Recently by Emma Heald

Deseret Management Corp., the parent company of U.S. newspaper Deseret News in Utah, will launch a Spanish-language newspaper called El Observador February 9, publishing three times a week, with editions on Tuesdays and Thursdays featuring hard news, while a weekend edition will focus on family-oriented features, Editor & Publisher reported.

"The Hispanic/Latino community in Utah is a very important part of our future, of our 'now,'" said Jim Wall, the publisher of Deseret News, according to a Deseret news article. "They are under-represented. They have no voice." He said in the past, other Spanish-language newspaper efforts in the area had not been credible. "When we decided we would invest in this (endeavour), it was really out of a need to have a voice of trust and credibility."

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The Washington Post may be looking into providing readers with more news and information on local business. A source told the Washington City Paper that the Post is planning to launch a business publication called Capital Business, which would be issued weekly and cost US$1.99 per week.

This comes less than a year after the Post shuttered its daily business section to "save on newsprint - an important objective in these times." However, the Business Insider pointed out today that the prototype sent out to subscribers for their input is in print, not online.

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Nieman Lab's Johnathan Stray has created a paywall calculator, Paywall!, that aims to juggle the different factors that could go into building a paywall and find the best combination that could generate maximum revenue. He takes the New York Times' proposed payment model as a basis: a certain number of articles per month can be viewed free, and after that readers will be asked to subscribe.

"The key to paywall revenue projections is to understand how different portions of the audience are affected differently," says Stray, and his model breaks the audience into five groups based on their number of page views per month: fly-by, occasional, weekly, daily, loyal. Depending on how many articles are offered free, it is unlikely that a huge number of visitors will be affected by a paywall, Stray points out, but the ones that will be are the loyal readers.

Editor of the Guardian Alan Rusbridger made clear his feelings on paywalls and the growing importance of social media during the 2010 Hugh Cudlipp lecture yesterday, entitled 'Does journalism exist?' The Guardian reproduced the text of the lecture here.

Hugh Cudlipp was an editor at the Daily Mirror from the early 1950s to early 1970s,
a period in which, as Rusbridger pointed out, newspaper editors' key challenge was producing good editorial content, rather than trying to come up with a new business model, which is a top issue confronting all editors now.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has launched an initiative to examine the future of media in the digital age and to "help ensure that all Americans have access to vibrant, diverse sources of news and information that will enable them to enrich their families, communities and democracy."

"The Future of Media and the Information Needs of Communities in a Digital Age" lists 42 questions the project is seeking to answer through research and asking for input from the public. Submissions for the project closes March 8. Quoting the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, the project states that the "digital age is creating an information and communications renaissance. But it is not serving all Americans and their local communities equally. It is not yet serving democracy fully," according to the Huffington Post.

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New York Times executives Janet L. Robinson, president and chief executive of the company, and Martin A. Nisenholtz, senior vice president for digital operations, have answered readers' questions about the upcoming paywall. It was announced on Wednesday that the US's premier general-interest paper was to launch a metered payment system in early 2011.

The paper seems to be taking the crucial issue of ease of use seriously, with the executives stressing that "we are determined to make subscribing as smooth and easy as possible" and they hope that the infrastructure of NYTimes.com will "provide our Web users with an uncomplicated, frictionless experience."

NewsCred launched in 2008 aiming to use algorithms combined with users' votes to rank news sources by credibility. That didn't work out, and the site is now manoeuvring in another direction, this time offering users a platform to build professionally-looking customised online newspaper sites in just minutes, TechCrunch reported last week.

Users can pick topics they are interested in or choose from a list of categories provided. The stories are then drawn from popular news sites and blogs, aggregated and listed in their appropriate sections.

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Covering major sport events is becoming more and more complex: with more "media rights" being sold every day and for every event, the straightforward businesses of news-gathering, providing news services and running commercial programmes alongside news coverage can be difficult.

In response to this, the International Association of Sports Newspapers (IASN) has set up a special Master Class to help news executives navigate complicated "media rights" issues and avoid legal red tape when providing coverage of the 2010 football World Cup and other events.

The Master Class will include the expertise of a sport news executive, Juan Ignacio Gallardo, Deputy Editor of the Spanish sports daily Marca, who can catalogue the numerous restrictions he and his team face on a daily basis in covering sports events, along with the contribution of Andrew Moger, Executive Director of the News Media Coalition, an expert in media rights with long-standing experience as a journalist, who will describe the current regulations and help participants deal with the current rules and issues

The IASN Master Class will be held on 5 February next at the state-of-the-art Olympic and Sport Museum in Barcelona, Spain. Full details can be found at http://www.press-iasn.org, or email Rosarita Cuccoli (rcuccoli@press-iasn.org).

Yesterday, following months of deliberation, the New York Times announced that it was to go forward with charging online, with a plan to implement a metre system in 2011. It is the biggest publisher yet to lay out paywall plans, and the move is undoubtedly highly significant for the newspaper industry as it struggles with a failing business model. Will this save the New York Times? Could it signal the end for free online content?

Similar to that used by the Financial Times, a metered payment system would allow readers to access a certain number of articles free per month, and then request payment for more: a flat fee for unlimited access. Print subscribers will continue to have free access, even those who subscribe to just the Sunday paper. An online subscription will also cover access via smartphones. The first click free from search engines, which is used by the Wall Street Journal, will also apply. More details such as pricing have been released yet, and the publisher's statement said that the next year will be used to build "a new online infrastructure designed to provide consumers with a frictionless experience across multiple platforms."

A metered system rather than a more fixed paywall has the advantage of not alienating the casual reader who can still visit the site free on occasion, and not angering journalists by blocking off specific articles (an issue with the Times' previous attempt at charging online, TimesSelect). "It allows NYTimes.com to remain a vibrant part of the search-driven Web," reads the Times memo sent to staff by executives Arthur Sulzberger and Janet Robinson, published by Poynter.

It does have potential flaws, however. Before the NYT's announcement, Reuters writer Felix Salmon criticized the way that the FT's flat fee system does not actually work like a metre: suggesting that instead the New York Times should implement a payment process under which readers are charged depending on how much content they consume. And presumably those who are determined not to pay will find ways around the paywall, using multiple accounts, for example.

The Financial Times welcomed the New York Times' decision, according to the Guardian, with CEO John Ridding saying "We welcome the New York Times' new online business model, which is similar to the FT's. We believe in the value of quality journalism and we are pleased that others feel the same way." The FT recently announced that for the first time, its content revenue was greater than its advertising revenue in 2009, after raised cover prices and more online subscribers signing on.

The FT now has 121,000 subscribers. Going by the pricing on the FT's website, it seems that they pay between €186 and €363 per year (depending on whether they choose a standard or premium subscription). Working on the assumption that about half of subscribers pay for each (and that the FT is not counting joint print-online subscribers in this figure), that would mean that the paper could be bringing in something in the region of €33 million from its paywall in direct revenue from readers. And the Wall Street Journal, which offers a different kind of paywall, has an estimated one million paying online subscribers.

This figure is encouragingly high, but how much encouragement can the NYT take from this? As a general interest paper with the most popular website out of all US papers, the Times has a far bigger pool of potential subscribers. But the FT's specialist financial content is something that more people might see as worth paying for. Indeed for some, it is news that is necessary for their business. And with the FT's main international rival the WSJ also charging, there is not an ubiquity of similar news free on the web.

The New York Times does seem to have a better shot at making charging for online content work than other US general interest newspapers. Its status as the number one national paper is largely unquestioned. It has always made a greater proportion of its revenue from content than most newspapers do, receiving 55-60% of its income from advertising compared to a typical figure of 80-85%. The current price for a print subscription is high, at between $550 and $770 a year, depending on location and offers, but many people are still prepared to pay this: more than 800,000 continue to renew their subscriptions, according to the NYT's David Carr.

Given the paper's financial situation, it is unsurprisingly that the paper is looking at changing its business model. Despite its reputation and high number of website visitors, financial constraints have pushed the New York Times into carrying out lay-offs and pay cuts. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim came to the publisher's aid last year with a $250 million loan, but if the paper is to continue to produce top-quality journalism, it needs a steady revenue stream.

Poynter writer Rick Edmonds maintains that the NYT's decision to charge "makes business sense." He believes that the Times will not "lose any meaningful number of unique visitors," and agrees with Ken Doctor that paying users represent a significant targeting advertising opportunity. The Times' memo sent to employees said that executives expect that "digital advertising will continue to be the major contributor to our success on the Web."

Slate editor Jack Shafter is critical of the NYT's strategy, judging it "too easy for freeloaders to game their way around it" and "a waste of the gargantuan audience they've attracted." He suggests that looking into improving web advertising would be a better way to go forward. Jeff Jarvis argues on his blog BuzzMachine that the NYT's plan will end up charging "the readers who are worth the most while serving free those who are worth least," which he believes does not make sense. 

With the New York Times on board, efforts to charge online are likely to speed up. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp publications are expected to introduce paid online content in coming months, and there is an increasing sentiment that it just doesn't make sense to give away content that should be seen as valuable. Not everybody agrees, however, and over at the UK paper with the most popular website, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has said that his publication will remain free online. Others will undoubtedly stick to a similar course and provide free alternatives, making it harder for those who do charge. Which business model will eventually prove more successful? 

On January 12 last year GlobalPost was launched, a new international news service focused on getting the context behind the headlines, hoping to combat diminishing foreign reporting in the US. Its number of foreign correspondents is second only to the Associated Press and they are expected to provide both text and visual reports.

A year on, and the news outlet has made considerable progress in terms of covering a wide range of international stories, establishing a significant audience, and implementing a successful business model. The Editors Weblog spoke to President, CEO and co-founder Philip Balboni about his first year at the helm of this project.

Balboni was clear that he considered GlobalPost's first year a success. "It has been an extraordinary year, it has exceeded any reasonable expectations that I could have had when I started out on this journey," he said.

"To a large degree, the stories on GlobalPost are ones that you would be unlikely to find elsewhere," said Balboni. As one of GlobalPost's aims was to fill the gaps in the reporting of traditional outlets, this must be satisfying.  The news outlet has also remained true to its original stipulations: its reporting has broad geographic diversity, and consists of a wide range of types of stories and topics.

And much of this reporting has had the potential for considerable impact. Balboni highlighted a recent story on how the Taliban have been taking a cut of funds supplied by the Indiana National Guard to local Afghan contractors for development projects in Afghanistan's Khost province. The issue of the Taliban skimming American aid in Afghanistan is one to which GlobalPost has dedicated much coverage over the past few months.

Such investigative pieces are accompanied by more entertaining reporting, such as an article from Paris about how the French are rediscovering the joy of wearing berets. Correspondents also write ample blog entries.

GlobalPost adopted a relatively unique correspondent model, hiring country-based, part-time reporters who could produce one article a week. The compensation level - a monthly salary plus shares - has proven "very successful" and working for GlobalPost seems to be a popular job: the news service now has correspondents in more than fifty countries and "we have far more people who would want to work for us than we could possibly hire."

The correspondents work with regional editors based in Boston and Balboni said that so far this system has been functioning "with a remarkable degree of smoothness."

Building an audience from scratch

Developing an audience is "really more important than anything else," said Balboni. "We could have the most spectacular content in the world but if you can't build an audience for it then you can't succeed, right?"

The news outlet's highest-traffic month this year was November, when more than 750,000 people visited the site. This exceeded Balboni's goal of 600,000, set before the launch. In addition, "we are retaining more than 50% of all the visitors," he said.

The target for 2010 is to top one million unique visitors, and Balboni mentioned the company's "very sophisticated marketing strategy" aimed at audience building.

Prize partnerships

Building a brand on the web with no support from legacy media has been a considerable challenge, and GlobalPost's partnerships with other high profile brands have been very helpful in doing this, and "particularly important in the validation of GlobalPost as a brand," Balboni said. Such partnerships have helped present the outlet's content as authoritative, and often "raising our visibility is more important than any compensation we might achieve." From the beginning, GlobalPost has sought to present itself as a complement rather than a competitor to newswires and newspapers.

The partnership formed with CBS in September, for example, is a syndication deal, with CBS paying GlobalPost for help with foreign reporting. But having a broadcast news partner was also something that Balboni and his team considered a high priority in terms of brand-boosting, and such a deal "certainly goes beyond" purely syndication. He sees the recent partnership with PBS NewsHour as a "significant achievement" and mentioned that GlobalPost has upped its video production so that it might have the chance to forge other broadcast partnership. 

Compensation is obviously an important consideration, however, and syndication is one of GlobalPost's major revenue streams, the other two being advertising and subscriptions. Currently, advertising comprises about 70% of GlobalPost's income, but Balboni hopes that over time this share will fall to around 50%, with syndication and membership rising to make up the other half.

Passport to premium services

The most unusual of these revenue streams is the subscription, or membership, scheme called Passport. For $99 a year (discounted to $50 for students, academics or seniors), readers can have access to conference calls with GlobalPost reporters, the chance to suggest stories, global and country briefs and newsletters. There is also the option to commission custom research projects, something Balboni said he was "very excited about." One client, for example, has ordered a series of ten reports for the coming year. "It takes careful shepherding but it's very interesting and I think it could scale up to be a meaningful part of our Passport financial strategy," he said.

"I am very bullish on the membership aspect," Balboni said, "I think it's the hardest one but if you want to point to one thing that could be a potential salvation for quality journalism then it's that." He always wanted to encourage a subscription or membership scheme, but explained that as a new little-known media brand it would have been foolish to put up a paywall immediately.
 
Passport does not offer pure paid online content, rather additional editorial services. "My hope and my expectation is that GlobalPost will remain free and open to all but we need to find more effective ways to get all of the people who are most engaged to help support our mission," he said, specifying that GlobalPost was likely to continue to ask for, rather than to require, reader contributions. He does think, however, that it would be "entirely fair" for a news organisation to demand payment.

So far, Passport has 450 - 500 members: "just not enough," according to Balboni. He hopes to increase this by making "a strategic shift in how we market our membership" and by using some new technology starting this spring that will help the membership base and subsequent revenue to grow. Currently, visitors to the GlobalPost site can read about Passport but there is no chance to test it out first and they have to "take a leap of faith" if they want to subscribe, Balboni said.

From a purely financial standpoint, 2009 was "a decent year," especially given the global economic recession. Balboni specified that the $1 million revenue figure that was reported in November was not accurate, but described the amount as "consequential." The company's original business plan projected profitability in 2012, and Balboni thinks this is still likely.

What's next?

GlobalPost seems to have demonstrated that there is an audience for more international news and has set up a structure to cover this that works. As Balboni explained, its challenges now are to build that audience into the millions and (like almost every other news organisation) to shift its business model so that it depends less substantially on advertising.  

Forty-four percent of people using Google News said they only scan the headlines and don't actually go on to the news sites themselves, according to a survey of online U.S. news consumers by research firm Outsell, paidContent reported today. And the more a user checks the news on Google News - "power news users," or those who checks more than twice daily -  the less likely they are to click on a news link.

This study is expected to "provide further ammunition" to content creators who charge aggregators with not sharing ad revenue they make on providing links to news articles, Agence France-Presse noted.

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The New York Times Magazine reported on Sunday that the New York Times was poised to start charging online, citing un-named sources close to the decision-makers. The NY Magazine claims that the paper is looking at a metered system, similar to that adopted by the Financial Times. Reactions from media commentators suggest that the paper should step carefully, however.

Reuters writer Felix Salmon is a big fan of the New York Times' site, and believes that "any kind of paywall implementation is going to result in a deterioration of the experience of using it."

"Making people pay for access will almost certainly scotch the NYTimes.com's position," believes Jennifer Saba of Editor & Publisher. She believes that "AOL, NPR, CNN smell blood and will most certainly angle for those readers to come and read news for free." She adds that it is "baffling" that the NYT is trying to charge online but is giving away its mobile app for free: "why not charge for an app and seed people's behavior now?"

The New York Times is on the verge of charging for its online content, according to the New York Magazine. The paper "seems" to have settled on a metre system, similar to that operated by the Financial Times, and a final decision could come within days, the magazine reported. CNET quoted a Times spokesperson Diane McNulty who said, "we'll announce a decision when we believe that we have crafted the best possible business approach."

The New York Times has been contemplating paid online content for the best part of a year, with a decision originally expected far earlier. It was first suggested that the NYT was looking at a metered system for paid content back in May, along with reports that the paper was considering some kind of membership scheme. This latter idea was abandoned last autumn, sources told the New York Magazine, as it would be too expensive and cumbersome to maintain. 

Income from iPhone apps is nothing to scoff at. The Guardian's app costs £2.39, and the UK newspaper announced it has sold almost 69,000 app downloads since the app's launch in December. At that rate, income from the app alone could reach £1.97 million a year, paidContent reported today.

In the first 48 hours after launching the app, the Guardian made £20,000. It is currently listed in the top 10 news apps on Apple's Web site. However, Apple does get a 30 percent commission, and these figures are before that commission is taken, paidContent pointed out.

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Identify what you can offer that is unique, was Matt Kelly's advice to participants at the WAN-IFRA conference on using sports news to optimise your revenue. Digital content director at the Mirror Group (part of Trinity Mirror), Kelly led the creation of MirrorFootball.co.uk, a standalone football-focused site that has gained the paper new readership.

Kelly explained that despite a successful redesign of the Mirror's website in 2008 which resulted in a significant increase in readership, the implosion in advertising rates meant that he and his team started to think about ways to re-engage with their readers.