Results matching “the business mod 1”

This week, a tax break for newspapers in Washington state went into effect, giving print publications a 40 percent reduction in the state business tax. One lawmaker stressed the tax cut was "not a bailout." It is interesting to note Washington already offered equal exemptions to the aerospace and timber industries, both of which are critical to the state's economy.

In a year which saw the Seattle Post-Intelligencer make the move to online-only and the Seattle Times cut 500 staff members, many publications will welcome any relief they can get. However, others wonder whether the measure will be enough to revive struggling papers and what such aid means for the publications' journalistic independence.

Local and regional newspapers will have the opportunity to further develop the visual content on their online editions, with use of a new multimedia wire service. Tradeclips.com, which launched this week, aims to facilitate the streaming and sharing of online video content between news providers subscribing to the reasonably priced service.  

The service will offer free uploads and downloads of video, audio and still files, for which storage is offered at a fee. Registered users will also have access to a sizeable trove of archived multimedia footage.

The British tabloid, the Daily Mirror has confirmed that it will launch its own stand-alone football website. Mirrorfootball.com will be up and running for the start of the next football season in August.  

Fans of the beautiful game can expect to enjoy a wealth of information and entertainment offered by the site.  As described by the Guardian when the news of the site broke last month, it looks set to offer a predominately visual, up-to date experience of football scene. Video and audio applications will convey live match reports and press conference broadcasts.  A new 'Football Spy" application will present a daily football agenda programme, match previews and reports and transfer talks.  

The Washington Post has decided to cancel its plans to host private, off-the-record dinner parties for political lobbyists at the home of its publisher after criticism from the newsroom at the suggestion that their services were effectively been sold. Publisher Katharine Weymouth was to host dinners that would give paying lobbyists and business leaders access to officials from the Obama administration and Congress, as well as Post journalists.

Politico first reported the story yesterday after obtaining a flier promoting the events that had been given to a healthcare lobbyist. The flier was entitled "Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate" and advertised events with a maximum of 20 guests to discuss major White House policy initiatives, which participating firms could co-sponsor for $25,000 per event, with up to two sponsors per session. There was also an offer for 11 for the price of 10. The theme of the first July dinner was to be health care reform, and WaPo guaranteed the attendance of Obama administration officials and members of Congress as well as reporters.

A new initiative by Associated Northcliffe Digital aimed at small towns in the southwest will introduce 50 hyperlocal sites where community members can write and upload content. The sites are targeted at towns with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants who don't yet have an online news portal to call their own.

Twenty-three of the sites have already launched, including those for Bideford and Redland, while the rest will be up and running by the end of the summer.

Russian news agency, RIA Novosti, is investing in training programmes to improve staff skills as an anti-crisis measure, it was announced in a press release.  

In January and June of this year, the news agency ran a series of lectures and seminars to train staff in multimedia technology for video recording and photo imaging, infographics, Internet search engines, "black PR" and legal risks in the media. The training culminated in two-week multimedia courses held at a summer school in the Moscow region. The classes, which started on June 20, are being held in the form of business games. "While the agency like anyone else is affected by the negative consequences of the economic crisis, we cannot allow ourselves not to invest funds in improving the skills of our staff," RIA Novosti Editor-in-Chief Svetlana Mironyuk said.

In this digital age where technology lends itself to information at one's fingertips, one interactive website shows that American reporters and correspondent wannabes may not find their dream jobs quite so conveniently. That is of course, unless their hometown is Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles or New York.

WANTED Technologies, a site specialized in measuring hiring trends, reports that Los Angeles is by far the most lucrative locality for job-hunting journalists with a total number close to 2,000 who secured jobs in May.  Atlanta and Dallas tied for second place as the safest bets for media related work. Both cities boast 700 sealed deals, with Atlanta's score for supply and demand being slightly higher than in Dallas.

Nieman Journalism Lab's Zachery M. Seward interviewed Spot.Us founder David Cohn about the project's plans for expansion. Spot.Us is an 'experiment' in locally funded journalism, which calls for readers to suggest and fund story ideas about the San Francisco area. Since November, the site has funded and published 20 stories written by freelancers, supported by donations from readers.

Cohn explained to Seward that one of his three-month goals is to replicate the Spot.Us model in other communities, such as Los Angeles or Seattle, or maybe Boston, Philadelphia or New York. To do this would call for "a more careful analysis of what's really required from the organisation," he said. He is currently a volunteer and would probably have to stay that way for some time, the site does not bring in anywhere near enough money to fund a full-time employee.

Would expanding US copyright law to incorporate news articles help protect newspapers from unfair competition online? Several columnists and commentators have come out on both sides of the issue in the past week, raising questions on the role of online aggregators and the efficacy of any action regarding copyright.

First off, US Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner proposed on his blog that copyright law should be changed to "bar access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing online content without the copyright holder's consent." Essentially, that would mean news aggregators like Google News would have to ask permission each time they linked to a newspaper article. Posner argues that traditional media lose so much revenue by these "free riders" reusing content it will eventually drive newspapers out of business.

The British national, the Independent, is launching its own mobile site.  It is the latest in a string of newspapers to recognise the future importance of mobile news and the need to tap into this potentially large market. A mobile site could capture a wider readership and provide an additional flow of revenue for publishers, New Media Age reported.

Bill Swanson, digital MD at The Independent, said:

"The growth of the internet has invoked an enormous change in the world of publishing and now the ubiquity of mobile devices and the evolution of the commercial model surrounding them has finally made the medium a viable one for publishers," he said.

Twitter asks its users one question: "What are you doing right now?" It is a simple enough concept; 'tweeters' answer this question and their response enters the real time feeds of those who follow them, but it is becoming increasingly useful for reporters and papers as the social network attracts more and more users. Essentially, journalists can use Twitter in three ways: to find stories and other information and to track events, to publicise their work, and to connect with readers.

A real time feed of breaking news and thought

Twitter is an extremely useful journalistic resource: reporters can use it to watch for breaking news, follow sources and search for information. "It's like monitoring another wire service," said Robb Montgomery, CEO of Visual Editors. It can be used to get an idea of which topics are attracting interest and what people are talking about right now. There is a list of top 'trending topics' on the Twitter home page. It is a real time search, ahead of even Google in terms of timeliness.

The useful information can sometimes be hard to find amongst multiple messages about what users had for breakfast, or what they thought about last night's TV show, but as Noam Cohen said in Global Journalist "it turns out that when a million people stare at their navels, more than a few of them will also notice that the ground is shaking, the plane is nosediving, the police are shooting." Twitter is particularly relevant during events that involve large numbers of members of the public, and a shining example of its effectiveness arose after a US Airways flight landed on the Hudson River and the first picture of the plane was posted to Twitter by an observer. Online news editor at Sky News Jon Gripton, discussing his reasons for appointing a Twitter correspondent, said "it is effectively another news feed. It helps us source eyewitnesses and photos and other people who are on the scene of an event." It is also crucial for following conferences, for example.

Applications such as Tweetdeck allow users to sort their contacts into groups and to search more and more easily for Tweets on specific topics. The custom of adopting hash-tags to make searching easier has been widely adopted: if a user is tweeting about a particular subject they can add a tag into their tweet, such as #IranElection, #Mumbai, #Gaza. The hash or pound symbol distinguishes the tag from random mentions of the same word, and is a custom developed by Twitter users.

Twitter's fame as a news source grew curing the terrorist attacks on Mumbai last November, and during the ongoing conflict in Iran following the election on June 12, Twitter has come into its own, with those inside Iran using the social network to stay in touch and communicate with the outside world while phone networks are down and many websites are blocked. News outlets turned to the service for the latest updates, as they were forced to abandon the principle of only relying on their trusted sources for information due to what the New York Times described as a "news vacuum."

Questions about the reliability of Twitter have also been highlighted by events in Iran. Clearly, it is impossible to judge the authenticity of Tweets from a non-trusted source. During 'normal' circumstances, a journalist would be able to contact the 'Tweeter' for more details and verification, but that is currently overwhelmingly difficult. Journalists who incorporate news obtained by Twitter into their reporting should always be careful to stress their uncertainty about the source.

Publishing: one-to-many

According to a Harvard Business study, there is a small group of very active Twitter users: it found that "the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets."  Researchers Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski concluded that "Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network": in other words, perfect for journalists looking to publicise their work. It is simple enough to use as a publicising tool: send a link to the story with a Twitter-friendly headline, which should generally be casual and chatty, even more so than web headlines.

It is without doubt a good way to attract extra readers. One of the advantages of Twitter to spread the word is that it is viral, users frequently "re-tweet" the links that they have enjoyed. A CNN breaking news feed, not actually started by CNN but purchased by the news outlet when it gained substantial recognition, was the second Twitter feed to reach one million followers and now has well over 2 million. The New York Times main feed has 1,238,673 followers at time of publishing, and the Guardian has 25,009 on its main feed, though far more on its Guardian Tech account: 782,662. Many news organisations now have multiple Twitter feeds for their different sections. Montgomery stressed the need to "explore" the best policy for your newsroom when deciding whether to stick to one or split them

Some feeds are generated automatically, and for many journalists and bloggers it has become second nature to 'tweet' an article immediately after publishing. Robb Montgomery believes that the "more successful Twitterers have moved beyond auto-tweeting their RSS feed" to make their tweets more personal. "You want to show that there's a real person there."

A social tool for branding

As well as using Twitter as a one-to-many publishing mechanism, journalists can also take advantage of the social element of Twitter, using it to connect with their readers and to receive feedback on articles. It is a contact point between reporter and reader, making the journalist more accessible. "You can run quick polls, get a pulse, get some ideas," said Montgomery. Twitter can be used as part of a journalist's own personal branding, to develop their own network of followers, depending on their personality as well as their reputation as a journalist. This could be particularly helpful for freelance journalists and bloggers.

Newspapers' advice to staff

Many news outlets have become concerned about the way that their employees use social networks such as Twitter. New York Times executive editor Bill Keller called for a "zone of trust" after reporters Jennifer 8. Lee, Michael Luo and Brian Stelter sent 'tweets' on what executives were saying about the how the paper might charge for online content, amongst other things during a staff strategy meeting. Shortly after, the New York Times announced the appointment of social media editor Jen Preston via Twitter. She is to concentrate "full-time on expanding the use of social media networks and publishing platforms to improve New York Times journalism and deliver it to readers," including, it seems, policing Twitter use.

The Wall Street Journal's advice on Twitter in a staff memo is that "business and pleasure should not be mixed" and although "common sense should prevail," staff meetings should not be discussed on social networks. The Washington Post's guidelines also mentions its reliance on reporters' common sense. The AP's new rules tell reporters "Don't report things or break news that we haven't published, no matter the format, and that includes retweeting unconfirmed information not fit for AP's wires."

Embracing Twitter seems to be essential for journalists and newsrooms in today's media landscape. This does not mean that all reporters should be tweeting all day long, and certainly does not mean that they should believe everything they read, but they should familiarise themselves with the site and work out how they want to use it. A newsroom policy might be necessary to encourage or warn journalists with regards to how the paper would like to see it used, and if possible, a social media expert could monitor and coordinate the paper's efforts. It is not necessary for journalists to embrace every aspect of Twitter, but most who try it find something beneficial.

On Tuesday 30 June at 15.00 London time, Robb Montgomery, CEO of Visual Editors will be speaking at a WEF webinar on "How the real time web can improve your newspaper's journalism." More details here.

Who says the younger generation has no interest in traditional media? More than a quarter of Americans aged 18 to 20 reads a daily newspaper, according to the new Nielsen report "How Teens Use Media." In comparison, 45 percent of all adults pick up the paper on a daily basis.

About a third of 18- to 20-year-olds reads the Sunday paper, compared to 50 percent of all adults.

In November 2008, the New York Times' investigative journalist, David Rohde, was taken hostage by the Taliban not far from Kabul, the Afghan capital, where he was conducting research for his book.  His driver, Asadullah Mangal, and local reporter, Tahir Ludin, were also kidnapped. Rohde and Ludin escaped earlier this month and their freedom, say the press, would not have been possible without the self-imposed media blackout.

Thanks to the efforts of New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, for seven months news of the kidnapping did not enter the public domain. Fellow newspapers understood that lives were at stake and nobody was willing to compromise Rohde's safety by breaking the media silence. "But that was pretty straightforward compared with keeping it off Wikipedia," says one New York Times journalist.

The advertising slump for traditional media is here to stay, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, where he was named "media person of the year," Ballmer described the current economic situation for media as a "reset" not a "recession." That means media companies must completely rethink their business models to keep up with the changing landscape of publishing.

Ballmer also faulted newspaper publishers for not doing enough to make money out of their online ventures, adding that Google is the only digital company with a track record for earning significant revenue. And traditional media will have to figure out how to squeeze out revenue from online content soon, as Ballmer predicted all content will be digital in the next 10 years.

Dow Jones & Company and SBI Holdings, Inc. of Japan formalized their joint venture, Wall Street Journal Japan K.K., which will launch a Japanese-language business and financial news Web site later this year. The joint venture agreement was first announced on May 7.

Under a licensing arrangement between Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. and Dow Jones, the new site, carrying The Wall Street Journal brand, will primarily feature Japanese translations of content, including video and other multimedia, from all print and online editions of The Wall Street Journal and those of other Dow Jones publications. Wall Street Journal Japan K.K. also plans to develop mobile products and services in conjunction with the new site.

The Washington Times is hosting a two-day symposium in New York today and tomorrow to discuss the topic of the 'individuated newspaper.' Peter Vandevanter, vice president of the Denver-based Media News Group, coined the term after researching ways that newspapers can resist the threats of the ailing industry.

"There are two kinds of content now. You choose it, or it's chosen for you. The idea here is self-selection of the news, delivered to any platform, at any time," Peter Vandevanter was quoted saying in The Washington Times today.

A tentative contract settlement has been made between the Boston Newspaper Guild and the Boston Globe's parent company, the New York Times Co. Statements released last night after the agreement was reached at about 11pm ET announced that employees had agreed to significant cuts in wages and benefits which would allow the company to achieve $10 million in cost savings.

The tentative agreement includes a 5.94% salary reduction, modifications to contract language on job security and other concessions, said the Boston Newspaper Guild's statement. It also announced that the guild has "negotiated steps to help limit the financial hardship imposed on guild members from the temporary implementation of a 23 percent pay cut." This wage cut will remain until the agreement is ratified by a vote on July 20, after which employees will receive a lump sum payment amounting to partial compensation for lost wages, if the deal is approved.

The latest issue of Courrier International to hit French newsstands gathers translated newspaper articles themed on the uncertain future of the press. From Washington, in a lengthy set of extracts from the New Republic, Paul Starr makes three strong cases for why democracy will be endangered without a newspaper. He hints that American democracy may already have been slighted seeing that national, regional and local newspapers are dwindling in terms of content they can run since printing costs have caused them to scale back on the numbers of pages they print.

He opens his debate by lamenting the fact that Americans have taken [American] journalism (in the form of a printed newspaper) for granted as newspapers have been such an ''integral part of daily life in America, so central to politics and culture and business, and so powerful and profitable in their own right, that it is easy to forget what a remarkable historical invention they are.''

We live in a world, not a village

The directors of international journalism courses talked about the importance of internationalisation and giving students a chance to interact with other students from around the world in a bid to understand the effects of global media in a local context.

According to Eric Scherer at AFP, the future of journalism will lie in enterprising journalists and their efforts to come up with journalistic solutions that will facilitate the communication process and continuously revise the business models in place. He also believes that a new mindset will eventually need to replace the typical journalist's attitude of today, as well as in the value of a broad general knowledge base - something that internationalisation makes possible.

Integrated journalists for integrated newsrooms

Almost everyone present agreed that journalism schools had a duty to train students across all media disciplines, with everyone having the opportunity to learn about print, web, video and audio platforms regardless if they were specialising in newspaper, broadcasting or online journalism.

As for content, the educators had differing views on the importance of choosing a specialist field, with some saying it was important to cater to the needs of the industry and the wider community. Recent outbreaks in bird and swine flu as well as the global downturn were cited as examples of areas where journalistic expertise was lacking, with Doreen Weisenhaus, associate professor at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong, saying there was a great need for health journalists, particularly in Asia, where bird flu was first detected. She also said that as a key financial hub, Asia was calling out for journalists trained in financial reporting. Others made similar points about science and business journalism.

The tabloid press is proliferating at a surprising speed in Serbia, to the extent that the country can claim to be the state possessing the greatest number of titles per habitant.  This development is having interesting repercussions on mainstream reporting style.

The already impressive list of 200 dailies is  increasing with the frequent arrival of new tabloid titles, such as Kurir, Press, Pravda, Alo and Grom.   The wave of new newspapers is somewhat surprising as according to surveys only 9% of the population actually use the press as a information tool. According to the Belgrade based Vreme publication, the privileged position of the tabloid press lies very much in the nature of its contents and its involvement in the forming of public opinion. 

On 19 June, Paris' Sciences Po École de journalisme played host to a selection of the world's leading journalism educators (Chile, China, Denmark, Jordan, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, UK and the USA) who were invited to discuss the "Challenges and Evolution of Journalism Education."

Opening the conference, Bruno Patino, dean of the Sciences PO School of Journalism, said: "The only thing certain is uncertainty," in reference to the news industry, which has seen advertising revenue across developed countries plummet in the wake of the economic crisis and the growing influence of the Internet.

The Washington Post recently took the unusual step of publishing a long investigative reporting piece on a local homicide only on its website, rather than in the print paper. Even though many articles are published online first and then in print, it has become common practice to publish in-depth pieces which are not breaking news in the print paper first, and the Washington Post's move is somewhat of a break with tradition.

The 7,000 word article on the unsolved murder of Robert Wone appeared on the Post's website in two parts, on May 31 and June 1. It is, however, the "sort of long-form reporting that newspaper editors say still justifies print in the digital age," according to the New York Times. And unsurprisingly, keeping the article out of the print edition angered many readers who pay for the newspaper, with comments on the article questioned the move.

As online news becomes more and more prevalent, with an unimaginable amount of information available at users' fingertips and Internet now ranked as US consumers' top way to access their news, how can media organisations make sure that readers find their articles?  Part of the answer is search engine optimisation, which is becoming an essential part of the daily life of a newsroom. For the printed product, newspapers must try to sell the paper as a whole; online, articles can attract traffic individually as readers come across them while searching for specific topics. It is therefore important that each story, rather than simply the site as a whole, is 'optimised' to appear higher in search results. Aside from highly technical aspects like HTML meta tagging, URL structure or site navigation, what can a newspaper do to optimise its content for search engines?

How to introduce SEO to the newsroom

One major potential stumbling block is that journalists might view SEO as a way to manipulate their stories and take away their true value. So the way it is presented to staff is extremely important. And indeed, it is crucial that newspapers do not get carried away with prioritising SEO above all else. Even Google advises creating content "primarily for your users, not search engines:" it is important to make your site easily accessible to search engines but still remain focused on your visitors' needs.

Clearly, it is important for all reporters to be aware of the ways that they can make each individual article more search-friendly. After all, journalists have always wanted their stories to be as widely read as possible, in print as well as online, and are likely to be willing to help make that happen. And often, the principles of SEO echo the principles of writing a good story: such as the idea that the first sentence should be a summary of the rest of the article, containing relevant concepts or keywords. One difference is that less generic, more specific works for SEO in terms of names or concepts. Google recommends shorter rather than longer titles.

Esa Peltonen, who has been working as a web analyst at the largest Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat for three years, said that he has worked extensively with editorial staff, for example on how to use Google, to get an idea of how users will be searching and what kind of search words people are using. Head of audience development at the Telegraph, Julian Sambles, said in March that the paper was trying to give journalists "the knowledge and understanding that they need so they can apply it to their daily production process and make informed decisions about content when they're writing or publishing it." Thinking about SEO should be second nature, he added.

Papers must also consider their goals in optimising content for search engines. As Drew Broomhall, head of search at the Times explained, if you rank success by sheer volume of traffic, then you should "write the same as everyone else but more of it and more frequently updated." However, if you are looking to increase engagement on a specific subject you need more detailed keyword analysis and niche research.

One straightforward course is the need to stay ahead of the trends: predict what people are going to be talking about in upcoming months and provide appropriate content. "Fix SEO requirements into the editorial calendar," Broomhall suggests. Obviously much news is unpredictable, but there are some events that are year-in-year-out, or which are easy to prepare for in advance, such as an election or a festival. It is necessary to consider both specific, distinct events, such as religious holidays, and longer, less defined periods such as winter travel. Articles that contain links and that have been linked to by others appear higher in search results. Therefore, with annual events, it is beneficial to link to last year's coverage and make use of old content that already has inbound links to help promote the new content.

Hiring a SEO specialist?

As well as training all reporters to be aware of the principles of search engine optimisation, many newspapers have taken the step of hiring an in-house specialist. Ideally such a person would have deep technical knowledge combined with considerable journalistic experience, but such candidates might be hard to find. Peltonen comes from a business background, Broomhall from journalism and technology.

There are also many third party services available to news outlets, supplementary to the guidance of an in-house expert, such as Thomson Reuters' OpenCalais which recently announced deals made with the Huffington Post, DailyMe and the Mail Online. OpenCalais offers an 'Archive Express' feature which can tag an archive of up to 20 million documents in 24 hours. The service 'reads' and breaks down articles into their essential elements - who, what, when, where, how - and tags and sorts them so that it is easier to bring archived articles into 'related stories' sections and improve their search relevance.

Analysing traffic

A SEO specialist would be responsible for analysing traffic to a news outlet's site, looking at how readers find content, readership patterns and what methods of optimisation work best. Peltonen explained how he started off looking at basic data such as what are the top news stories, how many people are going where on the site, and started to work out how to increase traffic. His paper partnered with Microsoft to further analyse traffic data. Such traffic data analysis can be used to spot and develop potential niche verticals to focus on, for example, by looking at repeat visitor figures.  

Google keywords

Purchasing Google keywords to guarantee that news articles appear higher on search results is one of the more costly ways for news outlets to promote their content. Peltonen said that his paper frequently buys specific words, for instance for sports events, but stressed that it would be cheaper to improve the paper's SEO. Buying keywords could also raise ethical issues, depending on the words and their context. The Sun, for example, reportedly purchased the key words 'Natasha Richardson' immediately after the British actress's sudden death in March, in what appears to be a blatant attempt to profit from the tragedy. The Guardian came under considerable criticism last August when, apparently accidentally, it purchased the Google keywords "Madeleine McCann," giving any searchers the link to its coverage of the child's disappearance. The Guardian promptly relinquished the rights, and said it would review its list of keywords. Purchasing Google keywords in order to promote a product is common practice, but is it ethical for newspapers?

Evidently, SEO strategies are necessary in today's media landscape, not only to make more money but also to spread awareness of stories and help readers find what they are looking for and therefore should be embraced by journalists and editors as well as publishers. Search engine 'friendliness' should not be prioritised over good, accurate stories but it should be used to promote such content. Journalistic training is vital in order to optimise each individual article, and larger strategic steps should be taken by editors in conjunction with SEO specialists.

On Tuesday 23 June at 14.00 London time, Drew Broomhall, Head of Search at the Times of London will be speaking at a WEF webinar on "How to teach your journalists to write for the web." More details here.

On Wednesday, Clarity Media Group announced that Rubert Murdoch had sold the Weekly Standard to Phillip Anschutz. The Huffington Post was one of the first sources of the rumor that emerged speculating that media groups News Corp. and Anschutz were discussing the transaction, more than ten days ago.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Murdoch may not necessarily "need" the right-wing political magazine, since its editorial tone echoes that of the more influential Wall Street Journal, a publication that Murdoch recently added to his media portfolio.