Results matching “major paper ack”

The Washington Post has decided to cancel its plans to host private, off-the-record dinner parties for political lobbyists at the home of its publisher after criticism from the newsroom at the suggestion that their services were effectively been sold. Publisher Katharine Weymouth was to host dinners that would give paying lobbyists and business leaders access to officials from the Obama administration and Congress, as well as Post journalists.

Politico first reported the story yesterday after obtaining a flier promoting the events that had been given to a healthcare lobbyist. The flier was entitled "Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate" and advertised events with a maximum of 20 guests to discuss major White House policy initiatives, which participating firms could co-sponsor for $25,000 per event, with up to two sponsors per session. There was also an offer for 11 for the price of 10. The theme of the first July dinner was to be health care reform, and WaPo guaranteed the attendance of Obama administration officials and members of Congress as well as reporters.

Dow Jones & Company and SBI Holdings, Inc. of Japan formalized their joint venture, Wall Street Journal Japan K.K., which will launch a Japanese-language business and financial news Web site later this year. The joint venture agreement was first announced on May 7.

Under a licensing arrangement between Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. and Dow Jones, the new site, carrying The Wall Street Journal brand, will primarily feature Japanese translations of content, including video and other multimedia, from all print and online editions of The Wall Street Journal and those of other Dow Jones publications. Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. also plans to develop mobile products and services in conjunction with the new site.

The latest issue of Courrier International to hit French newsstands gathers translated newspaper articles themed on the uncertain future of the press. From Washington, in a lengthy set of extracts from the New Republic, Paul Starr makes three strong cases for why democracy will be endangered without a newspaper. He hints that American democracy may already have been slighted seeing that national, regional and local newspapers are dwindling in terms of content they can run since printing costs have caused them to scale back on the numbers of pages they print.

He opens his debate by lamenting the fact that Americans have taken [American] journalism (in the form of a printed newspaper) for granted as newspapers have been such an ''integral part of daily life in America, so central to politics and culture and business, and so powerful and profitable in their own right, that it is easy to forget what a remarkable historical invention they are.''

The publication of the Complete Expenses File special supplement has reportedly boosted the circulation levels of Saturday's edition of the Telegraph by 120, 000 to 150, 000 copies above its base rate.  

The exposure of the scandal has been a major coup for the British broadsheet: since the story broke on the 8 May, the publication has maintained extraordinarily high circulation levels.  A month later, industry figures suggested that sales were at 87,000 copies above the Daily Telegraph's regular rate. The interest is evidently still strong: Saturday's figures represent the highest peak in the upward soar of circulation figures since the story broke.  

An opportunity for reinvention: from fortress to open house

According to Charlie Beckett (left), director of Polis, LSE's think tank on the role of media in society, in order to reinvent the content of journalism curricula and define the role of a journalist, journalism schools first need to determine what is meant by journalism. He said educators need to teach prospective journalists about the values of risk and experimentation and provide students with the ability to reconsider their idea of journalism.  He also rejected the idea of labelling this approach as 'theory'. "It's not theory anymore," he said, "it's tomorrow's practice."

Notwithstanding a traditional journalism background (Beckett started as a local newspaper reporter and gradually worked his way through the ranks at the BBC and Channel 4), Beckett advocates throwing out the rule book on conventional journalism wisdom. He argues that too many journalism institutions have become fortresses, too set in their old ways, with a foundation that leaves little room for flexibility.

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.

As the Boston Newspaper Guild and Boston Globe management take a break in negotiations until next week, speculation has been mounting on possible buyers for the paper and what its future might be. The union and owner the New York Times Co are trying to come to an agreement on how to make $10 million of savings following the union's narrow rejection of a deal and the Times Co's subsequent imposition of a 23% pay cut for all staff. The company is also looking at selling the paper.

The Financial Times reported that one of the interested buyers is understood to be willing to work with the union to structure a buy-out. Stephen Pagliuca, listed by the Globe last week as one of three potential buyers, is a managing partner at Bain Capital private equity firm and an owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team. Union officials appear willing to work with a prospective buyer.

Politico writer Michael Calderone believes that Barack Obama and the White House are trying to win over the New York Times. Despite the new president's team's penchant for new media and social networking, Calderone feels that the White House "remains in the thrall of perhaps the most emblematic old media institution of all."

Calderone reminisces about an "earlier age, when the Times loomed like Olympus over elite journalism" and describes how although Bush's team seemed not to care particularly about the paper, the current White House has shown it great respect. He points out that senior Obama officials posed for Times Sunday Magazine portraits during the transition and that the magazine this month produced a major piece on health care, for which it was offered top-level access. Times Magazine reporter Matt Bai and editor Gerald Marzorati both said that there had been a significant change in attitude towards their paper with the arrival of the new administration.

Yesterday's meeting between Boston Globe management and the Boston Newspaper Guild continued until past midnight and talks are set to resume this afternoon after the parties failed to come to an agreement. The meeting was purportedly about how to implement the 23% pay cut which was imposed last week following the guild's narrow rejection of a package of concessions which had been proposed by parent company the New York Times, but seems to have turned into a negotiation session.

The Globe reported that president of the Boston Newspaper Guild Daniel Totten and other guild leaders brought an offer of resolution to management, which sparked deep discussions over the mix of wage and benefit cuts needed to save the $10 million that the Times company has demanded. Today also sees the start of a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board after the union filed an unfair labour practice charge against management following the announcement of the 23% cut.

Follow the Media's Philip Stone has written about the "Battle royal" going on between Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Berlusconi himself called attention to the rift recently while speaking on one of his TV channels, which he claims has led to News Corp criticism of his relationship with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia.

Stone explores the history of conflict between the two titans, starting in 1998 when Berlusconi rejected Murdoch's offer to buy his TV network Mediaset. Four years later Murdoch entered the market and formed Sky Italia, Italy's only satellite broadcaster, in fact with help from his Italian rival. Sky did well, not least because of its rights to the football matches played by the top Italian leagues, which Murdoch sold in monthly packages. Berlusconi "decided to fight back" and pushed a media law through parliament whereby the top three football teams could sell their home games on Mediaset's new terrestrial digital platform.

The New York Times Company has released a statement declaring that it does not foresee closing the Boston Globe "at this time," but has apparently hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to manage the possible sale of the paper, reported the Globe's website Boston.com. The company plans to request bids for the daily in the next couple of weeks, the Globe has learnt from people who say they might make an offer on the paper.

One of the Globe's sources said that this does not "mean they have said they are going to sell it. They've just said they are willing to entertain bids. But it sure indicates an interest." Ever since the first closure threat in early April, speculation has been rife that the company might be preparing to sell the paper. The proposed wage cuts and moves to end lifetime job guarantees would make the paper a more attractive purchase. Times Co and Globe executives have declined to comment on the matter.

According to an investigation conducted by Princeton economists Sam Schulhofer-Wohl and Miguel Garrido, print journalists can bask in the knowledge that their work is sill important, the American Journalism Review maintains.  

The spring report, "Do Newspapers Matter? Evidence from the Closure of The Cincinnati Post" found that "even underdogs such as the Post, which had a circulation of just 27,000 when it closed - can have a substantial and measurable impact on public life."  The researchers qualify that the results are "statistically imprecise", but conclude that local newspapers have an important role in the civic life of a community.

The future of printed media has become a major political issue in countries like the United States or France, even being debated in ad-hoc committees set up by the legislative or the executive powers. Discussions along the Potomac or the Seine rivers have been focusing on the impact of Internet and new technologies, or on the need for state subsidies.

Meanwhile, on the Vltava in Prague, a group of editors and reporters working for PPF Media, the recently created division of insurance and consumer banking group PPF, is already opening new ways of covering a whole country in what may be a newsroom of the future. With other journalists for the moment based in four provincial towns from the Czech Republic, they are launching the so-called "hyperlocal weekly" Nase adresa ("our address"), which combines print and online journalism with particular efforts to sustain high professional standards and get closer to the readers.

"It can only work with well prepared journalists who will be trained in the Futuroom, our central newsroom," explains Roman Gallo, 44, director for PPF's media strategies and conceiver of the project. "We are also opening newscafés in our local bureaus, which will facilitate the contact between Nase adresa's journalists and the public, to enrich the content of our newspaper and of its webpages," adds Matej Husek, 33, director of news operations.
 
The newspoints, combining local newsrooms and Internet cafés in often small, rural towns, may be the most visible originality of this new undertaking. A few weeks before Nase adresa's launch, for instance, PPF Media's already hired staff had the chance to taste two products, the first print prototype of the weekly, and a cake likely to be served in the cafés. "The project represents a special challenge in terms of logistics, of room for storage, as we will be managing dozens of bistrot-Starbucks-like coffee shops in local newsrooms," comments Tomas Chejn, 41, the manager of PPF Media's branded cafés, a food specialist hired for his long time experience in quality catering. Petr Vitasek, 38, the director and chief editor for the Moravia region, based in the eastern Czech city of Olomouc, thinks this effort is worth the investment, because these "well located newspoints will be critical in getting Nase adresa's journalists to work closer to their readers."
 

 
But the whole project is innovative at other, multiple levels. To start with, for the first time a newspaper's birth is tightly associated to the creation of a multi-media training center - with several international partners including Google, Atex and the World Association of Newspapers/ World Editors Forum. The Futuroom will be a newsroom in charge of assisting and training in-house editors, some having no previous reporting experience, as much as a real life teaching field for future journalists. These will include a group of students within another partnership with Brno's Masaryk University, in the second largest Czech town.

Nase adresa's approach could also become a school case due to the organization of the newsroom. "I like how the Futuroom is shaped. Journalists are not confined to one theme, like health or education, but to a way of reporting, and I enjoy changing topics," says Vendula Krizova, reporter in the "Human approach team" and young (25) like many of her new colleagues. Adds Radim Klekner, 50, who joined the "Institutional team" - after working for 10 different newsrooms - to do researches on European Union institutions in particular: "Vertical structures dominate in traditional newspapers, while in Nase adresa it is more horizontal. In my case, for instance, I will be covering many European issues based on the Czech reality."


Klekner had some doubts initially, however, because he has been covering foreign news in the past 15 years.  Why would he join a hyperlocal news project as an international editor, then? "There is a need for benchmarking with other European countries in all aspects of the Czech society, and with Nase adresa I will be able to give a EU presence in the remotest Czech villages", he believes. "Our role is to assess general issues like the lack of general practitioners in the country, compared to others, and connect them to specific cases brought up by the local newsrooms."
 

 
Local journalists with long intensive experience covering their community are also convinced they are working for an innovative project. Vitasek, in Olomouc, even tried a hyperlocal news concept on his own five years ago, called Olomoucky Tydenik. "It was a weekly published on Mondays and strong on local sports, like Nase adresa. We had to stop it after one year, but this time I have with me a 10-people team supported by PPF and by the Futuroom managers and trainers. Our office, in a central strategic area of Olomouc, will be a space for constant direct contact with readers and potential contributors."

Based on her 30 year experience in local journalism, Hana Vojtova, 52, the chief editor of the Teplice newspoint, in the north Bohemian city near the border with east Germany, also believes Nase adresa is a new improvement for community journalism: "We will get nearer to the people from the region, who are tired of politics and want to be informed on human interest stories," explains Vojtova, whose district is dramatically affected by problems like crime and unemployment. "We are going to cover better our readers's activities and their dreams!"
 

 
The project has attracted several other seasoned editors from all backgrounds, including Jiri Zavozda, 50, Nase adresa's head of the copy editing team. He just finished a seven year experience in major private television "Prima", as news editor-in-chief, after working more than a decade for national newspapers. "The TV experience was good because it teaches you how to write short, but I prefer print because it is less superficial," says Zavozda. There are other reasons why he joined the Futuroom. "I see my in-laws, who live in a little village in Moravia and who have only access to media not specifically targeted to them, national daily Mlada Fronta, newsweekly Tyden and the television. Only Nase adresa will inform them well on the Sunday afternoon firemen team's competitions, which are particularly popular in the Czech republic. We will get spectacular photos of fires being extinguished!"

Adds Peter Sabata, 48, the editor-in-chief responsible for the local newsroom: "I strongly believe in the hyperlocal level of information, with the combination of newspoints, and print, online journalism. The weekly will be a bridge from now to the near future, when everybody in the regions will be connected." Sabata just moved back to the Czech republic after eight years at the head of national Slovak paper Pravda's newsroom.

 
Other Nase adresa team members are particularly enthusiastic because of the new challenges specific to a project combining teaching and praxis, online and print journalism, so far never achieved at such a level. Ondrej Besperat, 31, who manages the photo-video team in a duo with veteran photojournalist Jan Silpoch, is well aware of the differences between shooting for a newspaper or for a website. Before joining the Futuroom, he was a photographer for national daily Hospodarske Noviny and then worked for Aktualne.cz, the successful, Internet-only Czech media outlet. "In printed media, you have to do one or two pictures a day, and you invest all your energy in the best one, while in Internet, you try more different perspectives as you know that several pictures are likely to be released for each story."

Besperat anticipates he is likely to spend two third of his time training reporters from the local newsrooms, at the beginning at least. "One of the main challenges will be to shoot sport with our standard high-end amateur cameras," he says. "The idea is not to have journalists who do everything all the time, but reporters who are multifunctional, able to provide good texts and images."

 
Nase adresa will also represent new challenges beyond the expertise usually expected from  journalists, especially for the local chief editors who will have to look after a coffee shop part of their time. "Ten years ago I had a short experience working for Coca Cola, but this will be new because I am not at all a food and beverage specialist," laughs Vitasek, in Moravia. Krizova, who is glad to cover very diverse topics, is also ready for another type of special assignment as a young reporter. She will be asked to take care of children visiting the Futuroom - turned into a "Junioroom" or "media camp" - to learn how to write an article or produce a video footage.


PPF Media's project will be preparing new generations of journalists and not just showing new forms of getting and providing the news.
 

BACKGROUND
The Czech Republic is a country of 10 million people living in 14 regions subdivided in 75 districts in total. Until 20 years ago, only the government and Communist Party related entities could publish newspapers. This was also the case for the regional dailies, and for more local publications at district or town levels. German group Verlagsgruppe Passau took over most of them in 1990 and after, under its Czech branch Vltava-Labe-Press which currently controls over 10 weeklies and over 70 dailies called Denik ("daily", followed by the name of the concerned locality). Nase adresa will have no direct competitors except in a few cases, because its editions will typically cover areas of 20-30,000 people while Denik and its affiliates are designed for larger groups, of over 100,000 inhabitants on average.

Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson has told the Financial Times that the paper is planning to launch "a sophisticated micropayments service" this autumn along with premium subscriptions. The system will be aimed at occasional users and pricing would be "rightfully high," Thomson said.

The premium subscriptions will focus on specialist areas such as energy, commodities, wealth management and other niches, reported the FT, and premium subscribers will have web access to the Dow Jones newswire, which is currently a product aimed solely at companies. When WSJ Online executive editor Alan Murray mentioned this "premium initiative" in April, he also suggested the paper was considering a news service for chief financial officers.

Last Wednesday, May 6, the US Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing to review the plight of the newspaper industry, to better understand new media and the new model emerging, and to assess the role that government should play in the media as it evolves. The Future of Journalism hearing was presided over by Subcommittee chair Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who called the hearing in response to the threatened closure of his local paper, the Boston Globe, and the troubles facing newspapers across the country as advertising and circulation decline and the Internet replaces traditional media.

In his opening statement, Kerry says the committee has met to discuss not only the jolting condition of the newspaper, but also its implications for the future of journalism and the country. He believes it is important to "preserve the core society function served by independent and diverse media" and questions whether online journalism will "sustain the values of professional journalism the way the newspaper industry has." The committee invited five prominent representatives of various types of media to express their views about the Future of Journalism and offer their solutions.

"Why is the government interested?" asks Kerry. "We do have a responsibility for the licensing of broadcast. We have a responsibility for the regulatory oversight of ownership of cable, satellite, other issues with respect to communications; and needless to say, how the American people get their information--what the structure of ownership is--is of enormous interest to all of us because it is the foundation of our democracy." Is there even any government role at all, he wonders, or is this simply a normal transition in the marketplace?

Considering the nonprofit model

Before it heard from the media representatives, Maryland Senator Ben Cardin spoke to the committee about his Newspaper Revitalization Act, which proposes a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status for newspapers. Cardin stresses that online journalism does not supply the in-depth reporting and investigative journalism provided by traditional newsrooms that are essential to a free and democratic society. His bill would provide an opportunity for local supporters--whether individuals, foundations, or educational institutions--to come together to preserve their community newspaper.

The major criticism of Cardin's bill is that it could threaten a newspaper's freedom of speech: 501(c)(3) status allows editorializing but prohibits a paper from endorsing political candidates. The independence of journalism from government is crucial to its role as watchdog, and it is undesirable for a newspaper to have the government involved in judging its content. However, in their addresses to the Committee, both Steve Coll, former managing editor of the Washington Post, and former newspaperman David Simon, say that while they seriously oppose government interference in newspapers, they are intrigued by the nonprofit model.

Newsrooms provide an important public service, so why shouldn't the government give them the tax exempt benefit of becoming non-profits? After all, the danger of government interference in content could be exaggerated. Any single politician or political party attempting to manipulate a publication would be immediately exposed through other media outlets, and the threat is not much greater than private ownership where powerful investors might maneuver the paper to serve their own interests. Nonetheless, the greatest issue faced by nonprofit newspapers and their investors will be where to draw the line between endorsing and editorializing. If a newspaper's responsibility is to provide the public with unbiased information, then blatant political endorsements seem in violation of that role anyway, but nonprofit status could limit criticism and commentary on politicians and legislation that might reduce the media's role as watchdog.

As Coll and Alberto Ibargüen, President of the Knight Foundation, point out, nonprofit is not a universal remedy nor will it solve newspapers' profit problems. The initiative could be viewed less as a savior of the newspaper entity and more as a bridge to preserve local journalism during a transitional period. Ibarguen says that relieving profit pressures with nonprofit status might help newspapers "extend their useful life until we figure out what's next and what online model can afford professional journalism."

Relaxing antitrust could help publishers charge for online content

The other great appeal for government intervention in newspapers has been the request for changes to media ownership and antitrust policy. Last month the Justice Department rejected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's request to change the boundaries of media antitrust to include all media in a geographic area--including radio, TV, and newspapers--when deciding whether a sale is anticompetitive.

Pelosi's antitrust proposal raised obvious criticism about the independence of newspapers and consolidation of ownership. However, at the Senate hearing, Simon and James Moroney, publisher and CEO of the Dallas Morning News, approached antitrust from a different angle: they urged the Committee to give newspapers an antitrust exemption so that industry leaders could convene to discuss copyrighting from aggregators and charging for content online.

Unable to foresee the digital future, at the advent of the Internet newspaper publishers made the mistake of offering content free online. Now readers are accessing that content for free, not through the publisher's site, but through aggregators like Google News, which also does not pay publishers for content. Marissa Mayer, vice president of Search Products and User Experience at Google Inc., defends Google to the committee, calling it a "conduit" for journalism that provides a free service to online newspapers by driving traffic to their sites.

However, Simon and Moroney argue that aggregators do not provide adequate compensation for the revenue generated from publishers' original content. They contend that as of now, the profits publishers make from online advertising are not enough to sustain the quality journalism newsrooms have been providing. There must be an industry wide initiative to charge for content online, says Simon, as no individual can swim against the tide. According to Moroney, under the current antitrust laws, publishers cannot even begin to have a conversation about possibilities for pricing or charging aggregators.

If the government does relax antitrust to allow for this industry wide "conversation," it could possibly lead to major publications placing a pay wall around content, charging users and aggregators, but does such a pay wall threaten the free market? One of the virtues of the Internet is the accessibility of information, so where do pay walls and content hoarding fit in? A generation of Internet users already views information as a free commodity, and charging online users for content will significantly reduce traffic, which will in turn reduce advertising revenue. Even if industry leaders can convene and discuss, they still might find themselves at a loss for a viable solution.

Experimentation and innovation rather than government intervention

The hearing's last speaker, Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, opposed antitrust exemptions, paywalls, or really any government intervention. In fact, she countered some speaker's doom and gloom position with the opening statement, "Journalism will not only survive, it will thrive." Her main point is that the industry has changed and moved forward and there is no going back.

Huffington says, "The future is to be found elsewhere: it's a linked economy, it's search engines, it's online advertising, it's citizen journalism, and the foundations supporting investigative journalism. That's where the future is, and if you can't find your way to that, then you just can't find your way."

Ibargüen, Mayer, and Huffington all support embracing new media and encouraging experimentation and business models that promote digital possibilities. For Ibargüen that means providing universal, affordable digital action and adoption in the US and more inclusive public media that reaches every American. Neither he nor Huffington mourn the decline of investigative journalism, and both praise the efforts of nonprofits like ProPublica and the Knight Foundation supported Voices of San Diego for providing quality journalism outside the traditional newsroom.

According to Mayer, "The structure of the web has caused the basic unit--the atom of consumption--to migrate from the newspaper to the individual article," and because of the Web's ability to operate in real time, this allows for "living" instead of "static" stories that are constantly changed and updated like Wikipedia or the New York Times' "Times Topics." These changes to the way information is viewed, insist Mayer and Huffington, mean a different approach to monetization is necessary, which requires innovation and creativity. The solution for newspaper publishers is not to appeal to the government for a handout to preserve the old ways, but to adapt quickly and direct their time and resources into experimenting with the monetization of traffic through advertising.

What will the Senate decide?

Despite Kerry and Cardin's concern for the American newspaper, more than one of the subcommittee's senators held up a Blackberry during the hearing, proving themselves a part of the new digital audience. The general consensus of both the senators and media representatives seemed to be that their priority is not to save newspapers but to promote policies that sustain journalism.

How enlightening were the testimonies of the media representatives? Though certainly thorough in unveiling all the problems facing the media today, they failed to provide the government with a cure-all solution as to how it should proceed.

It seems fairly likely that the Senate could pursue the nonprofit solution as it seems basically harmless and might help some local newspapers stay on their feet at least long enough to find another answer. Relaxing antitrust could prove more risky, giving industry leaders the occasion to consolidate prices and possibly restrict information in a move that could prove more harmful than helpful to their own purpose.

The testimonies may have encouraged the Senate to do nothing at all for the newspaper but instead to accept that the audience and the market is evolving and no legislation can hold it back. If this is the case, then publishers will be faced with only one choice: innovate or fail. Instead of resisting change, they must get a grasp on technology and the new audience, paying attention to the success of others, then find ways to provide creative content and advertising solutions. As a few of the speakers said, this is still a transitional period for old media and new media, and there is still immense possibility for originality and advances. Though certain publications might lament their own fate, it is too early to be mourning the future of journalism.  

A large proportion of the discussion and innovation with regards to monetise newspapers' online content has come out of the United States, possibly unsurprisingly considering the intensity of the economic downturn there, and arguably the American entrepreneurial spirit. But the US is not alone in its contemplation of the issue, which could potentially 'save' newspapers, and the Editors Weblog took a look at the situation in France and the ideas that are emerging, based on two recent studies.

Masters student Matthieu de Vivie carried out a major research project entitled "Can online news be profitable?" in which he analysed the sectors' sources of income, along with debates that have taken place on French media blogs over the past few months. The Institute of Audio-visuals and Telecommunications in Europe (IDATE), a market analysis and consulting firm, has produced several reports on online strategies for the press.

The French situation

In France, printing and distribution costs are high, partly due to state regulation and to a very powerful printing union, meaning that print profits tend to be lower. However, papers do benefit from much public aid, and this was increased in January when president Nicolas Sarkozy offered the press a 600million euro bailout. Many media outlets are owned by groups which do not actually specialise in media, but are looking for "prestige and influence within it," according to de Vivie. He gives financial daily Les Echos as an example, which is owned by Bernard Arnault, LVMH. Groups such as Dassault which owns national daily Le Figaro, or Lagardere which owns the magazine Paris Match, Journal du Dimanche and part of Le Monde, have leaders who are friends with Sarkozy. Many journalists have protested at what they see as threats to the independence of their papers.

Related to this issue of possible government influence, the French press is suffering from a lack of reader confidence, similar to that in the US. A 2008 survey showed that 46% of people did not believe a large part of what they read in newspapers. The Internet has "done away with journalists' monopoly over the production of information," states de Vivie. The increased presence of other fonts of information and aggregators has encouraged people to look far and wide for news, as in other countries.

De Vivie concluded that today, it would be impossible for a major French newspaper to survive online-only, due to the abundance of information available online and weak advertising revenue. IDATE's reports also suggest that traditional advertising is not going to support a newspaper on its own. So what are the options for newspapers as their readers migrate online?

Charging readers

The most basic option is to charge readers for online content, as newspapers have done in print for many decades. IDATE believes that the pay wall model is extremely limited. However, leading newspaper Le Monde seems to have successfully adopted a part-paid, part-free model online. It is a rare feat for a general interest paper, at least compared to the English-speaking world, where only financial giants such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal seem to have accomplished this. Articles are free for three days after publication, after which they go behind a pay wall. They can then be purchased individually, or basic and premium subscriptions are available, the premium option including access to digital copies of the print paper. Subscriptions represented about 35% of LeMonde.fr's revenue, while advertising accounts for 65%, according to figures obtained by de Vivie in November 2008. LeMonde.fr still has high readership, suggesting that the site's traffic has not been damaged too much by the pay wall, and that the model makes sense.

De Vivie also looks at French site Mediapart, a participatory, paid venture without advertising, launched in 2008 but Edwy Plenel, a former Le Monde editor. It is free to read other citizen participation, but a subscription gives users the right to write articles or leave comments, and to read articles from the Mediapart team. The site, however had not captured its target number of subscribers in 2008.

Alternatives to advertising?

But if papers do not succeed in persuading users to pay for their news: what are the other options? In terms of advertising, the Internet has allowed new measures to develop, as well as the CPM, pay-per-click and pay-per-action rates offer a more accurate assessment of an advertisement's effectiveness. It also allows for targeted advertising, however this is not much used in France. CPMs are also considerably lower in France than in the UK or US: according to de Vivie, a CPM of $10 is considered good in France, compared to $30 elsewhere. Part of this is due to lower investment in advertising, as well as lower Internet penetration.

IDATE's report on the future of the press considers below-the-line advertising as "essential" for a newspaper's online advertising strategy, and also recommends e-commerce as a distinct possibility: "the media now have the opportunity of developing into veritable media stores by incorporating e-commerce offers into their editorial content. IDATE suggests that newspapers form alliances with book sellers to market the books that they review, or with ticket sellers to market plays or other events. Another option is to get involved with products that target a newspapers' readership, such as the Wall Street Journal's partnership with Wine.com. The Lagardere group has signed an agreement with Sumitomo, a Japanese leader in online commerce. The firm sees advertising and e-commerce as the main revenue streams from mobile news, rather than making users or telecoms operators pay for content.

De Vivie also believes that for larger media groups, diversifying online can be profitable. He cites the example of the Washington Post's ownership of profitable education service Kaplan Inc. which he feels "is allowing the Washington Post to survive." The French Le Figaro group includes numerous commercial websites such as Evene, Sport24, Cadremploi, BazarChic ou TickeTac, which represent "an important source of revenue." LeFigaro.fr is not currently profitable but it has an important audience. One of the problems with such a strategy, however, is that it risks diluting the brand's value, which is already a fear of many papers as reading habits change online.

Potential of online-only

De Vivie is does see some potential in online-only sites, but only in certain conditions. Firstly, he believes that small "supple" organisations which offer content with significant added value, focussed on specific niches and gathering a large community, are a good approach. "This equilibrium is nonetheless precarious," he added, particularly in France where advertising brings in less revenue than in the US and it is often necessary to develop alternative sources of income.

One French success story is Rue89, which combines the skills of journalists with the knowledge of experts and the participation of citizens. Amateur contributions are checked and edited by the site's reporters. De Vivie explains that the site quickly acquired "strong journalistic credibility," offering exclusive stories and investigations. He estimates that the site could quite feasibly become profitable, especially as Rue89 does not make all of its income from advertising, but also develops websites for others, which makes up an estimated one third of its revenue. He believes that other online players also have potential to break even, due to their low fixed costs and overheads.

The impression that emerges from the studies is that online news has great potential and possibilities continue to evolve. It is therefore advisable that newspapers continue to innovate and do not resign themselves to relying on print income for as long as possible.  

When the New York Times launched a hyperlocal news site, the Local, in Maplewood, New Jersey in early March, senior editor of Editor and Publisher Joe Strupp wrote an article discussing the site's competition with three other local news blogs, including his own, Maplewoodian.com. "Our little 23,000-population township has expanded from one non-news site to four mixing news and opinion," he said. This month Strupp reports on Maplewood news coverage again, in a longer article that appeared in E&P's print edition: "SPECIAL REPORT: New Jersey Town a Microcosm of Hyperlocal Coverage: From 'NYT' to Patch."

How has the multitude of hyperlocal online coverage affected news coverage and readership in Maplewood? Strupp said that it came as a surprise to the small town but that residents are getting used to the new offerings. "Some now ask reporters at school board meetings or community events to identify which site they represent. Others admit being overwhelmed by the new daily outlets, and remain unsure which to trust." Since the arrival of the competition, Jamie Ross, who started the township's first blog the Maplewood Online in 1997, has stepped it up with a news column and a Maplewood Dispatch.

This week Marty Kaiser, editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, will become the new president of the American Association of News Editors (ASNE). However, since ASNE canceled its annual convention, which was scheduled to begin April 26 in Chicago, the ceremonial passing of the gavel will not take place, and Kaiser will not have the opportunity to address ASNE members with a speech.

In an interview with Poynter, Kaiser mostly stresses that ASNE must take a leadership role in the future of journalism, to protect it in a time of crisis. "Our industry's business model is broken," he says, "but we as journalists have an obligation to protect, nurture and build trusted news coverage that is necessary to our democracy." He believes that newsrooms and companies need a goal to rally around, and that goal should be to concentrate on what journalism can do for communities. Editors and journalists must continue to fight: "The urgency could never be greater to take chances, be creative and use new technology to be more meaningful."

In advance of a of gathering at Duke University's Sanford Institute of Public Policy for a series of working sessions to explore new models for non-profit ownership of media, Penelope Muse Abernathy has prepared a background paper examining four distinct non-profit options for the New York Times. Abernathy holds the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

The NYT's financial situation

Abernathy starts by describing the New York Times' "unique" financial situation. For the last decade, its assets have been impressive, with a dual revenue stream from advertising and circulation that totalled $1.7 billion in 2008. In recent years, the New York Times Media Group has received 55-60% of its revenue from advertising, 30-35% from circulation and the remainder from other sources such as syndicating content. This is significantly different from that of many other newspapers, which typically count on advertising for 80-85% of their revenue.

New York Times Company chairman Arthur Sulzberger yesterday told shareholders that the group's papers will be "exploring a new online financial strategy" in coming months. He also was clear that there were no plans to take the company private.

"We continue to take a fresh, hard and deep look at various subscription, purchase and micropayment models," he said, according to a text of his prepared remarks seen by Editor & Publisher. "We will have more to say on this subject at a future date." Change does not seem to be coming in a hurry, however. He described how the company has analysed the business models of more than 30 different organisations to find those which are most effective at generating online revenue and concluded that "the advertising model we have used at NYTimes.com has generated more revenue than the vast majority of other organizations, including some that are much larger than our site."

Several leadership changes have recently taken place at major Italian newspapers, the latest being the appointment of Mario Calabresi as editor-in-chief at La Stampa, one of Italy's biggest dailies, owned by the Fiat Group. On 30 March, Ferruccio de Bortoli left his post as editor-in-chief at financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore to take up the top role at RCS's Corriere della Sera, the paper he previously edited from 1997 to 2003. De Bortoli was replaced by Gianni Riotta at Il Sole 24 Ore, who leaves a leadership position at TV news programme TG1.

Calabresi replaces Giulio Anselmi, who goes on to become president of Italian news agency ANSA. Calabresi was the US correspondent for another major daily, La Repubblica. He was a surprising choice, reported La Repubblica, not least because of his age: he is only 39. It is extremely unusual in Italy for someone so young to be at the helm of a major newspaper. Calabresi's first big scoop was his discovery that prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had had cancer, a story which he reported so rigorously and with such respect that even Berlusconi himself praised it.

New start-up company Journalism Online LLC has caused a significant stir in the media industry, and probably more behind the scenes. Founders Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery have put together a proposal including promises to facilitate payment for online news, making it simple for publications to offer joint subscriptions as well as articles on a single basis using micropayment. They are also offering to negotiate on behalf of its members for licensing fees from search engines and other websites, and to provide member publishers with information on what tactics are working best in terms of building circulation and revenue.

In conversation with the start-up's consultant Merrill Brown, what stands out is that despite its distinguished founders, this company really is a new start-up, and although its members are in discussion with many big publishers and technology firms, details about how the business will actually operate are not yet clear. Brown stressed that Journalism Online is talking to publishers about "precisely what they want to see in this system, so that we get the specs right first:" it wants, sensibly, to have a good idea of the direction in which it is heading before proceeding. Details of which publishers the company has talked to have not yet been released, but Brown said "there's nobody on the list that you would be surprised at." It is clear that they are aiming high: "we all believe that getting some globally significant, influential publications or TV outlets or anybody who's in web publishing to come on board and embrace new strategy initiatives is going to be very important to our long term success."

Paid online content: all you can read

The decision to push paid online content is arguably the most ground-breaking element of the company's proposals. Journalism Online will create a system whereby consumers will be able to purchase "annual or monthly subscriptions, day passes, and single articles from multiple publishers" all through one website. Brill told PaidContent that the site will have "a fair amount of complexity, including, for example, publishers who want to make sure their print subscribers get a discount or don't pay for the online subscription."

"We argue that very few high quality products have ever been delivered for free, and neither should news" 

Pushing joint subscriptions would seem to be more effective than single paper offers, which have not had much success in the past for general interest papers such as the New York Times. Brill in fact proposed that the New York Times single handedly start charging for content in a memo to the paper written in October 2008, leaked to the press early this year, but it seems that the Times did not take this advice on board. Brown said he believes that it was a "natural evolution of Brill's thinking to try to create a larger solution involving more people." In fact, "we argue that very few high quality products have ever been delivered for free, and neither should this," Brown explained. And even if the income brought in from charging consumers is not vast, he added that "we think that over time, page circulation will bump up CPM and make advertising more valuable so that people will be a position to win on both sides of the coin." It is not just a US-based plan, Brown confirmed that they would like to have English language publishers from outside the US relatively early.

Publishers decide pricing

Pricing would be decided by the publishers, Brown explained. Steve Brill has suggested a figure of $15 a month for an all-you-can-read subscription, but Brown was clear that this was just something that Brill was "throwing out there." In reality, he continued, such a price would have to be decided on by the consortium of publishers. Equally, it will be up to the different publishers to decide exactly what content they want to charge for or not. They could, Brown suggested, create "web premium products," or "some may choose to have certain vertical categories such as sports behind a wall." In fact, he commented, "that's not really up to us." Others have suggested that it is far easier to charge for new content than that which is already free. And a part free, part paid model has been widely advocated, for example, maybe unsurprisingly, by Wall Street Journal Online executive editor Alan Murray.

Investigating what works and what doesn't

A crucial part of the project that has been given less attention is the company's plan to aggregate knowledge and gather data about "what works and what doesn't" with the aim of providing consulting services to struggling publishers. With this in mind, Brown said that "we are trying to encourage our partners to try lots of different things in an effort to build data." He hopes that within a year, Journalism Online will have "the collective experience of many different publishers which offer many different kinds of products." He expressed surprise at the current lack of this kind of data: "not much has been done."

Negotiating with search engines

The company will also be pursuing a copyright initiative to "negotiate wholesale licensing and royalty fees with intermediaries such as search engines and other websites that currently base much of their business models on referrals of readers to the original content on newspaper, magazine and online news websites." Brown was clear that set decisions of what this will entail have not yet been made, but explained that the goal was to "bring the industry together under appropriate pricing schemes and distribution schemes. We think there is strength in numbers in negotiations with search engines aggregators and others." Incidentally, another organisation planning to offer a similar service based on sharing ad revenue, the Fair Syndication Consortium, has just come into existence and the Associated Press recently announced plans to track its content more thoroughly and address offences more aggressively.

"We think there is strength in numbers in negotiations with search engines aggregators and others"

The project should be off the ground in the autumn, with "some partners in place," specified Brown. "The magnitude of the experiment that we will put in place is not entirely mapped out," he added, but "we will be running a piece of our programme." Seed funding is being provided by one of the founders, Leo Hindery, and his private equity firm InterMedia Advisors. A call for a first round of funding will be a natural progression, commented Brown, "this will look like a real company before too long!" He also added that once the company has more funding, it plans to do "a lot of marketing on behalf of the publisher participants."

Inspired by iTunes?

Steve Brill suggested in the interview with PaidContent that he was inspired by the iTunes model, and indeed the parallels between the initiatives are striking: both involving the intervention of an unrelated third party into an industry struggling to make consumers pay for their work. Brown explained that "we are taking broad strategic solace" from the iTunes model and learning what they can: "there are a lot of things about it that are encouraging and instructive." One of the main ways in which iTunes is instructive, he pointed out, is for "ease of use, which is something we always have to keep our eye on." And indeed with this kind of venture, making it as easy as possible for the consumer is crucial, as many people have little patience with complex payment procedures. Another encouraging point is that iTunes managed to bring together many different contributing producers of music and entertainment: just as Journalism Online hopes to do with publishers.

Steve Jobs succeeded, overwhelmingly. Will Brill and co?

The project sounds like quite an undertaking, and media coverage has been mixed over its chances of success. It will involve an unprecedented amount of collaboration between publishers to decide on rates and other aspects of such a system, which will be a considerable challenge. Previous micropayment schemes, including one started by Brill himself in 2000, have failed, but Brown believes that the time is right, due to the "predicament" in which publishers find themselves today: "I think that there's a very clear consensus that projects like this are extremely timely right now." And indeed, many different ideas about whether to and how to charge for content have been proposed in recent months, although this has been coupled with significant opposition from those who continue to favour an ad-based model and much reticence to put content behind a pay wall.

"I think the publishing industry gets how important this is. We're really inspired by the enthusiasm"

However, the response from publishers has been positive, according to Brown. "I think the publishing industry gets how important this is. We're really inspired by the enthusiasm from lots of important publishers across different sectors who have welcomed this." One major factor in Journalism Online's favour is its founders' experience and reputation. To embark on this sort of venture with any hope of succeeding requires good contacts and much influence, as well as in-depth knowledge of the industry: all of which these men have. It seems essential that a third party should step in to organise and implement this kind of scheme, hopefully uniting publishers, and this effort has as good a chance as any. It is impossible to say whether such a project could save newspapers, but without doubt, any additional income would be more than welcome, and establishing a firm precedent for paying for news could be highly beneficial in the future.

Yesterday, the Australian reported that following a period of sustained economic growth peaking at the end of 2008, India's newspapers are beginning to show signs of economic retreat, with advertising revenue falling by unprecedented amounts.

With economic retardation sweeping the world, emerging markets are also beginning to suffer as foreign investment dries up but printing costs continue rising. "Newspaper sizes are coming down, staff are being retrenched, marginal titles closed and expansion plans put on hold," reports the Australian.