Results matching “new york times 19”

Human Rights Watch has released a guidebook for the estimated 25,000 journalists traveling for to China to cover the Olympic games. The "survival guide" covers reporters' risks and rights, human rights issues outside the arena, tips on dealing with censorship and the police, protecting Chinese contacts, and the "Great Firewall" of internet censorship.

In 2001, Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, said, "We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China."

This commitment was central to Beijing's successful '08 Olympic bid, having failed to win the 2000 Summer Games; however, China remains the leading jailer of journalists and continues to censor the internet and retaliate against citizen sources critical of the government.

The guidebook is available as a free download here.

Source: New York Times' Olympic blog, Rings

Part 1 discussed how the planned changes at The New York Times and International Herald Tribune will help the NYT's continuous news offerings, and how these changes could affect the organization and interaction between both newsrooms.

Part 2 examines how The New York Times intends to:
- Further compete against the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal internationally, and ways in which newspapers can reinforce their international reach.
- Use the strength of its online brand while safeguarding the IHT's popular print brand name.

The Weblog spoke to Jim Roberts, Digital Editor at The New York Times, and Martin Gottlieb, who was appointed to the newly created position of Editor, Global Edition.

How newspapers can become international brands, the NYT joins the race

Until now, the Times hasn't specifically catered to overseas advertisers and readers.

"We need to be agile," said IHT publisher Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, "to compete much more aggressively, nose to nose, with The Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and anybody else who is competing for our readers and advertisers."

No doubt that the Times actually borrowed the continuous news outpost idea from the aforementioned competitors, which have been relying on their foreign bureaus to provide round the clock coverage.

The staff memo reaffirmed the NYT's "ambitious plans to expand in the region (Asia), particularly in India." In June, the IHT announced a partnership with the India-based Deccan Chronicle to print the Tribune's world business section in the Financial Chronicle.

With the rise of digital publishing, many news organizations are seeking to grow a previously inaccessible international readership by:

- launching a print edition abroad: several papers have rolled out editions away from home this past year, such as the FT's recently launched Middle East edition in Abu Dhabi, WSJ's partnership with business paper Mint in India, the Daily Mail's partnership with India Today to publish the Mail Today, or The Times of London's Polish edition.

- investing in an online international section: In Germany, referential weekly Der Spiegel launched an English-language International edition on its website in 2004. Five fulltime staffers are dedicated to translating Der Spiegel's content and rewriting it with an international perspective, as well as doing their own international-minded original reporting (the full case study is featured in Trends in Newsrooms 2008). The Guardian adopted a different approach, by launching a separate, foreign-based, US website, Guardian America. The Guardian is reportedly considering similar ventures in other regions.

- simply reinforcing their focus on international news in their regular coverage: the Daily Telegraph's website in the UK, which was neck to neck with the Guardian in terms of traffic in April, claims nearly two thirds of its visitors are from overseas. A well-indexed website helps to brings in a significant number of 'light' international users through search engines.

Merging "co-branded" websites but not print: a branding issue

The NYT's approach is a combination of the first two strategies: the print IHT now serves as The Times' 'global edition' (see picture), while maintaining its trademark brand name. With the proposed online merger, the NYT could also follow the second route, by hosting an international edition online, without having to extensively change its workflows (see Part 1).

The rationale to merge the websites is clearly explained in the memo: according to WebTrends, NYT's website boasts a strong international audience and 58 million global users, compared to iht.com's seven million.

"The global landscape for online news is highly competitive, making scale, speed and resources essential to success. Therefore we have determined that the best future online for the IHT and the NYT globally is through a joint international presence," said the memo.

However, the memo doesn't explicitly say why this won't be the case in print:

"The IHT should become the international print edition of the NYT, whether it is formally branded that way or not."

The main issue at stake is one of branding. "In print, there have been at least a couple of studies that show that among Tribune newspaper readers there is a great identification with the brand, that the brand means something to readers," said Gottlieb.

"More than the name, what accompanies the name, an international perspective, a sense of calling the best stories from The Times and augmenting them with unique reporting," was a combination that many readers liked.

As news organizations seek to grow their international reach, this consideration probably holds true for many that have established a reputable brand name on a local or national scale. However strong the brand name, its association with a particular place or country can potentially play against that news outlet on the international scene.

Source: New York Times - Media Bistro - Jim Roberts, Digital Editor The New York Times - Martin Gottlieb, Editor, Global Edition

At a time when any local or national news outlet can potentially become an international online brand, and as newsrooms adapt to a 24-hour news cycle, editors can learn from The New York Times' most recent attempt to 'kill' both birds with one stone.

Last week, top execs from The Times and the International Herald Tribune announced plans to merge iht.com and nytimes.com into a co-branded international section, in order to increase both sites' reach and appeal to international advertisers.

In this two-part series, the Weblog spoke to Jim Roberts, Digital Editor at The New York Times, and Martin Gottlieb, who was appointed to the newly created position of Editor, Global Edition.

Through these moves, The Times intends to accomplish at least four ostensible goals:

Part 1:
- Build an outpost for its Continuous News Desk in Paris, and eventually Hong Kong.
- Integrate operations, streamline some resources by increasing efficiency and avoiding overlap.

Part 2:
- Reinforce its international reach and further compete against the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.
- Use the strength of NYT's online brand while safeguarding the IHT's popular print brand name.

IHT: an outpost for the Times' continuous news

Although the proposed changes are currently undergoing a consultation process with the IHT's works council, as required by French law, the process of integration of both papers began ever since the NYT acquired full control of the IHT in 2003, and has accelerated in past months.

In Feb., NYT executive editor Bill Keller had already announced plans to integrate operations and develop an "organic, global, 24-hour news operation," in order "to create a Continuous News outpost in Paris."

In May, the IHT dropped its 142-year-old logo from its nameplate to replace it with the phrase "The Global Edition of the New York Times."

"That says, we are one, and we are," although both arms are managed separately, said Jim Roberts, digital editor at The Times.

Video: Roberts talks about the 'integration' of both newspapers. Footage was collected during an interview at the 15th World Editors Forum in Sweden.


Thanks to this outpost and the six-hour time difference, the NYT is now able to upload content to its site nearly 24 hours a day (from about 6am to 1am, New York time). The paper eventually hopes to establish a similar outpost at the IHT's Asian headquarters in Hong Kong in the next six months.

The creation of these outposts does not mean that the IHT is becoming a full-blown Paris bureau for The Times. "We have a Paris bureau," said Roberts, "and the newsroom of the IHT still has a print edition and right now they still have a website."

Integration, streamlining resources: evolution, no revolution

Since all proposed changes are undergoing a consultation process, editors couldn't give any firm preview of how workflows could be affected.

In the past, there has been "very regular contact between individual desks at the Times and corresponding desks at the IHT," said Martin Gottlieb, newly appointed editor of the Global edition. Many IHT editors come from The Times, regularly do edits on NYT pieces, and this past year IHT-written articles have appeared on nytimes.com with no distinctive byline.

However, there is no formal process of exchange between both newsrooms, and "There have been a couple of occasions when we've had IHT and NYT reporters covering the same thing," said Roberts.

The appointment of Gottlieb as editor of the Global Edition - note, no mention of the IHT in his title - is significant in that respect. In addition to fulfilling the role of editor of the paper, his mission will be to ensure that staff understands both papers are "two parts of one news-gathering operation, that should work in unison as much as possible in delivering the news 24 hours a day seven days a week," said Gottlieb.

A series of new editorial appointments at the IHT will be the symbols of this top-down integration. "There will be people coordinating the work of both staffs to, pretty much, make them as much as possible act as one staff," said Gottlieb.

For example, Alison Smale, who becomes European editor of the global newsroom, will be responsible for "coordinating the work of all NYT and IHT reporters in the region from the IHT newsroom in Paris," said the memo. To oversee the process, The Times also named Alan Flippen "Editor, Newsroom Organization."

It seems too early to say whether the planned reforms will lead to radical changes in workflows or content. Evolution, not revolution, said Roberts.

Currently, an IHT reporter based in Hong Kong might build upon a Times' story about the rise of airline fuel prices by interviewing Asian carriers, whose input might not have been as relevant to the core readership of the Times in the US. Likewise, an IHT story published in the Times might be fine-tuned to be more pertinent to the American audience (see the example of Der Spiegel in Part 2, looking at different newspaper approaches towards international editions).

Future workflows will likely build upon these current processes, rather than start from scratch. "It's continuing synergies that are taking place and maximizing them and regularizing them," said Gottlieb.

The planned changes can also be seen as an attempt to streamline resources - terminology often equivocated with cost cuts and layoffs. But according to Gottlieb, there are no planned newsroom layoffs at this point (this is subject to change during the next six months). It is possible that an online merger of iht.com and nytimes.com could lead to redundancies for some technical Web production positions.


Editors couldn't comment on any upcoming changes concerning the IHT's planned print redesign.

Stay tuned for Part 2, which will examine The Times' international branding strategy, and how newspapers can grow a previously inaccessible international readership.


Source: New York Times - Media Bistro - Jim Roberts, Digital Editor The New York Times - Martin Gottlieb, Editor, Global Edition

The New York Times (NYT) has taken a step to boost its digital revamping by adding innovative features such as a custom widget generator that bloggers can use to embed news content, WebWare.com reported.

New additions also include a collection of application program interfaces that will transfer data to third-party sites and the development of Timespeople.

Timespeople allows users to share, bookmark, comment on articles and rate restaurants or movies. It is currently available as a Mozilla Firefox plug-in, but may shortly become a part of the NYT website.

The NYT is reportedly developing iPhone applications for the new 3G iPhone, to be released this month.

Source: WebWare.com

Nytimes.com blogger Timothy Egan points to an interesting paradox about newspapers: how can we be talking about the death knell for newspapers when readership for many publications has never been higher?

We have all seen the stories of 1,000 jobs being cut in the American newspaper industry, just this week the LA Times announced 150 editorial layoffs. However, Egan points out, "all of this bad news is coming at a time when the audience and reach of many newspapers has never been greater."

Although the Internet may have damaged the traditional newspaper, it has also "increased the readership of some newspapers ten-fold."

US Newspaper websites attracted more than 66 million unique visitors in the first quarter of 2008 -- a record, and a 12 percent increase on a year ago, according to Nielsen Online analysis. Forty percent of all Internet users visit a newspaper site.

"A visitor, it should be noted, is different from a reader, but it's the measurement of choice. The Web is the future," writes Egan.

However, online advertising accounts for only around 10 percent of total ad revenue for newspapers. In its present form, the Web format does not generate enough revenue to support a full reporting team at a national newspaper. This is an area that newspapers need to focus on, and currently only a few newspapers are doing successfully.

Egan also discusses another interesting business model for the future; could newspapers go down the route of non-profit national broadcasters such as the BBC, CBC and National Public Radio? He discusses the possibility of a quality, independent media no longer driven by the search for ad revenues.

However, this system arguably couldn't support a nationwide competitive media, but it's something worth considering, even if it is an option with limitations.

Egan's blog puts a new slant on the debate about the future of newspapers and exposes the weakness in the argument that newspapers are in their last days. Egan's research demostrates that there is much vitality in the industry and that newspapers need to adapt to a changing media environment.

Source: New York Times

A number of major media organizations in the US took a quote by retired general Wesley Clark about John McCain out of context, media watchdog Fair.Org reported.

This led to the publication of many misleading accounts about McCain's electability

A few days ago, CBS's Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer asked Clark about his previous declaration that McCain was "untested and untried", to which Clark replied:

"I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war."

Schieffer then said, "I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down."

Clark replied, "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."

The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and NPR all wrote stories based on Clark's last quote, but without mentioning that he praised McCain's military service. News cable channels like MSNBC and Fox News also included false claims.

This issue serves as a timely reminder of the dangers of disregarding the facts for the sake of a great headline.
 
Source: Fair.Org
 

The Los Angeles Times announced that it is the first Tribune Company paper to be available for Amazon's Kindle Reader. This is a further step in the reinvention process that newspapers worldwide are adhering to.

The Kindle Reader offers newspapers a chance to adapt to today's world laden with mobile technology, by offering an e-reader-compatible version of their paper. Some editors, however, do not trust in the full-fledged future of the e-paper the 2008 Newsroom Barometer showed.

Kindle e-papers are offered by top US papers like The New York Times and the Washington Post as well as international papers like France's Le Monde, Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine and China's Shanghai Daily.

Source: Los Angeles Times Blog

See also:

A Paperless world?
Are we heading for all-elecronic papers?
   
 

The Irish Times is one of the latest to launch a free website, after being subscription-only for around five years.

According to PaidContent.co.uk, the site itself will have richer content and will allow readers to interact more successfully with each other and with the newspaper staff.

The Irish Times is currently integrating its newsroom. "In a new world where trust and accuracy are often the casualties of speed," it will also seek to further co-ordinate print and online content.

"The move to a free Irish Times on the web follows in the recent footsteps of many leading newspaper titles in the world today, among them the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times," wrote the Times.


Source: PaidContent.co.uk through David Black, IrishTimes.com

See also:

La Tribune opens archives, another news site edges towards free
User traffic increases after the closure of TimesSelect
UK: Guardian integration/ away from editorial funnel towards dual overhead

Editor and Publisher culled through Friday's online news to highlight five cool newspaper features. Here are a couple of the selections:

*The Press Democrat of Santa Roza, California is assimilating Google Maps into its coverage of forest fires. Readers can access information through an interactive map.

*The New York Times produced a slideshow documenting an "elevated park" to be built in NYC.

*Similarly, the Dallas Morning News constructed a package of slideshows illustrating social problems in Texas. The topics include poverty, pollution, and the working poor.

Source: Editor and Publisher

Newspaper opinion pages usually hire male academics who agree with the editorial page, Rutgers University research reported. The results point to the possibility that opinion pages don't necessarily advocate "diverse views", The New York Times (NYT) reported.  

Bob Summer, a public policy communications teacher and president of Observer Media, and John R. Maycroft, a graduate public policy student, did the study by looking through 366 opinion articles written by academics, published in The NYT, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and The Star-Ledger.

According to the study, most of the academics writing the opinion pieces were from "prestige" establishments like Harvard and Stanford, according to the NYT.

Between 90 to 95 % of the opinion articles agreed with the editorial opinion on a given topic and in case an opinion piece did disagree, it was in a "point/counterpoint" format where authors are required to have an opposing view, the NYT wrote.   

The study authors said the "most astonishing" find was that men wrote 78 % of The Star-Ledger, 82 % of the NYT and 97 % of the WSJ opinion pieces.

The NYT and WSJ editors refused to comment but John McMahon from the Star-Ledger said that he was "surprised" and that the results didn't "reflect conscious biases".

Source: The New York Times through World News Network

As Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth considers editor Leonard Downie's successor, MarketWatch's Jon Friedman suggests she look at the New York Times' Jonathan Landman. Despite the historic rivalry between the two papers and their traditional reluctance to cross-hire, Friedman believes Landman is most suited for the job because of his "solid understanding of the web."

"He [Landman] helps manage the Times' well-regarded digital effort, and such managerial experience in an online operation is arguably the No. 1 requirement for any leader of a media company today," Friedman writes.

Friedman admits that hiring Landman would not be the easy move for Weymouth. Circumventing her own newsroom to bring in a Times editor would not sit well with most Post reporters.

"He'd have to win over a newsroom of talented and tough-minded journalists, and many of them would naturally be suspicious of someone who came from the Times," Friedman writes.

But Friedman insists that the benefits of hiring Landman would far outweigh any internal backlash Weymouth would have to endure. Landman's knowledge of digital media could prove invaluable as newspapers increasingly shift their operations to the Internet.

"Print advertising has been problematic for newspapers and magazines, and the Internet has become the fastest-growing part of most media establishments," he explains.

Plus, hiring a Times guy, Friedman says, could actually smooth tensions between the two papers.

"In Washington journalism circles, New York is often an object of derision and viewed as a city filled with dilettantes," he writes. "If the Post hired Landman, though, he might be able to change that impression."

Source: MarketWatch.com