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Earlier this week, the Huffington Post replaced CEO Betsy Morgan with media-industry venture capitalist Eric Hippeau. The change seems intended to mark a new era for the news aggregator site as it seeks to capitalize on its immense popularity.

"In our space, staying still doesn't work," Arianna Huffington told paidContent.org. "You can't stand still. We need to keep monetizing our traffic at a higher level - and we need to keep expanding. Everything on the internet is accelerated; we need to accelerate."

In an interesting article published on the Guardian Media website, Jeff Jarvis (right) talks about the changing nature of journalism and advertising, with content generated not just by journalists but - thanks to the Internet - also readers.

"Advertising is failure," declares the American journalism professor in his opening sentence, adding that advertising is a last-ditch attempt to win over customers. "The media pray for such failure because it is advertising that will support them," he notes.

The New Yorker has published a profile of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who recently made media headlines with his $250 million loan to the New York Times. The article, written by Lawrence Wright, offers insight into Slim's intentions toward the paper, as well as considerable biographical detail.

When asked about why he had invested in the paper, Slim responded that "We think it's the best newspaper... The best brand." He sees a successful online future for the Times, it seems, telling Wright that "we think the paper will disappear, but not the content. The content will be more important." Slim currently only reads the paper when he is in the US. Slim also holds a stake in the Independent, which is in serious financial difficulty. He told commented that his decision to take a £12-14 million stake in the Independent was "a bad one."

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 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.

The New York Times has been liberally making the news as well as reporting it over the past week, first because of pay cuts and lay-offs, then because of Vanity Fair writer Mark Bowden's profile of Arthur Sulzberger in which he blames the publisher for the paper's woes, next because of the International Herald Tribune's redesign and online merger with its parent publication, and lastly because of speculation over its intention to cut the City pages. As Bowden phrased it, the fate of the NYT "is of special importance: it is the flagship of serious newspaper journalism in America," and will be followed by all those who admire it, as well by as its critics.  

According to Mark Bowden, the paper's problems stem from the fact that the fourth Sulzberger to run the dynasty "has steered his inheritance into a ditch." Sulzberger may "be able to ride his inheritance into the digital age," believes Bowden, and if he does it will be an impressive achievement indeed. However, the "more likely outcome is that he will lose the Times to someone with deep enough pockets to carry the enterprise at a loss until circumstances sort themselves out." Bowden puts it down to the fact that Sulzberger is "a careful steward, when what the Times needs today is some wild-eyed genius of an entrepreneur." Bowden's general impression seems to be that although the publisher is truly committed to maintaining good journalism, he is just not a good businessman, and sadly in the current financial climate the latter quality is all too important. Guardian journalist Dan Kennedy, amongst others, believes that Bowden was too harsh and indeed "it's hard to see how anyone else could have done much better."

And indeed, it is not as if the New York Times is failing where others are succeeding. Many US papers are suffering significantly, with closures and bankruptcies being reported regularly. The recent decision to cut employees' pay by 5% and offer two weeks of unpaid leave - essentially a furlough - is a move that has already been made by other major players. Indeed in financial terms, the paper seems to be in a similar state to that of many others, and its website is doing far better in terms of visitors, but due to its reputation it is bound to undergo closer scrutiny.  Other steps it has taken that are less directly related to money matters, however, have deservedly prompted more consideration. Both of the following moves seem financially motivated, although it is unclear in the case of the IHT integration where exactly the cost savings or increased revenue will lie.

The IHT's redesign has been met with some criticism, as has the fact that it is taking some time to direct old IHT links to their new home on the NYT global edition site. Follow the Media's Philip Stone, who has read the paper for more than 30 years, was distinctly unimpressed by the way that the paper has been made to appear more consistent with the NYT. "Stripping away the IHT's own personality is a pity, and it's a mistake," he believes. He does not like the way that the paper looks and feels "like a mini-NYT," he thinks the masthead is boring, he feels it is not colourful enough and overall, the new paper is a "perfect example of why one doesn't want to buy print any more." Changing a paper's identity is without doubt a controversial step and will always alienate some readers. In this case it might be particularly significant as the key differentiators in the papers' titles, 'New York' and 'International,' do have very different connotations and is it wise to assume that readers will welcome this change in the paper's branding?

The NYT's plan to eliminate its stand alone weekly City Section (currently in its Sunday paper) is as yes unconfirmed by the paper, as are plans to axe other regional sections. It has been suggested that all regional sections might be combined, in a move that would surely give them a less local feel. Meanwhile, at the beginning of March the paper announced that it was to launch two new hyperlocal websites that will cover five communities in New Jersey and Brooklyn. Each will be run by just one NYT staff member and a team of citizen journalists, so will not cost much. These two developments together seem to suggest that the paper is following a path of moving its local news online, and subsequently reducing the resources that it allocates to this.

When looking at this apparent decision to reduce its city and regional news in conjunction with the NYT's decision to further incorporate the IHT as its global edition, one conclusion seems to jump out: the New York Times seems currently more concerned with promoting its global presence than covering local news. And in the current financial situation, decisions about priorities have to be made. But is this a move in the right direction? The US has very few truly national papers, making the future of the New York Times all the more important within the country itself. By steering resources away from the city that gave the paper its name and focussing on an undefined global audience, is it neglecting its duty in favour of bigger and better things?

Thirteen years ago, when newspapers were just at the start of their online journey, the Boston Globe joined them in making the move to the World Wide Web.  However the Globe did something a little different.  Its site wasn't launched under the Globe banner - instead Boston.com came into being.

Reflecting on this, Newspaper Death Watch blogger Paul Gillin is 'struck by the vision that the Globe showed when it launched Boston.com'.  They branded it separately, and focused content on the region not the publication.  It was one of the first hyper-local creations.

That the world of traditional media is in crisis, nobody doubts. However the question raised by Michael Hirschorn of the Atlantic, is just how long the industry can continue in its current situation.  He takes the example of the struggling New York Times and hypothesizes about the end coming sooner than anyone expects - May in fact.  Whilst the NYT going out of business within months looks highly unlikely, its current financial status leaves this seemingly far-fetched theory every so slightly more plausible. 

He may be an investigative journalist by trade, but Guardian (UK) writer Nick Davies is not shy to criticize his own profession. Davies made headlines across the globe with the February 2008 publication of his book, Flat Earth News, a searing indictment of investigative reporting and modern journalism. The book, which details issues such as illegal acts committed by journalists on the job and "churnalism", or barely fact-checked information rehashed from PR professionals and spin-doctors, turned the spotlight on the news industry, launching a debate within the ranks of news professionals about the challenges facing the industry.

Davies is the author of five books, has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year, and Feature Writer of the Year. He was also the first winner of the Martha Gellhorn award for investigative reporting in 1999.

To launch our series on the Future of Investigative Journalism and the challenges ahead, the Editors Weblog spoke with Davies to see what all the controversy was about and to ask Davies his views on the future of his profession.

EW: What skills does it take to specifically be a good investigative journalist? How is it different to being a beat reporter or is it similar?

ND: In principle, the skills of investigative reporting are exactly the same as those of any other kind of reporting - because all reporting is investigative, all reporting is an attempt to get at the truth, so the distinction is a false one.

There is a sub-set of reporting where somebody is actively obstructing the reporter's access to information, which means the job will be more difficult and so the skills will be more obvious, but the key difference is not in the skills required but in the time that is required. The beat reporter is liable to be under pressure to produce several stories every shift and, therefore, will be unlikely to have the time to dig into anything which is being deliberately concealed.

EW: How has the business changed over the past 10 years, ie, skills necessary, training, and so forth?

ND: The big change in the business over the last ten years is precisely the reduction of time available for almost all reporters to do their work. The beat reporter as much as the 'investigative' specialist suffers from this, because so many news rooms have been taken over by profit-hungry corporations who have cut staff and increased output and thereby made it extremely difficult for any of their reporters to work effectively. The required skills have not changed (apart from the minor technical skills of dealing with websites).

The training, however, is in decline along with the industry as a whole, primarily because colleges now train students to fit with the demands of time-starved newsrooms, eg, the quick re-writing of press releases, the recycling of agency copy; and also because colleges set up courses with 'media' or 'journalism' in the title because they know it will attract student numbers even though they have nobody qualified to teach the course, so you have sociologists and literary specialists teaching the skills of a profession which they do not understand.

EW:  Is your job harder or easier with the advent of multi-platform news? Do you see podcasts and video content as useful?

ND: Multi-platform news has tended to make it more difficult for all reporters - beat, specialist, 'investigative' - to do their work because filing for audio, video and print
a) consumes precious time, and
b) dilutes concentration.
And I am not at all sure that our consumers are particularly interested in or attracted to the vodcasts and podcasts that we make available to them. Occasionally, there are stories where the print version is hugely enlivened by video - for example, the passenger video of the scenes inside the Qantas flight which blew a hole in its fuselage last month. But to make the production of audio and video versions a standard requirement for all stories is bad management and highly likely to accelerate the declining standard of our product.

EW: Do you use any of the new technologies in your reporting, ie, video, and mobile? Have these new technologies made your job easier or harder?

ND: As a reporter, I'm not concerned with the way in which my words are used. What I file may go into the print edition or onto the website or be subbed down for emails or mobile messages.

The one way in which electronic technology does impact me is my access to the worldwide web. That is a wonderful research tool, and I use it all the time. It is no substitute for dealing with human sources, but it enormously increases the amount of information that is available in the public domain. Personally, therefore, it has made my working life much easier.

However, for 'beat' reporters or for any reporter who has not been able to negotiate the time to do the job, the web does also represent a threat because it means they no longer have the benefit of a deadline at the end of the day: for most of them the deadline is always here and now because even if the printed edition is not calling for copy, the website is. Time - reporters can't do their job without it.

EW: What are your thoughts on lobby groups, such as the Taxpayers' Alliance, setting up investigative reporting units themselves and sending their articles direct to newspapers?

ND: The danger with funding by lobby groups is clear - that, at best, they will select story subjects and/or angles which suit their agenda and, at worst, that they will inject outright falsehood and distortion directly into them. But not all dangers are realised. I think most reporters would say that if they could find a lobby group which was prepared to back genuine journalism without imposing its agenda, they'd take it in a heartbeat.

The underlying point is that the inherent dangers of allowing corporations to take over ownership of news media are certainly being realised with highly destructive results for truth-telling journalism - and so any alternative is worth considering.

Over the coming weeks, The Editors Weblog will be examining how investigative reporting has been affected by multi-platform publication and the 24-hour news culture.  

Newspaper websites saw the average time spent per person on their sites dwindle in May year-over-year comparisons.

The Wall Street Journal online fell to about 8-and-a-half minutes last month, from 15 in May 2007. Boston.com's average time spent per visitor dropped to 9 minutes and 39 seconds versus more than 18 minutes in May '07. And the website of the Chicago Tribune is down to about 8 and half minutes -- from 17 minutes a year ago.

There were some notable exceptions: the average time per person more than doubled at the Detroit Free Press website to almost 13 minutes. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer web site also doubled from about seven minutes in May 2007 to more than 15 minutes in May 2008.

You can view more complete results of the May Nielsen numbers here.

Nielsen Online measures the average time spent per person over the course of month (a change from their previous measure of page views), however, not all agree that this is the best metric for assessing news sites.

Primarily, because "time spent" doesn't gauge engagement. "Anybody who browses with several open tabs, or walked away from their computer knows how big a mistake it would be to assume that, just because the website is open, someone is actually paying attention," said Bryan Eisenberg, an online marketing and marketing analytics expert.

Limor Peer, research director of the Readership Institute, wrote about the conundrum in May.
 
"In our recent work with teens and young adults we heard many times that they go to news sites to get the news. That's it. They're not interested in spending time on these sites doing anything else. If that's the case...newspaper sites are at a disadvantage compared to many other sites when it comes to how much time people spend on them," explains Peer. "Shouldn't these sites be measured in terms of how well they serve their audience? How quickly people can find what they're looking for? How well they lay out issues, or provide added value to the news of the day with digests, timelines, maps, data banks, etc.? Just because you can measure time spent...doesn't mean you should, or that you only rely on that measurement. Newspaper sites are in essence trying to compete in a race that is not their own, and risk handicapping themselves by letting others define them."

Sources: Editor & Publisher, Readership Institute

SÜDKURIER, a regional newspaper in southern Germany, is experimenting with new technologies of news-distribution. Apart from the daily newspaper and its Internet platform containing a news ticker, SÜDKURIER offers a news-feed, an E-paper in pdf-format and a daily television program (suedkurier.tv) from 4 pm onwards. The television news is either presented as moving images or with a newscaster reading the information in front of a camera. “We want to be number one in all distribution channels,” says editor-in-chief Thomas Satinsky. Furthermore, SÜDKURIER has developed its own mobile phone news service (SÜDKURIER-Blitz/SK-Blitz) in order to inform its readers on the latest news immediately. The Editors Weblog spoke with Thomas Satinsky about his experience so far with the mobile phone service.

The aggressive UK newspaper market has embraced online news, making developments quick to stay ahead of the game. Editors Weblog has spoken to top executives at two quality and two tabloid newspapers to try and garner the key themes and learnings from potentially the most competitive newspaper market in the world.

The Politico is the new, multimedia, Capitol Hill, political news title. The Editors Weblog spoke to executive editor Jim Vandehei. He describes Politico’s multi-platform structure, and how it could be a working model for newspapers in the future, which he foresees as being both niche and expertise-backed.

One of this year’s major trends in newsrooms was the generalized evolution of the newsroom itself, into what was dubbed ‘integrated newsrooms’. Gannett came up with its own innovative version though, the Local Information Center (IC). The Editors Weblog interviewed one of the main engines of this venture, Jennifer Carroll, Vice President of New Media Content at Gannett Corporation.

It's no secret that the Internet is rapidly and radically changing the traditional news landscape of top-down journalism. For over a century, the pipes through which information is distributed have generally been one-way. Now that everyone has a voice on the Internet, the pipes have been siphoned and the flow has become reciprocal, causing a monumental change in news production and consumption. Having tracked these transformations, New York University professor Jay Rosen and PressThink blogger has embarked on an ambitious project to mold a new form of journalism adjusted for the digital media world.

After being commanded by a Belgian court to remove all French and German-language newspaper content from its Belgian Google News site, Google is counteracting with an appeal. The world's most popular search engine company has agreed to take down all of the cited content instead of paying the daily €1 million fine. But is there enough evidence to uphold the court's original decision?

With all this talk about ethical lapses in photojournalism, one thing is clear: it is easier to pledge yourself to a value system than it is to live by one, especially in a fiercely competitive, mercurial industry.  Such is the environment facing the code of ethics proposed by the US-based Society for News Design (SND) earlier this year.  For, although commendable, I can’t help wondering how it is going to trickle down to the newspapers and websites who need it most.

 

Citizen journalism, a concept at which mainstream news organizations used to turn up their nose, has been documented and praised enough that they are now paying attention. But do professional journalists and news organizations really have anything to be worried about?

Despite their short existence, podcasts are one of the fastest growing new media of Web 2.0. Having only emerged in mid-2004, by the end of 2005 'podcast' was the New Oxford American Dictionary's word of the year. Newspapers looking to innovate have rapidly adopted podcasts as part of their everyday news production, some providing morning news summaries to which readers who may not have the time to read during their commute can listen. The Editors Weblog spoke with three editors in charge of their respective paper's daily podcasting to find out the steps they're taking in integrating podcasting into their newsrooms.

Lately, the newspaper industry has been worried about the 18-34 demographic, one that they are losing to new media and which advertisers, who consider this generation their primary target, are following. But have newspapers been concerned with the habits of the next age group down, 12-17 year olds? According to a new study, they should be.

If you've read articles about a man named Craig and his free online classifieds, you've probably noticed Craig's smiling face in the accompanying photo. Well, Craig has a lot to smile about. He now has classified sites in almost every major US city and in about 100 cities around the world. Newspaper execs hate this guy. And for good reason. According to a London consulting firm, in its relatively short existence, Craigslist has "destroyed" approximately 75% of US newspaper classified pricing, rates on which just last year newspapers depended on for over 35% of their revenue. Danny Meadows-Klue in the UK's The Guardian writes, "The list is not bad news; it's terrible news. The business model cuts at the heart of newspaper profitability and does so with such elegance, and is so intrinsically orientated to the new economy, that you can't help but shrug and say 'this is the future.'" Well, yeah! Every article written about the San Francisco based .org cites the impossibility of newspapers to compete with such a phenomenon.

If you've read articles about a man named Craig and his free online classifieds, you've probably noticed Craig's smiling face in the accompanying photo. Well, Craig has a lot to smile about. He now has classified sites in almost every major US city and in about 100 cities around the world. Newspaper execs hate this guy. And for good reason. According to a London consulting firm, in its relatively short existence, Craigslist has "destroyed" approximately 75% of US newspaper classified pricing, rates on which just last year newspapers depended on for over 35% of their revenue. Danny Meadows-Klue in the UK's The Guardian writes, "The list is not bad news; it's terrible news. The business model cuts at the heart of newspaper profitability and does so with such elegance, and is so intrinsically orientated to the new economy, that you can't help but shrug and say 'this is the future.'" Well, yeah! Every article written about the San Francisco based .org cites the impossibility of newspapers to compete with such a phenomenon.