Results matching “finance local news content”

The launch of a cross-party select committee's investigation into the future of newspapers in the UK today was overshadowed by the ominous prediction that half of the nation's local and regional papers will be lost within the next five years.

The predictions are based on research conducted by the media analysts, Enders Media.  Its founder, Claire Enders, voiced her concerns in front of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee this morning:  

"We are expecting that up to half of all the 1,300 titles will close in the next five years."  

In the last few days, the top trending topic on Twitter has been "Swine Flu" (with "Mexico" in third). Thousands of blog posts mentioned the outbreak and Google reported that "Swine Flu Ohio, " "CDC" and "Swine Flu Symptoms" were in the top 100 searches. The news has spread faster than the epidemic itself, breeding a paranoia more severe and contagious than the actual disease.

British papers exemplify how the news creates a "pandemic" by publishing the swine flu as more severe than it really may be. Several tabloids purposefully generate fear in the public with phrases like "Prepared for the Apocalypse" in the Independent or, The Express with, "around a third of all humans could easily die off" as it compares swine flu to the black plague, SARS and the avian virus.

Though InDenverTimes.com is growing in staffers, adding six more to its original 30, it might not reach its goal of 50,000 paying subscribers by April 23. After the closing of the Rocky Mountain News, former staff members announced their intention to launch an online-only publication on May 4 provided it could garner enough subscribers.

Subscription numbers have not been released, but organizer Kevin Preblud hinted that the staff might proceed with the launch regardless of whether they meet their goal, saying that the venture could gain more subscribers once the site's features become available to users. "It's likely we will succeed in our goal to launch May 4," he said.

Spot.Us is an innovative new sight that recently won funding and support from the highly respected Knight Foundation. It is garnering much attention as the concept essentially transforms the idea of community reporting and reinvigorates investigative reporting on a local level. However, would it be attracting this much support and attention if the newspaper business model weren't struggling?

The concept

Spot.Us allows anyone to send in a story idea to the site as long as it is a local issue affecting the San Francisco Bay area. Spot.Us calculate how much it would cost to investigate said story and the ideas is then "pitched" on the site, if other users of the site support the story idea then they can donate money to pay for a freelance journalist to cover it. It is then published on the site and other news organisations can publish it as well. The point being, some stories that are interesting to the public are being ignored by news organisations, this is an opportunity for the public at large to read a story that they want written about. The public becomes the editor.

Spot.Us deserves credit for coming up with an innovative way of bringing journalism back to the community and reinvigorating local investigative reporting. Furthermore, it is an original concept that has won the support of not only the Knight Foundation, but also Jeff Jarvis and other significant names in the journalism community.

Will the public pay?

While Spot.Us is undoubtedly exciting, there does appear to be some issues with the concept. For example, the organisation is currently garnering a lot of press attention and is therefore very much in the public eye, but what happens after the media attention dies down? Will people continue to visit the site: how will they maintain public interest?
 
Furthermore, it will be very difficult for Spot.Us to maintain its integrity and not be manipulated by outside groups who want certain stories investigated for their own agenda. It may be difficult for it to stop itself becoming little more than part of a lobbying machine for various interest groups.

The Editors Weblog spoke to David Cohn - the CEO and sole employee of Spot.Us - about these issues and the thinking behind his project.

EW: If newspapers were not suffering financially in the US, do you think there would still be a place in the market for an organisation such as yours?
 
DC: I do think there would be a place for an organization such as mine - but I don't think it would be as urgent. Part of what Spot.Us does is democractize the media by allowing the audience to determine the news agenda. Traditionally .001 percent of the population determined the news agenda, we called them "editors." But with Spot.Us the public can set the news agenda because now they have a freelance budget as well.

EW: Do you have any guidelines on what you will or will not investigate or write about, eg, an oil company wants you to write a piece proving that oil drilling doesn't hurt the environment?

DC: Yes: They aren't guidelines but categories that all pitches have to fall in. This was to ensure that we don't get pitches that aren't civic journalism. The categories are education, environment, city government, public health - etc.

EW: How will you maintain Spot.Us's integrity, to stop it from being used as a tool for lobby groups or marketing?

DC: We have an algorithm that required a diverse group of people to support a story or it does not make it on to our homepage as a pitch. Right now my algorithm is very simple, firstly, the site is new and I have a small pool of people visiting the site in general. As the site becomes more popular it is just a matter of tweaking the algorithm to ensure that you always have a diverse group of people.

EW: Is this something that you are aware of?

DC: It is something that I am very aware of. I would say I am concerned about it. I understand the concern and the fear...

But I am more concerned that we are going to find out that the public are just not going to donate at all, that's the fear. People think that they're going to be clambering, we will have to build bridges so that we slow them down they are going to be donating so much money towards our work. I think it is actually going to be the opposite and that we are going to have to do a lot of outreach to try and find people who would benefit and see the public good of donating to journalism.

EW: There is a lot of media attention surrounding your organisation right now, but how you are going to maintain that when, say, the interest in your organisation has died down from the media perspective. How will you maintain interest with the community?

DC: We are going to be doing some community organising. This is where it gets interesting right? So, like the San Francisco Commutative campaign that we did over the summer and we raised $2,500 from 74 different people who gave $34 each. If we were to do that again next year, the first thing I would do is go to the League of Women Voters. It's an organisation with a branch in San Francisco and say they have - I am just guessing here - 1,000 members in the bay area, they have a large group of people who would be interested in fact checking for the political adverts and I can go to the League of Women Voters and say, "Hey, can you help go and spread the word about this to." Then they spread the word to their members, and say even 30 of them thought it were a good idea and donated $25 each. That is a decent amount of money right there. That and also social networking and things like that.

EW: Are you going to try and build a relationship with the local media?

DC: Yes, definatly. If there is a pitch that a local newspaper would be interested in running, they have a vested interest in seeing community members donating towards it so they could help spread the word about the pitch.

EW: Can you explain how you monetise Spot.Us?
 
DC: The same way that Kiva.org monetizes their site. If somebody is donating $25 then all of their money goes to where they want it to go, but before they are done with the transaction we also ask that they donate 10% or $2.50 to the nonprofit organization that is Spot.Us. This extra 10% is optional. Kiva.org does the same thing and they found that something close to 90% of people will go ahead and give the extra 10% to the organization.

EW: What inspired you to set up Spot.Us?

DC: A few things. First - I was a freelance journalist for a long time and I know how hard it can be to make it as such. I wanted to create tools that enabled freelancers to do their job easier.

I was also the research assistant for a guy named Jeff Howe who was writing a book on "Crowd sourcing." I was researching for the chapter on Crowd funding and I began to learn about sites like Kiva.org and DonorsChoose.org. These are micro-finance sites for teachers or for people in third world countries. They are hugely successful. I wondered if it would be possible for journalist to also tap into the gift economy, which in America was $300,000 billion last year.

I have worked in citizen journalism in the past. I love it and strongly believe in it - but I also know the limitations of citizen journalism. I wanted to find a way that journalism could be participatory but also stretch to do some of the harder journalism that requires professionals to stick to a story for a longer period of time.

EW: Can you talk me though how you organise your staffers?
 
Spot.Us is not a newsroom. It is a platform or Internet tool. All pitches on Spot.Us are from freelance journalists in the Bay Area. They are not staff reporters for Spot.Us.

EW: How big is your team and how do you contact the editors

DC: I am the only staff person on Spot.Us. The developers and designers are contractors. All the pitches you see on Spot.Us are from independent freelance journalists - and are contractors. We assign an editor to each story - but the editor is just another journalist within our system. Again, Spot.Us is NOT a newsroom or news organization as traditionally understood. We are a platform. Just as YouTube is not a film production company, but they host video, Spot.Us is not a content producing organization, but we host the production of content.

EW: What technology is powering the platform you are using?
 
DC: The site is built with Ruby on Rails. I was thinking about using Drupal but in the end used Ruby on Rails and so far I am very happy with that decision.

The development firm is called Hashrocket. My hosting service is Engine Yard.
 

24/7 Wall St. has looked at the top 25 US newspapers and ranked their online business and finance sections, on an A-F scale.

Business and finance sections were selected because advertisers are often willing to pay a premium for space in a section read by readers "(that) have money that the readers of the sports sections may not." Given the readership and advertising potential, this should presumably be one of the best online sections of a news site.  

Overall, the results indicate there is room for improvement, with the news sites receiving a median grade of B-. 24/7 Wall St. reported many of the sites were difficult to navigate, lacked on content and were poorly designed. Of one they commented the site, "appears to have been designed giving no thought to the fact that the reader is looking at content on the internet and not in a newspaper. "

Yet among the 25, several stood out as having used their resources well to create straightforward site navigation, quality design and content - particularly content which catered to their readership, and foster interactivity through blogs, video and online forums.

Among the best, The Houston Chronicle was noted for excellent navigation, relevant blogs and columns and mix of major stories from wire services, coupled with "local touches like the Houston Stock Index and several Top 100 features." The St. Petersburg Times was also a stand out, with superb graphics and lay-out and interactive features on local companies.

Robb Montgomery commented earlier this year that in moving our focus online, "We are in a transition and transitions are bumpy and disorienting." Montgomery advises that digital journalism needs to be seen (and created as) its own product, unique from both traditional print journalism and traditional ways of consuming film and television.

Sources: 24/7 Wall St.

Must-read. AJR's Senior Editor Carl Sessions Stepp has noted that while news remains as valuable as ever, journalism is certainly changing as daily newspaper circulation has declined every year since 1987.

Is it time for newspapers to panic? It could be, had Stepp not come up with an expansive list of very good editorial and business ideas for newspapers.

Instead of cutting everything, from staff to newspaper sections, Stepp argues that newspapers should be creating a product that is high quality and indispensable. Journalists need to embrace arriving technologies and make their articles more exciting. But how?

Here's a list of Stepp's ideas, more or less in his words, that could help newspapers recapture "domination of the overall information market":

-  A four section daily paper with journalists and readers sharing and discussing news together.
Section 1: a "dynamic, definitive guide" to local news featuring digests, analysis, listings, links, columns and audience contributions; excerpts and synopses of top content appearing elsewhere; and an annotated guide to the top material concerning international, national, regional and local news, sports, business and arts.

Section 2, the most important local, national, and foreign news, fully updated and differentiated from earlier Web copy.

Section 3, an in-depth package that changes everyday, which would present serious, investigative, quality journalism, not available anywhere else.

Section 4, all the expected features from crosswords to comics, plus new ones including reader creations.

- An online information superstructure built around a double home page, with an easy toggle back and forth: one screen for an orderly display of news and other content, the other a portal-type screen offering a master index of anything useful and appropriate for your audience, with more choices, more services and a nontraditional license to experiment.

- A new, more conversational tone, both online and in print, including staff and outside blogs, behind-the-scenes essays from staff members and a higher proportion of analysis and explanation.

- Archives and galleries with a more user-friendly format like Google or Yahoo! that cluster content by precinct, neighborhood or topics. Searches that index advertising or searches programmed to answer questions such as where a movie is playing or when the school board will meet.

- Expanded interactive guides to movies, shows, concerts, galleries and other arts, with amazon.com-like reader reviews and interaction.

- Real-time online traffic and weather blogs.

- Contests every day for the funniest, weirdest, most helpful or most outrageous local images, audio and video.

- Tournaments, online and in-print, pitting local individuals and teams against one another in solving puzzles, predicting sports or election outcomes..

- Online book clubs and discussion groups on local sports, religion, relationships and more.

- Original uploaded programming, in which readers Web-cam their neighborhood news, read political commentary, offer Leno-like stand-up comedy bits on the news and debate key local issues.

- A complaint forum, directed toward local government or business, in which editors or audience choose which questions have merit and pose them to local authorities.

- A local records center, providing agendas and minutes of every significant meeting in your area; text or links to as many public records as feasible; and your homemade community databases such as local sports stats, crime maps, home values or restaurant menus.

- Greater capitalization on the treasures of your archive; readers can develop and download scrapbooks featuring every article, photo or other mention of themselves and their families in your library; or publication and sale of special in-depth or feature reports drawing on your archives and research capabilities.

- A help-needed feature, a sort of super-classifieds, that lets readers pose questions, seek products, evaluate services and possibly engage in transactions from which you share the profits.

- Moderated forums and advice segments for personal finance, health, travel and other subjects.

- New products and revenue sources: frequent-visitor points, premium services (such as customized news delivery, conferences featuring star journalists, first crack at ads and coupons, local discounts), neighborhood magazines, daily auctions (lunch with the editor!), grants from nonprofits, vastly upgraded searching services and search-related ads, customized magazine and book-length reports on key topics.

- Staging regular creativity meetings throughout the news organization and in the community.

- Hosting an ongoing online suggestion box with prizes.

- Spend real money by giving $100,000 to three or four of your smartest people and challenge them to design something breathtaking.

Read Stepp's article for more of his ideas.

Source: AJR

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.

Last week, popular website Backfence.com, a collection of citizen journalism websites, suffered a significant drawback. CEO Susan DeFife resigned and 12 of the 18 employees were laid off. Is it already time for the recession of local new media?

"Broadly speaking, there are three factors that need to be considered by the print media – the consumer’s need for uninterrupted entertainment, the advertiser’s need to reach out to its TG and the need of the medium to deliver relevant content", said Pradeep Guha, member of directors board at DNA, an English-language newspaper, and CEO of Zee Telefilms at yesterday's seminar on "The Future of Print Media", reports agencyfaqs!. Guha underlined that newspapers will have to connect to young people if they want to survive.

According to its press release, Meximerica Media, a U.S-based Spanish-language newspaper publisher, announced today the launch of Rumbo (pronounced room-bo), a new network of Spanish-language daily newspapers throughout the United States. The first four publications will be distributed beginning at the end of the second quarter of 2004 in select Texas locations including Houston, San Antonio, Austin... The newspaper design is being led by Roger Black of the US-Mexican firm Danilo Black. Meximerica Media has been acquired by Recoletos Grupo de Comunicacion S.A, one of the major media group in Spain.