Recently by Gida Hammami

The Internet is not to blame for the demise of newspapers, says Michael Hickins of The Faster Times. Rather, he believes there are two reasons: the overinflated salaries of editors and online content-makers, coupled with "fraudulent circulation numbers." Articles which have appeared both in print and online blaming free content of the web have often suggested that "even before the recession hit, the newspaper industry was facing a mortal threat from the rise of the internet," (Paul Starr, for The New Republic) and that "the Internet is killing newspapers," (The Economist, May 2009 print edition).

Hickins argues that the news has always been free, citing Jeff Sonderman's theory that the public has never actually paid for the content of a newspaper. Therefore, the fact that consumers are not paying for online news should not be a problem, he claims.

Remember how wonderful and magical it was when the musical motion picture, The Wizard of Oz went from black and white to Technicolor? The New York Daily News is about to undergo a similar transformation when it purchases new color printing presses that will allow the paper that once carried the logo "New York's Picture Newspaper" to print in color from cover to cover. Boston Properties Inc. chairman Mort Zuckerman has raised about $31.6 million in company stock sales to finance the presses, reported Bloomberg. 

"Wait till you see the way this paper is going to look four or five months from now. We are going to once again be able to be the picture newspaper in a way that nobody could have imagined," Zuckerman told Bloomberg.

This just in: Conde Nast will no longer pick up the tab for its staff's newspaper subscriptions, single copy purchases and other expenses racked up on corporate accounts at partner newsstand, Hudson News. Mediaite reports these findings based on a forwarded email that there are to be no more "free newspapers for Condé Nast employees! None." Exceptions may apply if and when staffers cannot retrieve items from the online database or the building's library. Only then can reimbursements be possible. Still, it sounds like the chances of that will be slim to none.

What does this mean? More specifically, how could this potentially effect the print industry? First, the obvious: Conde Nast staffers will have to fend for themselves when it comes to catching up on their reading whether it's for work related purposes or for leisure. But take a minute to ponder the likelihood for staffers to foot their own bill after becoming habituated to being reimbursed.

Despite the fact that the free afternoon/evening daily version of Metro was not met with much enthusiasm from readers and advertisers, John Cameron, managing director of t.o.night was inspired to introduce a similar concept to Toronto after traveling to England and Australia where free dailies are rampant.

The publication, named t.o.night is set to drop Sept. 8. and will cater to the late afternoon and evening rush hour commuters. The initial circulation figure of 100,000 will be distributed in public transit hubs and, just for kicks (and extra attention), a slice of those will be "handed out by paper boys and girls, dressed in poorboy caps and white oxford shirts yelling 'Extra! Extra!'" says Cameron.

Yet another article questioning the value of a journalism education has recently surfaced on the Internet. The Village Voice article entitled, "You Just Graduated from Journalism School. What Were You Thinking?" is not as pessimistic as the headline makes it sound. Rather, it reveals the sunny - yet somewhat cautious - disposition of the millennial generation who recently graduated from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Highly qualified and armed with internships with big-dog multinationals like The Wall Street Journal and some with actual work experience chez MTV, ABC News and Google News, and some of whom having taken to starting their own blogs, the positive attitudes of this mob of aspiring journalists seem justified. There are challenges in their way, like repaying student loans and being obliged to relocate to less competitive markets, but this tenacious bunch refuses to be discouraged.

When the Washington Post launched its first mobile site, it did little more than convert Web material to a format that makes it accessible on a mobile device. Now, the juggernaut is giving their mobile web design a sleeker outfit in order to match its competition, reports the Wall Street Journal.

By the time WaPo launched its mobile site in 2007, the New York Times already had a cool 10 million page views by the end of the same year. Business broadsheet, the Financial Times similarly had some revamping to do. Their iPhone application, which landed this month, allows iPhone users to access the site's bits directly from the button shortcut rather than going through a middleman mobile web browser.

The New York Times has been awarded the Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism grand prize. Winners were announced by the Knight Foundation and J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism at American University's School of Communications last Thursday, Editor & Publisher reported. Six innovations on the NYT's website contributed to its success in wining the $10,000 prize:

Referring to the notion that "checkbook journalism" rules in Britain, the New York Times ponders whether or not "Fleet Street's freewheeling past has prepared British newspapers better than others for the anything-goes ethos of the web." According to the article written by Eric Pfanner, today's newspaper reporting in Britain is reminiscent of an old-school Fleet Street; the editorial decisions they make and the risks they take, while "not always pretty", help to explain why British newspapers are more successful at scoring scoops despite the fact that word tends to travel quicker online than on paper. 

The Guardian.co.uk's Greenslade Blog first reported that the UK government report which was published this week, entitled "Unleashing Aspirations" has prompted action from a social enterprise group, Catch 22, whose aim is to provide discriminated 18 to 30-year-olds with professional work experience. These "excluded" individuals lack experience due to their initial lack of experience stemming on the basis of their ethnicity or lack of funds to get them through school, or both.

The Unleashing Aspirations report suggested that media companies provide grants and loans for aspiring journalists who come from low income households who want to pursuit an internship but cannot afford to accept an unpaid one because of the cost factor or living in cities such as New York or London which are very dense with media associations.

Walt Disney Co., the world's largest media company, is developing a range of subscription-based products to sell access to its movies and television shows online. Bloomberg.com quoted the company's chief executive officer Robert Iger who said smart devices are a way to generate revenue from the Web.

"We have ample evidence both in traditional and new media that people are willing to pay for quality, to pay for choice and to pay for convenience," Iger said at a Fortune magazine sponsored conference in California. "And they are willing to pay for what they perceive as value."

The Mail Online, website of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, came top out of UK newspaper sites in terms of unique visitors in June, reported Journalism.co.uk and others. According to the UK Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic Mail Online increased its unique users by 19.2% to a total of over 29.3 million. Following closely behind is The Guardian with 28,966,942 unique users.

The Guardian reported that Mail Online was able to scoop up 5 million more users then the previous month thanks to major news events, like Micheal Jackson's untimely death as well as the uneasy elections in Iran. This was an 83% boost compared to the same month last year.

"We're in a transitional period," says Tina Brown. Brown was speaking to the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal about the shift from traditional to digital media while in Chicago for BlogHer '09, a women's blog conference. Brown is a former editor for the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, both published by Conde Nast. She is now in charge of the The Daily Beast, the online news mag she started in late 2008. Trading in paper for pixels has facilitated her transition from old media to digital media. The numbers don't betray her; The Daily Beast has attracted millions of uniques - 2.1 million - according to June stats, even if those figures do not translate into revenue, yet (more on that later).

True, Brown's expertise comes largely from magazines, but the magazine milieu is experiencing the same slips in ad revenue and print readership is declining in favor of free, interactive online content. Instead of resisting this transition, as she states that many in her pre-digital generation (she is 55) tend to do, one must not be discouraged when witnessing the printed paper become defunct. Print may be stepping down from being the top source for news, but it is not a cause worth focusing on.

It's not news that in order to break into the news industry, one must take it upon themselves to complete an internship. Trouble is, journalism is somewhat of a financially exclusive profession to enter. A UK government report, published yesterday, called Unleashing Aspirations suggests that media companies provide grants and loans for interns who come from lower socio-economic classes.  Many of today's less well-off young people cannot accept unpaid internships because of the cost factor or living in cities such as New York or London which are very dense with media associations.

The NUJ (National Union of Journalists) told the panel that a Journalism Training Forum poll in 2002 revealed that fewer than 10 per cent of new entrants to journalism came from a working class background and just three per cent came from homes headed by semi-skilled or unskilled workers.