August 2007 Archives

In addition to having launched numerous websites this year, the British regional press saw its online traffic boosted by the summer floods. Local newspapers remain a go-to destination during challenging times.

The Los Angeles Times’ Image feature, a portal to South California’s fashion, beauty, shopping and style, will become a weekly (initially a monthly) section of the paper starting on Sep 9.

Dave Morgan, Chairman of Tacoda and working on a project for the Newspaper Association of America, describes his vision of metropolitan newspapers’ situation in 2020: fully digital, increasingly personalized, mobile, and not ideal for newspapers.

When considering the start-up of an online, news or information, venture, a big flashy website may not always be the best way. E-mail newsletters can be more appropriate, depending on the frequency of news and available resources.

In the UK, The Sun’s bingo website has become its biggest-earning commercial partnership online. As more newspapers – especially but not only tabloids – offer news-unrelated services online, and as press groups become media groups, it’s no longer unreasonable to ask whether these ‘alternative’ features have become the actual content.

In response to an article about the alleged murder of a white person by a black person, a user posted multiple photos of a lynched black man in the Telegraph Herald’s online comment section.

Floor leaders of South Korea’s five parliamentary parties met on Wednesday and agreed that the government’s new press controls hinder the public’s right to information, but no concrete action has been taken.

Are podcasts here to stay? Once described as the next craze and a possible future for on-demand news, podcasts haven’t implanted themselves in mass consumption, competing against other more popular media.

According to Fitch Ratings’ latest survey, the newspaper industry is faring even worse than expected.

British group Johnston Press reported a 4.8% drop in first-half operating profit, as print ad revenues continued to decline.

The Mail&Guardian (M&G) Online launched Thought Leader, an opinion aggregator that gathers the voices of South Africa’s columnists, bloggers and opinion makers in general. An interesting idea, inspired by the Guardian’s Comment is Free feature, which restores and reinvents newspapers’ civic mission as… thought leaders.

Gannett’s Local Information Centers have done more than reword newsroom terminology. They have changed the concept of a newspaper altogether: it’s about delivering content when and how consumers want it. Inlandpress.org collected lessons learnt by the News Press from the human resources’ point of view.

News Corp. got the approval from the US Federal Trade Commission’s Premerger Notification Office to acquire Dow Jones.

As newspapers struggle for cash, a number of them are selling their historic buildings. This trend appears to be symbolic of newspapers’ changing role in the digital age.

Iran has summoned a Swedish diplomat after a local newspaper published a cartoon of Muhammad showing his head on a dog’s body.

For centuries, news in newspapers was restricted to the physical pages of the paper, giving rise to the phrase, "All the news that's fit to print". It is well known that this is no longer true on the Web where there is virtually unlimited space for publication of content. But one Wikipedian went a step further to show how much his favorite encyclopedia actually demonstrates the publishing freedom that the Internet provides.

“Do the “human capital” financials dictate retraining the old-timer or is it time for “out with the old and in with the new,” asked Follow the Media’s Philip Stone, in the wake of an article on whether to retrain, hire, or ‘shift’ staff.

The Saudi Arabian government has banned distribution of the leading Arab newspaper Al Hayat for unspecified reasons.

A well-known Sri Lankan columnist has stopped writing, fearing for his life. He was working on an alleged corruption case in a deal for second-hand supersonic jets.