitter" April Fools article. Guardian.co.uk looks set to lose the top spot by some margin in May, however, given Telegraph.co.uk's string of MP expenses scandal exclusives.

Source: Guardian.co.uk