tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2008-01-17://1 2010-02-08T16:56:41Z Movable Type Pro 4.23-en tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20590 2010-02-08T16:49:10Z 2010-02-08T16:56:41Z

The Press Association, the national news agency in the UK, will send its largest-ever Winter Olympics team to this month's games in Vancouver, Hold the Front Page reports. PA Sport sent two reporters to the last winter Games in...

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org Press Association, the national news agency in the UK, will send its largest-ever Winter Olympics team to this month's games in Vancouver, Hold the Front Page reports.

PA Sport sent two reporters to the last winter Games in Turin in 2006, but will send 13 this time, including, for the first time, two video journalists.
]]> Scott Dougal, said: "The decision to increase our team is a sign of our commitment to cover the Olympic story between now and 2012.

"We are already staffing more events in more Olympic sports than ever before and are dedicated to providing strong coverage of Paralympic sport," he said.

PA Sport says it will be providing "comprehensive coverage of the British team as well as the pick of the international stories, in words, pictures and video."

Other publications are taking innovative approaches to covering the Winter Olympics as well. For example, the US-based Associated Press has launched a website devoted to coverage of the event, optimised for social sharing such that its content can be easily distributed through social networks.

Source: Hold the Front Page]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20589 2010-02-08T15:48:58Z 2010-02-08T16:11:32Z

The MediaNews Group has released details of its plans to charge for content online, announced in November last year, Bloomberg reports. The publisher will adopt a metered system similar to that planned at The New York Times. Two newspapers,...

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org The MediaNews Group has released details of its plans to charge for content online, announced in November last year, Bloomberg reports. The publisher will adopt a metered system similar to that planned at The New York Times.

Two newspapers, the Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania, and the Enterprise-Record in Chico, California, will start charging in May. They will give users access to up to 25 'premium' articles a month, after which they will be required to pay a fee. Print subscriptions will include access to the website. Premium content may include some columns and investigative reporting, MediaNews president Joseph Lodovic said.
]]> he told Bloomberg. "Once subscribed, the reader will have access to all premium across MediaNews Group."

The group, which filed for bankruptcy just a few weeks ago, may expand the paywall to more of its 54 US dailies.

This resembles the plans for a metered paywall announced by The New York Times, which will allow users to access a certain number of articles for free each month and then request a flat fee for unlimited access to the rest of the site.

MediaNews will use Journalism Online LLC, a start-up which facilitates payments for online news for over 1300 publishers, to process the payments for its sites. This will enable the group to establish the paywall faster than if it were to build its own service, as the Times is doing, Paid Content points out.

The debate over whether to charge for online content continues, with proponents including media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who plans to set up paywalls around News Corp's news websites, and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, who has committed to keeping guardian.co.uk free. German publisher Axel Springer has just put up paywalls for two of its newspapers. MediaNews is a particularly interesting case because of the bankruptcy, and when it starts to charge, those in the industry will be watching.

Sources: Bloomberg, Paid Content, The New York Times]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20588 2010-02-08T14:08:00Z 2010-02-08T14:20:39Z

Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter has announced that it will cut between 100 and 120 jobs after sustaining multi-million euro losses, The Local reports. This amounts to almost one sixth of the newspaper's workforce. The company employs 580 people,...

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter has announced that it will cut between 100 and 120 jobs after sustaining multi-million euro losses, The Local reports. This amounts to almost one sixth of the newspaper's workforce.

The company employs 580 people, with half of these in the newsroom. Most of the cuts are expected to affect editorial staff, with more than a third of these set to go.

The newspaper reported losses of 97 million kronor, or around €10 million, last year. Despite this, union official Hans Arbman said that the cuts were unexpected.
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More details of the cuts are expected to be made public in coming weeks, he added.

Dagens Nyheter is Sweden's largest morning newspaper with a circulation of around 340,000 and a readership of 890,000 in a country that has a population of 9.3 million.

The decline in advertising revenue and the global recession have caused financial difficulties for newspapers around the world: in recent weeks alone, staff have been cut at The Guardian, Blick, AOL and the Evening Standard, among other publications. Even though the Swedish government subsidises the press, it seems it is not immune from the same challenges.

Sources: The Local, The Swedish Wire]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20587 2010-02-08T12:42:45Z 2010-02-08T12:52:14Z

The founding director of a Political Management master's degree program at the George Washington University surveyed 371 print and web journalists from September to October of last year, with the aim of establishing to what extent social media tools are...

Helena Humphrey http://www.editorsweblog.org Political Management master's degree program at the George Washington University surveyed 371 print and web journalists from September to October of last year, with the aim of establishing to what extent social media tools are used in the research and distribution of articles.

The results of the online survey, reported on the university's newspaper website, found that 56 percent of those surveyed said that social media was important or somewhat important for reporting and producing stories, with the overwhelming majority citing the internet as the starting point for their research- despite the fact that 84 percent said news and information delivered via social media was slightly less or much less reliable than news delivered via traditional media. ]]>
Two thirds are said to use LinkedIn and Facebook for research purposes, with just over half favouring Twitter - which came in at number two in the popularity ranks for article distribution with 57 percent.

Of the results, Trevor Seela, online managing editor of the Daily Northwestern, commented: "Newspapers are no longer just newspapers. They are publications that often combine both print and online media. As we see a switch towards a more web-oriented mentality, we have an increased need to promote articles via Facebook and Twitter to reach our audience."

Without doubt the future of newspapers and social media outlets will see the two ever more interlinked, yet Don Bates, the survey's co-author and current instructor in the GSPM, commented: "Traditional media won't disappear. Most in the category of traditional media will evolve to encompass a balance of online and offline production. Increasingly, the Internet will be the engine that drives media of all sorts, skewed more and more to snackable writing, interactive content and video," putting emphasis on the idea that the internet will not replace the traditional journalism, but rather continue revolutionise the way it is produced.

Source: The GW Hatchet
]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20586 2010-02-08T11:40:11Z 2010-02-08T11:59:48Z

German publisher Axel Springer has made good on its promises and put up online paywalls for two of its German newspapers, Paid Content reports. Two of its newspapers, the Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt, are now charging for...

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org German publisher Axel Springer has made good on its promises and put up online paywalls for two of its German newspapers, Paid Content reports.

Two of its newspapers, the Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt, are now charging for online content. It now costs €4.95 a month for access to all content on morgenpost.de. By contrast, abendblatt.de has a mixture of free and premium content, with a premium subscription priced at €7.95 a month. It appears to charge extra for content specific to the Hamburg region while providing national news for free. Subscriptions for both sites are renewed on a monthly basis.
]]> revealed plans to charge for online content in December last year. At the time, Springer's head of public affairs Christoph Keese said: "The meta-philosophy of free - we should get rid of this philosophy. A highly industrialized world cannot survive on rumours. It needs quality journalism, and that costs money."

In the same month, it launched paid iPhone apps for two of its other German newspapers, Die Welt and the tabloid paper Bild. According to Clickandbuy, which provides the charging system for the apps and the online paywalls, Bild is ranked first and Die Welt ninth in Germany's App Store.

At the time, Keese also mentioned plans for a system of micropayments, in which users could click through from Google search results to articles by the publisher, then face the choice of paying - or not - to read the piece. There's no update on that yet.

The New York Times recently announced plans to erect a paywall around its website from 2011, and News Corporation has delayed its plans to charge for its online news by June. In Europe, French newspapers Le Figaro and L'Express also plan to start charging for their websites early this year.

Source: Paid Content, Market Watch]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20585 2010-02-08T10:07:34Z 2010-02-08T10:21:39Z

Non-profit investigative journalism outfit ProPublica is taking advantage of the Super Bowl to dig into the fundraising efforts of politicians, Poynter Online reports. Reporter Marcus Stern planned to use the football game, held yesterday, to spot members of Congress...

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org Non-profit investigative journalism outfit ProPublica is taking advantage of the Super Bowl to dig into the fundraising efforts of politicians, Poynter Online reports.

Reporter Marcus Stern planned to use the football game, held yesterday, to spot members of Congress who were attending and figure out how they obtained their tickets. But since he knew that trying to contact 535 members of Congress would be too big a task for one person, he turned the investigation into a crowdsourcing effort and asked professional journalists and the public to help collaborate.

"To some extent, this is going to be a test of the privacy or the openness of members of Congress when it comes to fundraising," Stern told Poynter Online.
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Citizen journalists, retired journalists and working journalists from dozens of news organisations are helping out. As some journalists had already tried to obtain part of this information to write local stories, it made the collaboration easier. Plus, some of these organisations asked their audience to help as well by contacting their Congress members.

Stern told Poynter that the majority of Congress members contacted said they were not attending, four said yes, some gave vague responses or refused to say, and others did not return telephone calls. Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers is among those attending, Stern reported, and to those who are willing to pay, he's selling one ticket to the game and two tickets to a dinner fundraiser for a grand total of $5000.

Although the public needs to know this kind of information, it remains largely under-reported, Stern said. "It's a completely invisible world shrouded in secrecy, and yet it's so vital to what happens in Washington," he said.

This investigation is a way for journalists and the public to work together to hold political figures to account, he added. He also hopes to pursue an ongoing investigation into politicians fundraising efforts in the lead-up to the November elections.

"We have politicians who issue press releases on every little thing they do, but you will never see them issue a press release on how much money they got from this company or this CEO," he said. "We've got to find a way to reduce the expectation of politicians that they can get together over martinis or steaks or cigars behind closed doors and pass money."

Larger organisations have also taken to crowdsourcing recently, including The Guardian's examination of MP's expenses, The New York Times' look at the schedules of former Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Timothy Geithner and the Washington Post-run WhoRunsGov.com site that tracks US politicians. Newer organisations such as Spot.Us and the Foundation for Public Interest Journalism are also embracing both crowdsourcing and crowdfunding as a new method of audience-commissioned reporting. However it's used, it's clear that crowdsourcing will stay a key part of news organisations' practice for some time to come.

Source: Poynter Online]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20584 2010-02-08T10:03:02Z 2010-02-08T10:14:25Z

The Newspaper Guild of New York has accused Thompson Reuters of imposing illegal pay cuts, the New York Times reports. The news comes just two months after the agency made clear its plans to cut some 240 jobs in its...

Helena Humphrey http://www.editorsweblog.org The Newspaper Guild of New York has accused Thompson Reuters of imposing illegal pay cuts, the New York Times reports. The news comes just two months after the agency made clear its plans to cut some 240 jobs in its legal divisions across North America.

According to a complaint filed by the union on Friday, the news service is wrongly cutting the pay of some 420 employees by an average of 10 percent through various measures, including no longer contributing to staff retirement plans, health care, out of pocket expenses, as well as increasing the number of hours staff members must work in order to receive overtime. Automatic annual pay increases will also no longer be guaranteed. ]]> social media network Twitter, as the news service is restricting staff from posting anything "that would damage the reputation of Reuters News or Thomson Reuters" on their personal accounts.

The sticking point lies in the fact that Thomson Reuters improperly declared an impasse on the negations in January, therefore making the changes illegal.

Despite the fact that Reuters has not responded directly to the accusations levelled at them by the union, the company states that its pay system is fair and will provide "a guaranteed increase of 0.5 percent and a merit-based pay system to reward strong performance," which its declares will help safeguard the company's future through these difficult economic period.

Yet The Newspaper Guild points out that, unlike the newspaper industry, Reuters has not suffered the same financial hardships as print publications, as it does not rely on advertising. 

President of the New York Guild, Bill O'Meara, stated: "If a healthy company like Thomson Reuters ... cuts pay, it will cause less healthy news organizations to cut even more, and pretty soon many of the journalists our democracy depends on won't be able to afford to stay in business."

Source: New York Times
]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20580 2010-02-05T16:48:19Z 2010-02-05T16:59:22Z

News applications for iPhone have met an undeniable success with French readers, but the task of monetising this through selling content, services and advertising still remains, according to Les Echos. The director of electronic editions for Libération, Ludovic Blecher,...

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org News applications for iPhone have met an undeniable success with French readers, but the task of monetising this through selling content, services and advertising still remains, according to Les Echos.

The director of electronic editions for Libération, Ludovic Blecher, said that the iPhone had revolutionised the consumption of news on mobile platforms. The Libération iPhone app was launched in the autumn, as was that of Le Figaro, and they have been downloaded 400,000 and 600,000 times respectively. "Around 30,000 people open it every day," Blecher said. Figures for Le Monde are even higher: it launched its app in November 2008 and has just reached 1.3 million unique downloads, attracting between 200,000 and 250,000 hits a day.
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Libération was one of the first to make the digital edition of the newspaper available for purchase from the night before it appears, in PDF format, for €0.79. But it only sells a few dozen copies a day. This may be because the process of purchasing it is somewhat complex, suggests Les Echos, as the user is redirected to the website, which can be difficult to use on a mobile device.

La Tribune will soon launch a similar application that gives access to the digital edition the night before, for €1.59 per edition or €7.99 per month.

The app for Les Echos will be available in coming weeks and will include a paid-for section that gives access to exclusive content.

Beyond content, many editors are considering offering paid services. The daily sports newspaper L'Equipe started doing this in the summer of 2009: for €0.79, the user can access a system of alerts for large sporting events. This app has already sold more than 150,000 units and continues to sell. The paper's digital version will be launched in the coming days.

The other means of monetising this new audience, advertising, is also taking off. Editors are counting on making some hundreds of thousands of Euros in mobile advertising this year, according to Les Echos, which will be enough to recoup their investments of around €30,000 to €40,000 but not enough to compensate for the decline of print.

In more news about mobiles from across the channel, freesheets Metro UK and Metro Herald have launched free iPhone apps, Journalism.co.uk reports. They offer scrolling editions, allowing users to browse or search a digital replica of the print edition. The apps have been developed by PageSuite, which produces digital online editions of newspapers. Readers can also use the apps to download articles or editions and read them offline.

Sources: Les Echos, Journalism.co.uk]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20579 2010-02-05T16:30:52Z 2010-02-05T16:31:41Z

Following a week of much speculation over whether the new London freesheet existed, and if so, if it would launch at all, the London Weekly is finally here, says Guardian.The launch of the new freesheet was announced in November of...

Maria Conde http://www.editorsweblog.org Following a week of much speculation over whether the new London freesheet existed, and if so, if it would launch at all, the London Weekly is finally here, says Guardian.

The launch of the new freesheet was announced in November of last year, with its website opening in December. Executives at the Global Publishing Group, the company responsible for the publication, initially announced the freesheet would launch on February 1st, but later pushed back the start date to February 5th.
]]> London Paper and the London Lite, with around 250,000 copies distributed every Friday and Saturday.

Although some media commentators believe London's free newspaper scene is too crowded for another title - the London Evening Standard, the Metro, the Shortlist, already storm the capital - the London Weekly's website maintains that it is a "unique weekly newspaper which bridges the gap between national newspapers, Sunday tabloids, and dailies."

Despite company claims that it had raised a substantial £10.5 million investment, the freesheet's rather unpolished website, updated by just two users registered from a German server, and the inability of other news outlets to contact the journalists from the London Weekly led Guardian to wonder if the freesheet would launch at all.

Guardian pointed out that searching for way's to contact the paper's management or journalists had been very difficult, if not impossible. Guardian also found that its staff lists were inaccurate, with freelance fashion journalist, Simon Galzin, being listed as a staff member on the site, even though he had never been paid for work he submitted. Other journalists have come forward, saying that they have not heard from the paper in months.

An investigation led by Journalism.co.uk's Judith Townend and James Ball of Jamesrb.co.uk to find more information about the paper revealed that the newspaper's offices which were previously unknown are listed as Invincible Radio of the Invincible Group, a dubious media outlet with fictititious credentials.

Even though the National Union of Journalists was said to be investigating the case, London Weekly's launch has shut down rumors that claimed the freesheet would not launch at all.

Guardian reports that the newspaper seems to focus on entertainment news. Guardian's Steve Busfield had less than positive remarks to describe the new freesheet. To explain what he felt about the introduction on the splash, he blogged that "journalism students would be ridiculed for that sort of intro. It is without doubt the worst front page lead I have ever seen in any newspaper of any format/shape/size/distribution."

Busfield also points out that some names of celebrities have been misspelled. A later update on his blog points to the possibility of The London Weekly being a mere PR stunt for the Invicible Group.

So, the London Weekly finally launched and proved it exists, but will its appearance on the freesheet London scene last?



Photos: Guardian
]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20578 2010-02-05T15:07:02Z 2010-02-05T15:31:37Z

Australian public broadcaster the ABC has launched a new digital initiative called ABC Open to feature user-generated content on existing ABC local websites. The initiative aims to develop the digital skills of local communities to tell their own stories....

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org Australian public broadcaster the ABC has launched a new digital initiative called ABC Open to feature user-generated content on existing ABC local websites.

The initiative aims to develop the digital skills of local communities to tell their own stories. The reports produced through the project will be published on the broadcaster's local websites and other sites, and may also be distributed on radio, television or mobile platforms.

More than 50 editors and producers, based in local radio offices around the country, will be charged with helping communities design and develop media-rich local stories.
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The chief executive of major Australian news publisher Fairfax Media, Brian McCarthy, said that ABC Open could force some Fairfax-owned local newspapers to close.

ABC Open "threatens to undermine the viability of the excellent service commercial media organisations such as Fairfax Media and Rural Press have provided to regional and rural Australia for decades,'' he said. The Fairfax Media group owns Rural Press.

"I do not believe it is the role of the ABC to disrupt the commercial landscape by building empires with public funds."

An ABC spokesman replied that these comments "represent a fundamental misunderstanding" of the project. "This is not about new websites - it's about putting user-generated content on to existing ABC local websites," he said.

 "They will be watermarked as ABC Open content but there is no intention of trying to steal audience or advertising business."

This project has the potential to enable local communities to access more relevant news and features. It seems unlikely, though, that the initiative would be able to expand its user-generated coverage to an extent where it would threaten the viability of the established commercial press. It could even be healthy for the local media landscape, promoting a more diverse and relevant range of reporting and improving media literacy in the public.

At the same time, though, with the Australian newspaper industry already facing a crisis, McCarthy's prediction could well prove accurate. And further, when large news organisations take widespread advantage of user-generated content, that is, unpaid labour, is it reasonable to have concerns?

Sources: Mumbrella, The Age, The Australian ]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20577 2010-02-05T14:55:17Z 2010-02-08T09:07:14Z

The launch of Apple's iPad has garnered much optimism in the newspaper industry, driving hopes that the innovative tablet computer will be able to breathe some new life into an industry battered by an advertising downturn.Much speculation has placed very...

Maria Conde http://www.editorsweblog.org The launch of Apple's iPad has garnered much optimism in the newspaper industry, driving hopes that the innovative tablet computer will be able to breathe some new life into an industry battered by an advertising downturn.

Much speculation has placed very high hopes on the capacity of the iPad and a slew of new generation e-readers to revamp the industry and bolster its business model. But, as Poynter Online's Bill Mitchell reports, the iPad will probably not be the solution to all of the newspapers' woes, but this sleek electronic device could play a substantial role in the migration of users from a cost-heavy past to a more efficient future.
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Mitchell explains the current newspaper business model in his latest post. Every week, a typical American newspaper spends $1.50 per subscriber for production and another dollar on delivery, according to estimates from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

Add to that another dollar or so to cover telemarketing and other costs of acquiring the subscriptions in the first place. Because of the way newspaper subscriptions currently work, it takes two subscription acquisitions to sustain the equivalent of a single annual subscription, bringing the acquisition costs up to $2 per subscriber per week.

John Murray, vice president of audience development for NAA, puts the average seven-day subscription revenue at $3.85 a week.

If you've done your math right, you can see that all of that adds up to:

1) $400 of circulation revenue per subscriber over two years
2) $450 of expenses of producing and delivering the paper, plus acquisition costs

It doesn't take any further calculation to realize that this is quite a money-losing proposition if advertising is not there to help out. As Mitchell from Poynter puts it, it's the "ad revenue that flips the scenario from loss to profit for a majority of this country's nearly 1,400 daily papers."

Advertising, which has been declining hand in hand with circulation, cannot carry the burden forever. The reason behind the decrease in circulation is not only the ubiquity of free online news, but also the fact that publishers are choosing to cut circulation in some places and spending less money to get people to subscribe, as Poynter's Rick Edmonds explains.

As much advertising moves online and circulation decreases, Mitchell explains that to maintain or grow revenue newspapers have to find ways to cut legacy costs. This is not simply done by shifting from print to digital because 90 percent of revenue is associated with print editions, so the challenge is how to "move off the high-cost analog platform without losing too much of the income it produces?"

Mitchell introduces an inventive solution to overcome it.

In exchange for a two-year subscription, Newspaper X could offer customers willing to drop the print edition a reduced subscription fee for the paper's iPad app plus a $250 coupon for a new iPad.

Roger Fidler, program director for digital publishing at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, who has conducted much research regarding the future of e-readers and leads an association of leading papers looking at news and tablets, told the Poynter that the coupon idea is gaining favor among his members.

By not printing and delivering a print edition to those subscribers, newspaper X could save a substantial part of the $250 it would have spent on production and transportation costs over two years.

By securing a two-year subscription promise - based on the model of a cell phone contract that imposes a penalty on early terminations - newspaper X could also save $200 in acquisition costs, a bit more than half.

Between those two reduced costs, paper X saves more than it would spend on the $250 it would spend on the iPad coupon. A $250 coupon would put the cheapest iPad at the attractive price of $249 - sounds like an offer few could resist.

This coupon and discounted subscription approach could not only introduce cost-cutting that makes sense, but also revolutionize the business model. Rather than cutting news capacity, which undermines the core product, the paper would trim expenses as it shifted readers from an old platform to a new one.

But in order to entice enough users to sign up, newspapers would have to develop stunning user experience, for advertising as well, on iPads and other e-readers. In fact, the user experience must surpass the online newspaper browsing experience so readers can feel they are getting more by signing on.  

Some newspapers have already started experimenting with a variation of the coupon approach, according to Poynter. The New York Times and its Times Reader are asking users to pay $179.40 for an annual subscription for the Reader, and those who sign up get a $100 coupon for a Samsung netbook. Along with The Washington Post and The Boston Globe, the Times offered a reduced price on the Amazon Kindle DX to customers who live in areas where the Times doesn't deliver the paper and to those who sign up for long-term subscriptions.

This kind of approach seems to be a hot topic among newspapers executives and rumors from the NAA place loftier hopes on deals with Apple than with Amazon because Amazon has been known to "set the prices and take such a big cut." Currently, newspapers only get 30% of the revenue from subscriptions on Amazon's Kindle, an issue that has left many executives dissatisfied. Just recently, and in what seems like an effort to outdo Apple, Amazon has announced several measures - like the opportunity to create 'active content' or apps for the Kindle - that seem to offer more favorable conditions for those who wish to capitalize on the leading e-reader in the market.

Roger Fidler's alliance, which includes The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, among 31 member organizations, also considered but discarded the idea of purchasing various e-readers and tablets for long-term subscribers. This initiative would have put newspapers in the hardware business, but the coupon idea seems to be favored by most.

Although the iPad may not be the solution the struggling newspaper industry has been waiting for, this innovative device offers newspaper publishers the opportunity to cut circulation and production costs, as well as the opportunity to advertise on the device. However, reaping the benefits of the many e-readers that will hit the market this year will lie on newspapers' ability to offer multimedia content and a memorable and interactive user experience on these new tablets.
]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20576 2010-02-05T12:55:40Z 2010-02-05T13:07:09Z

Facebook is rivaling Google News and Google Reader as a distributor of news content on the internet, according to recent data from Hitwise.Hitwise online analyst Heather Hopkins reports that Google Reader accounted for .01% of visits to news and information...

Trafton Kenney http://www.editorsweblog.org Facebook is rivaling Google News and Google Reader as a distributor of news content on the internet, according to recent data from Hitwise.

Hitwise online analyst Heather Hopkins reports that Google Reader accounted for .01% of visits to news and information websites in late January - roughly the same figure as a year ago. Meanwhile, Google News accounted for 1.39% of upstream visits and Facebook for 3.52%.
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In late January, Facebook posted a quick tutorial on the company's blog to show users how to set up a news feed on their profile page. The Wall Street Journal among other newspapers already publishes content through a news feed on its Facebook page.

Google still has a commanding hold over the online ad market, posting ad revenues of $22 billion in 2009 while Facebook only made $400 million from advertising last year. However, that gap may start to shrink if Facebook continues to drive stories on the web at a higher rate than its competitors.

Sources: Hitwise, The Atlantic, Minonline.com
]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20575 2010-02-05T11:59:25Z 2010-02-05T12:18:57Z

Local newspaper the Northampton Chronicle and Echo is today running a day-long live discussion with readers about what's going on in its newsroom. Using the liveblogging software Cover-it-Live, which the newspaper has previously used to cover sporting events such...

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org Local newspaper the Northampton Chronicle and Echo is today running a day-long live discussion with readers about what's going on in its newsroom.

Using the liveblogging software Cover-it-Live, which the newspaper has previously used to cover sporting events such as the away games of local teams, editorial staff plan to interact more directly with readers.
]]> Daniel Owens is leading the discussion, which is designed to allow readers to interact with the paper's journalists and to find out what happens every day in the newsroom, with staff explaining which stories they are covering and why. It also aims to allow readers to have their say on local news stories and take part in shaping the coverage in the following day's newspaper.

Owens has this morning posted a list of stories that the reporters are currently working on and invited feedback. He has also fielded questions from readers about election coverage, local council reporting and local investigative reports.

He asked readers what the newspaper could do to improve, and suggestions included more coverage of the local arts scene and podcasts featuring local bands.

The software allows for reader polls. The newspaper posed the question, "Would you be willing to pay for online content in the Chron?" At 12.45pm, 61% of respondents had said no.

The publication is not new to attempts to engage readers through web 2.0. It maintains a
Twitter account, which it used to promote the liveblog.

Sources: Journalism.co.uk, Northampton Chronicle & Echo]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20574 2010-02-05T11:31:00Z 2010-02-05T12:01:48Z

The Guardian is developing a new feature for its website, Zeitgeist, which organizes content into trends based on the attention of users. Instead of tracking articles by the number of page views, Zeitgeist analyzes the 'social signals' or behavior of...

Trafton Kenney http://www.editorsweblog.org The Guardian is developing a new feature for its website, Zeitgeist, which organizes content into trends based on the attention of users. Instead of tracking articles by the number of page views, Zeitgeist analyzes the 'social signals' or behavior of visitors to Guardian.co.uk by looking at the websites they come from, the sites they visit after, the amount of time spent on each page, and which stories they post on social networking sites.  

The data for each story is then analyzed together for a value of "Zeitgeistiness." Stories that attract more attention than normal are then posted on the Zeitgeist page in color-coded blocks according to the section in which they first appeared in the Guardian, making it easier for readers to notice trends throughout the week. Each article is only compared to others published on the same day in the same section.
]]> Meg Pickard and Dan Catt, who have been working on the project, told Journalism.co.uk.

At midnight every day, the overall Zeitgeistiness of the day's stories is calculated and archived at The Guardian.

However, Zeitgeist is still very much a work in progress. "It's not finished yet, and indeed may never be totally finished, but will continue to evolve and change over coming days, weeks, months...and beyond," say Pickard and Catt.

Sources: The Guardian, Journalism.co.uk
]]> tag:www.editorsweblog.org,2010://1.20573 2010-02-05T09:57:45Z 2010-02-05T10:21:20Z

Staff members at The Guardian have voted to oppose proposed changes to their pay and conditions, including cuts to sabbaticals, and instead claimed a pay rise for editorial staff. The Guardian reported that the local branch of the National...

Elizabeth Redman http://www.editorsweblog.org Staff members at The Guardian have voted to oppose proposed changes to their pay and conditions, including cuts to sabbaticals, and instead claimed a pay rise for editorial staff.

The Guardian reported that the local branch of the National Union of Journalists for The Guardian, The Observer and website guardian.co.uk voted against proposals to outsource technical support and some work involved in the production of sponsored supplements.

Parent company Guardian News & Media (GNM) also has plans to cut rates paid to casual staff and to end journalist sabbaticals, currently set at a four week paid break for every four years of service. Union members opposed these proposals.
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GNM has faced recent financial difficulties. The group posted an operating loss of £36.8 million in its last financial year, and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger confirmed that at some points late last year the paper was losing up to £100,000 a day. It has announced plans to lay off 100 staff, 40 of whom have already gone.

The newspaper has ruled out implementing paywalls around its popular website to make up the shortfalls, although an executive has said that it could still decide to charge for specialist content.

Source: The Guardian]]>