Results matching “metro becomes t”

In this digital age where technology lends itself to information at one's fingertips, one interactive website shows that American reporters and correspondent wannabes may not find their dream jobs quite so conveniently. That is of course, unless their hometown is Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles or New York.

WANTED Technologies, a site specialized in measuring hiring trends, reports that Los Angeles is by far the most lucrative locality for job-hunting journalists with a total number close to 2,000 who secured jobs in May.  Atlanta and Dallas tied for second place as the safest bets for media related work. Both cities boast 700 sealed deals, with Atlanta's score for supply and demand being slightly higher than in Dallas.

The French version of the free daily 20 Minutes will follow its audience to their holiday destinations this summer. The paper, which normally hibernates during the summer as its readership of commuters leave the city, will publish a weekly edition available on 150 different beach localities, where the French typically flock to during the hot summer months, in addition to the usual 20 Minutes hotspots in metro and train stations. The weekly will focus on cinema, beauty and fitness, as well as produce unique games testing readers' awareness of general news and cultural.

From today, a new partnership between Associated Newspapers' free titles and PageSuite will see the group's online newspapers including Metro, Metro Ireland, London Lite and 7Days published by the digital publishing solutions company.

The Metro's operations director, Stuart Wood, said: "Our electronic editions provide a convenient way of accessing our content. We are focused on delivering a first-class customer experience and PageSuite's market-leading product helps us achieve that."

Further to Metro International's announcement earlier this month that it was planning to sell off its US newspapers, the company has now publicised its intention to sell off its Italian and Portuguese businesses.

The company said it "is currently in advanced negotiations with potential partners in both Italy and Portugal which may lead to a partial or full divestment of these operations. These discussions are in line with Metro International's global strategy to encourage consolidation in its European markets. For the full year 2008, the total losses in Italy and Portugal together amounted to EUR 2.5 million."

In 2005, the Guardian prepared itself for what was heralded as a revolution in newspaper journalism by switching from traditional broadsheet to the Berliner format. (See the first issue of the Berliner Guardian, right, printed 12 September 2005.) For the first time since its makeover, the Guardian explains in detail why it decided to make the move and how it went about doing it.

Four years ago, when news first got out that the Guardian was getting geared up for a reinvention, journalistic tongues were soon wagging, such was the interest generated among its rivals.

Free newspaper company Metro International is selling off its loss-making US newspapers. They will be bought by Seabay Media, which is run by former Metro International chief executive Pelle Tornberg. It is buying publications including the New York and Philadelphia based newspapers, as well as the one in Boston which is currently published jointly with the struggling Boston Globe.

Metro International's finance officer Anders Kronborg said that the move is part of the company's plans to survive the current economic crisis, and follows the closure of its Spanish operations. Some free newspapers have found the current climate particularly difficult due to their dependence on advertising revenue - Sly Bailey, head of UK publisher Trinity Mirror recently said that "Free newspapers are in the frontline trenches of this war."

Source: Guardian

Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, finally made public the new Kindle DX yesterday at Pace University. Since news got out about the larger e-reader, there has been a wave of discussions on how it could be the salvation of newspapers.

The Kindle DX is marketed for the textbook, newspaper and magazine industries with a wide, 9.7-inch screen. It has enough memory space to hold 3,500 books, which does sound appealing to a student's aching back. However, whether this is really going to save the newspaper industry, remains the big question. Some say it will, others say no, "not a chance."

As information becomes increasingly available and accessible online, newspapers find it hard to justify paying for a subscription to news wire services: an Associated Press membership, for example, can cost up to $800,000 a year for a newspaper. As a cost cutting measure, newspapers are sharing their news rather than subscribing to costly news wire services. Some examples are Tulsa World and the Oklahoman, Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, and the Philadelphia Inquirer with Pittsburg Post-Gazette,

The debate over environmentally friendly news forms continues as people argue whether the Internet is really a greener medium. Earlier in the year, a Harvard University Physicist said that "a Google search has a definite environmental impact," producing about 7g of CO2. Some argue that the energy going into creating a newspaper is more impacting than the energy that powers a computer. There are no sure answers yet, but New York Times' Green Inc. Blog columnist, Tom Zeller Jr., delves deeper by comparing different studies on print versus online environmental impacts.

The Associated Press has announced reductions in its rates and more options on its contents, at its annual meeting in San Diego.  According to a press release from the AP, all the changes come as a "direct result of member input" and will come into effect on January 1st 2010. "We feel it is critical to help our members during these extremely difficult times, and these numbers show our deep commitment to doing that," said chairman Dean Singleton.

Approximately $35 million of rate reductions will be made, and a 'Limited' version of the AP's 'Member Choice Complete' service will be launched, for publications with "minimal world and national coverage needs". Members will also have the option to cancel their membership with a year's notice period, as opposed to the current two-year limit, although those that continue with the two-year period will receive a further discount on their subscription.

The Guardian has revealed that subbing duties at the Independent will, from today, be given to desk editors in a move similar to one made by the Financial Times, which earlier this month asked its reporters to sub edit their own work.

The decision to cut down on subs follows a spate of redundancies overseen by publisher Independent News & Media earlier this year.

One more newspaper is terminating its contract with the Associated Press. Effective on April 1, Metro US will no longer be using the wire news service as a source in an effort to cut costs and also to better develop their own material to cater it to their audience. Metro International will remain a customer of the AP.

 "Encouraging existing staff to write more and employing new writers gives us a higher degree of flexibility and results in a product which is more relevant to the young, professional audience we, and our advertisers, seek," said Tony Metcalf, editor in chief of Metro USA, in a statement. In addition, "By relying more on our own reporting staff, we make a substantial saving while protecting the newspapers' quality and improving relevance to our local markets."

Earlier this week there was a feed by a Brazilian journalism student on Twitter that said, "Twitter tutorial at the SATC journalism school next Monday". Rather than following the times, Journalism schools around the world are trying to run ahead of the times as they find themselves forced to adapt to a rapidly changing news world.

Maurreen Skowran, copy editor at The News & Observer, lead a live chat on Poynter this Monday, about changing journalism schools. The chat originated from an article she wrote earlier in the month, "Reimagining J-School Programs in Midst of Changing News Industry" where she presented a hypothetical curriculum and talked about how schools need to anticipate and prepare students "for newsrooms and jobs that don't yet exist".

Thelondonpaper, News International's free London based daily, will launch a new look website on April 1st. Changes will include increased commercial opportunities and an increased coverage of the publication's Going Out Guide, which offers readers advice on the best places to go in the capital. There will also be a new design, and more focus on social networks (including a link with Facebook).

Saalim Chowdhury is head of digital products at thelondonpaper and explained the overhaul is due to the publication's notion that "18 to 35 users trust us over anyone else to help them get more out of London".

News International launched thelondonpaper as a competitor for the Daily Mail General Trust's morning free daily Metro, and its creation was also the reason for the launch of DMGT's evening free daily the London Lite. Both thelondonpaper and the London Lite are in direct competition with Alexander Lebedev's Evening Standard, which was also previously owned by DMGT.

Source: Media Week

Have you ever tried to sit down on the subway and found that a newspaper had already taken your seat? Daily Mail and General Trust launched a campaign asking readers of the free newspaper, Metro, to recycle their copies instead of leaving them around. Advertisements around the UK show pictures of a neglected Metro on a bus-seat with headlines such as, 'Horror - woman abandons Metro on train' followed by, 'leaving your Metro behind is littering. Please take it away and recycle it.'

On Wednesday Metro US will have Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor in chief of the Huffington Post, as a guest editor for the day.  She will attend news meetings, as well as mediate and contribute to the news of the day.

"Arianna Huffington's unique insight, knowledge and contacts will be a superb addition to Metro," said Tony Metcalf, the editor-in-chief of Metro US.

This is not the first time Metro pulls something like this, in October 2008 they had James Blunt editing from their Rome desk for Metro International.

Other papers have invited celebrities to partake in their publications. U2 singer Bono is writing six to ten columns in 2009 for the New York Times, and Tribune Newspapers has invited Quincy Jones and other renowned musicians as guest writers. During the difficult times print faces against the Internet and the financial crisis, papers have found that these popular figures can help lure readers in.

Source: Metro

Chief media correspondent of the Financial Times, Ben Fenton, today published an article in which he argues that newspaper groups with a large number of free newspapers are struggling more compared to companies dealing in just paid-for titles.

Sly Bailey, CEO of the Trinity Mirror group agrees: "Free newspapers are in the frontline trenches of this war, simply because they only have advertising revenues."

With Metro UK celebrating its 10th birthday next week Stephen Brook of the Observer has examined the effect its launch has had upon the newspaper industry in London and the rest of the UK.  Although slow starting, the Daily Mail General Trust owned publication is now distributed in 16 cities, and its success and impact upon the circulation of paid for titles eventually prompted a reaction from rival companies.  "Ultimately, its success came at a cost for DMGT", writes Brook, as it prompted the launch of News International's evening rival the thelondonpaper.  Although DMGT did manage to launch their evening freesheet the London Lite just days before the NI launch, both have had a considerable detrimental effect upon sales of DMGT's Evening Standard.

Metro "which reportedly achieved annual profits of £8m a year during the good times, gave itself over to advertisers in a way that no self-respecting paid-for newspaper would".  However, the exclusive contract which allows Metro UK to be distributed in London Underground stations and is so essential to its popularity, is up for renewal next month.  The merits of free newspapers are debatable: they have a derogatory effect on their paid for counterparts, yet the manner of their distribution attracts younger readers to reading news in print - DMGT's decision to launch Metro UK was apparently partly due to the sight of "young commuters reading a newspaper, rather than staring into space" in Stockholm.  Either way, Brook believes that when "media historians cast their eye over the past decade", the freesheet trend will be a defining one.

Source: The Guardian

According to Arsenio Escolar, editor of free Spanish daily, 20 Minutos, "free papers are able to confront the crisis better than paid-for ones."

Escolar made these and other comments whilst attending a working breakfast as part of the Foro de la Nueva Comunicación in Madrid on Wednesday 4 March. His comments overlapped with some points presented in an article published by Newspaper Innovation blogger, Piet Bakker, just one day earlier.

On Friday 27 February, as the Rocky Mountain News printed its final edition, rival paper the Denver Post prepared itself for change.

The editor and publisher of the Post printed a front-page article with the title "Our pledge to you" promising readers that, as the one sole newspaper left in Denver, it would encourage a "diversity of voices."

Free dailies around the world are closing and making cutbacks, but Italy seems to be bucking the trend.  The Newspaper Innovation blog reports that there are still six national free dailies in publication, as well as other free local titles. The blog puts national free daily circulation at approximately 4.5 million, and that of its paid counterpart at 5.5 million, although warns against taking the figures too literally as such data is not officially audited in Italy.

These figures appear to indicate that the Italian free daily market is not encountering to the same extent the financial pressures and plummeting readership experienced by publications globally.  Metro, for example, publishes 7 daily editions around Italy and boasts a circulation of 850,000.  Yet in Spain, Metro International has in fact pulled the publication due to "unsustainable losses".

Source: Newspaper Innovation

The problems of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer are widely known - but its future isn't.  With the paper edition to go out of business if a buyer isn't found by March, speculation has been mounting over whether the publication will move online-only.  At one point there was even the suggestion that it would be announced as one of the publications on new e-reader Plastic Logic, although this proved not to be the case.  The latest in the ongoing saga is an email leaked by a Seattle P-I writer, which contains an invitation to PI employees to meet with owner Hearst's vice President for digital media Ken Riddick to dicuss their "ideas" for the publication.  

If the P-I were to move online-only, there would have to be changes in the newsroom, blogger and journalist Gina Chen believes.  She says that whilst she is "a huge proponent of journalists getting out of the office and going to the scene of the crash, the crime or the trial... A typical day in an online-first newsroom should be different than in a traditional newsroom. If it's not, your newsroom isn't online first enough".  The key is time management according to Chen, and a full integration with the online culture - instant news and social networks for example.  She says that its imperative to check your social media sites regularly and interact with readers, and also to blog about news as it happens even if the full article doesn't follow until later.

Could the non-profit model be the saviour the newspaper industry has been looking for? This question was prompted by a New York Times op-ed on 28 January, which proposed that America's "most valued sources of news" should become non-profit institutions funded by endowments. Animated responses to this article, both positive and negative, have appeared throughout the media since: from Steve Coll writing for the New Yorker who suggests that the rise of non-profits is verging on an inevitability, to Roy Greenslade in the Evening Standard who believes that the obliged political neutrality will be the stumbling block, to Jack Shafer of Slate who feels there is "something disconcerting about wanting to divorce the newspaper from market pressures." The Editors Weblog spoke to Paul Steiger, Editor-in-Chief and President of ProPublica, one of the largest American non-profit news ventures currently in existence, to find out more about how the non-profit model works for them. As a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, Steiger has plenty of experience in the for-profit side of the industry as well.

How ProPublica works - free articles for partner papers

New York-based ProPublica uses its funding to support 28 staff, who produce investigative reporting which is then given, not sold, to news outlets. Editors and reporters decide which stories they want to pursue, and after beginning investigation into the issue, they will offer the story to a relevant publication. If the original choice of partner does not want it, ProPublica will find somebody else. Steiger said that ProPublica articles have appeared in about 20 newspapers, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, "a bunch of websites", as well as television news channels, such as CNN or CNBC. Stories appear on the ProPublica website shortly after publication by the chosen partner: ProPublica promises an appropriate period of exclusivity but Steiger explained that many partners are happy for the story to appear on ProPublica either immediately, or a matter of hours later. The site will always link to the partner that has the story, which is publicity for the partner and means that "people coming to our site will always know what we are up to."

Stories with moral force
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The general criteria for stories are those which "shine a spotlight on abuse or power of failure to uphold the public interest," according to Steiger. Reporters have broad beats, such as the effectiveness of government spending, health care, energy and the environment, voting rights or the impact of the legal system on the poor. These are national issues, which sometimes veer into international territory, but can also have a local focus. Steiger described one of the most important projects in the past year: an investigation of the risk to the water supply of deep drilling for national gas, which is undoubtedly a national and even international issue. But because reporters discovered a crucial government decision pending in New York state which would have put legislative and regulatory protocols into place to give the industry carte blanche to drill wherever it chose, ProPublica offered the story to the local Albany Times Union, and hence grabbed the attention of the governor and legislators. Government policy was consequently changed.

Propublica searches for stories that "shine a spotlight on abuse of power or failure to uphold the public interest"

Embracing multimedia, enhancing impact

ProPublica has embraced online distribution. The newsroom has "a huge online focus," stressed Steiger, "much larger than I expected when I got into this." He explained that the organisation has had "tremendous success" with outfits such as Politico or the Huffington Post, "they have given great distribution to some of our stories." Steiger is also enthusiastic about the multimedia advantages of online reporting: "the awareness of how online graphics and online interactive elements can enhance a story and enhance its impact is penetrating through the entire group," he commented. The older staff from print backgrounds are learning rapidly from the younger reporters with online backgrounds, " because that's where so much of the energy and the growth is."

Money doesn't buy you influence

One of the potential problems with privately funded non-profit news organisations is the risk that those who fund them might try to influence the news that comes out of them. Herb Sandler of the Sandler Foundation, ProPublica's principle founder, is also chairman of the ProPublica board, which leads an outsider to question his influence over the reporting.  Steiger was clear that "he and the board have agreed that they will have no advance knowledge of what we decide to cover. They will see it on the day of publication." Steiger ensures that reporters are shielded from influence from the board: although board members are invited to offer story ideas, Steiger emphasised that "these are to be funnelled only through me or through managing editor Stephen Engelberg so the reporters won't feel pressured by getting a call from a director." The Sandler Foundation has made a multi-year funding commitment. Other funders are the MacArthur Foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies and Mary Graham's personal foundation.

"The board have agreed that they will have no advance knowledge of what we decide to cover. They will see it on the day of publication."

So, is this a model that could be implemented more widely?

Paul Steiger explained that his day-to-day job at ProPublica was no different because of the non-profit element of the site. So, is this a model that could be implemented more widely? It is clear that the business model that has supported newspapers until now no longer works. Instead of desperately trying to save and adapt the current business model, is it time for a new one altogether? The authors of the New York Times piece, David Swensen and Michael Schmidt, both from the Yale's investment fund, believe that "As long as newspapers remain for-profit enterprises, they will find no refuge from their financial problems... By endowing our most valued sources of news we would free them from the strictures of an obsolete business model and offer them a permanent place in society, like that of America's colleges and universities." A shining example (outside the US) of a paper not pressured by making money for shareholders is the Guardian, which is owned by a trust, and has been subsequently less affected by the recent financial downturn. The paper's website almost always tops the list of British newspapers in terms of reader numbers, and generally boasts more than the New York Times. The privilege to work without extreme financial pressure is something which would undoubtedly benefit the world's newspapers. One crucial point would be to ensure a long term endowment, as having to frantically search for funding every year would apply the same pressures as for a for profit.

An obvious issue to address is the cost: huge endowments would be needed to fund a large national newspaper. ProPublica has annual operating costs of around $10 million, which supports a staff of only 28. To support a newspaper such as the New York Times, you would need a $5 billion endowment, according to Swenson and Schmidt, or $2 billion for the Washington Post, according to Coll. Steiger's response was "how many people are there who have $5 billion to step up and set up an endowment, even for a wonderful property like the New York Times?"

"How many people are there who have $5 billion to step up and set up an endowment, even for a wonderful property like the New York Times?"

And he has a point. For a start, there is the question of what news is worthy to fund. Investigative reporting such as ProPublica's is one thing: asking people to fund journalism in the public interest seems a reasonable request.  Finding people to fund an entire newspaper - including sections such as entertainment, sport and crosswords  - seems harder. Steiger does, however, see some future for non-profit newsgathering. "I do think that it's possible that non-profit operations can play an expanded role and can fill in some of the gaps. But can the concept turn around a fundamental destruction of the basic business model of metro newspapers? No it can't." This is true: non-profit journalism is a way to prop-up existing structures, but will only make newspapers dependent on outsiders rather than encourage them to develop new ways to survive on their own. It does seem that many of the arguments for endowments are to ensure that newspapers not only survive, but survive just as they are now. Maybe this is the wrong way, maybe in fact they need to change.

Maybe newspapers need to change more fundamentally?

Jack Shafer makes the valid point that the capitalist system is what allowed the great newspapers to achieve success in the first place. "The Times, the Post, and the Wall Street Journal earned their reputations by competing in the marketplace, not by stroking philanthropic billionaires or foundations," he argues. Their dynamism and adaptability allowed them to gain their dominant positions in the market; to remove the financial impetus for such growth could have a detrimental effect on their innovation and efficacy in news distribution. It would also, crucially, change the way that they measure their success: an increased focus on story impact could be a positive outcome but this is not relevant for many types of news.

Newspapers need to change and develop, as they have over many years, in terms of what they cover, how they cover it, and how they reach their audience. The Internet has truly revolutionised the way people follow the news, and endowments should not be a means to stifle necessary change that should follow. Other strategies must also be investigated, such as an industry-wide decision to implement payment for online news. But for now, if newspapers are to function effectively, whether in print or online, as a crucial part of a democratic state, they need to find a way in which they can maintain sufficient staff and resources. Maybe a partially-funded model is the solution, at least in the short term: whereby the arguably more democratically valuable reporting is supported and protected by an endowment, leaving the papers to find a way to make up the rest of the revenue needed for other reporting and further costs. And hopefully out of these endeavours a new more durable business model could emerge. At least for the immediate future, there is an organisation like ProPublica to provide vital proactive investigative journalism to the American public.

The Denver Newspaper Agency (DEN) has hinted at the possibility of having just one daily for the Denver metro market. In an unofficial letter draft, staff of DNA have said that March 1st could be a possible date for this change, where The Rocky Mountain News daily will close and all subscribers will receive The Denver Post, reports rockymountainnews.com.

Jim Nolan, spokesman for the agency, said that it is still a draft and "nothing has been mailed to anybody." E.W Scripps, publisher of the Rocky, said in early December that they would try to sell the paper and would explore other options if that failed. The MediaNews Group meanwhile, is making plans to operate the Post, which will become the only daily in the area if the plan goes through. Joseph Lodovic, President of MediaNews said that he only recently found out about the letter and has read it yet. "I would expect (agency) management to be preparing for various alternatives. (But) until it is told otherwise, (the agency) will continue to publish both newspapers and operate in the normal course as it always has."

Sources: rockymountainnews.com

The Metro group, worldwide distributor of free newspapers has announced that they are shutting their Spanish edition, affecting 7 cities across the country.

Metro International has said that the decision has been made due to the "unsustainable losses" which its publications are encountering in Spain, although the Spanish Metro is not as loss-making as some of its other free competitors in the country.  However, the company said that "the worsening Spanish economic downturn, which during the beginning of 2009 has resulted in a collapsing advertising market" means that continuing to publish is not a viable option.

Another free daily hit by news of its imminent departure is the Baltimore Examiner, which according to vice President and CEO Ryan McKibben is unable to continue due to "the economic dynamics that have ravaged the print media industry".

Source: The Guardian, Baltimore Sun