Results matching “daily post launch re”

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.

This week, independent regional business news website, TheBusinessDesk, launched a third regional edition in Birmingham today with Marc Reeves as its new editor, Press Gazette reports.

Reeves, the former editor of the business and public affairs daily, the Birmingham Post, left the newspaper in January after it was turned into a weekly. His new position will place him in direct competition with his old paper.

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.

For more on this story, please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com

Le Groupe Figaro, owners of French daily newspaper Le Figaro, have recorded good results in 2009, Tarif Media reports.  

The group's websites include news website Lefigaro.fr, culture and entertainment website Evene.fr, and sports website Sport24.fr, and others. These sites posted total revenue up by 11% at the end of October.

CNN.com has revamped its international website today with a greater focus on video and photography and less text clutter. The redesign comes as many news organisations, including the BBC, attempt to keep their homepages up-to-date with changing technologies, the advanced capabilities of the Internet and a general shift in the way people consume news today.

Speaking about the new presentation, Nick Wrenn, CNN's vice president for digital services said: "It's a design change that gives us a more contemporary look, with a new focus on video that brings the site to life."

The Wall Street Journal has announced a growth in its daily circulation with figures presented to the Audit Bureau of Circulations showing a 0.6% increase compared to the same six month period last year.  

The modest rise means the paper is now the top circulating U.S daily after previous number one, USA Today, recorded its worst year ever with a 17 percent drop in circulation.

Reuters reports that the success of The Wall Street Journal is a result of 'ongoing investment that Dow Jones has made in the franchise during the past few years. This growth combined with increased subscription rates has led to an increase in total circulation revenue of 10.1% to the Journal year-over-year.'

Italian newspaper La Repubblica has been sued by the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, for asking questions about his conduct which, the premier's lawyers claim, implicitly defame Berlusconi. The left-leaning daily started its campaign for answers to ten questions from the prime minister in May, when discrepancies started to emerge over his account of his relations with the now well-known 18 year-old Noemi Letizia, and the questions have evolved as rumours of scandals surrounding Berlusconi have developed.

La Repubblica editor Ezio Mauro declared in an editorial that "This is the first time that, in the memory of a free country, a politician takes a lawsuit because of questions that were asked of him." The paper is promoting a petition to protest the lawsuit, which it believes "can only be interpreted as an attempt to silence the free press." It has been signed by the FT's Lionel Barber, the Guardian's Alan Rusbridger, the Sunday Times' John Witherow and the Independent's Roger Alton, as well as Liberation's Laurent Joffrin, Javier Moreno at El Pais and Sueddeutsche Zeitung's Hans Werner Kilz. It has been reported, however, that no Italian editor is on the list.

In advance of his appearance at the WEF conference The 2015 Newsroom in Prague next week where he will be giving the keynote speech, Mauro gave the Editors Weblog an insight into his thoughts on the situation.

Editors Weblog: Berlusconi's well-known dominance of the broadcast sector of the media could undoubtedly be seen as a threat to press freedom. But until recent events, have newspapers managed to stay relatively free of his influence?

Ezio Mauro: The real anomaly is the control of the entire television universe, which is completely in the hands of the leader of a party and of the government, who controls three channels by ownership, and three by his political position. This allows for a continual adaption of the editorial landscape - eliminating inconvenient topics, or rendering them incomprehensible. For newspapers it is different, though the influence of the power of the government on the economic and financial establishment (which owns the newspapers) is very still strong. Whoever criticises the government is by definition isolated. Television channels do not launch investigations or questions. In this context, it is difficult for a type of true public opinion to form and grow that is both informed and aware.

EW: Do you think that there are more fundamental press freedom problems than Berlusconi himself in Italy?

EM: I am not talking about press freedom. I am talking about the right of citizens to know and understand, therefore to be informed: and of the duty of newspapers to inform. It is regarding this right and this duty that there are problems today.

EW: To a foreigner, Italian newspapers appear more ostensibly partisan than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. Do you think that is true, and if so do you think this could be one of the reasons they become vulnerable to political attack?

EM: Was the Washington Post partisan during the Watergate investigation? I believe that the lies and contradictions of those in power open a space that journalism must fill. My objectives are not political, but journalistic, even if we are a newspaper with a clear centre-left leaning. As there is now also a right-wing press, the pluralism of newspapers is wide. Then there are dailies and weeklies that by ownership are part of the Berlusconi world, that is, a system that puts together government, party, agenda and media. Again, something that is unheard of elsewhere in the Western world.

EW: With regards to the Feltri/Fini case: do you think the stance that Il Giornale is taking with regards to house speaker Fini's actions is appropriate for a newspaper?

EM: It is a case of character assassination, as everybody has said... This attack is a punishment and a warning, making us understand the risks we should not take. Journalism, as is evident, is nothing to do with it.

EW: Is there a fear that a type of self-censorship amongst journalists could arise as a result of the threat of prosecution?

The threat of multi-million euro lawsuits brought by the richest, most powerful man in the country certainly is a form of intimidation. But attention: much more intimidating is blackmail and threats of the political-journalistic 'kombinat' using 'dossiers', invented on anonymous pieces of paper (the Boffo case) maybe even the use of secret service bombs. A frightened power wants to spread the fear, and for this he uses his newspapers. But a question arises: can you govern a democracy in the heart of Europe in 2009 by substituting policy with 'dossiers', authoritativeness with intimidation, leadership with threats and blackmail?

EW: As well as the petition on your paper's website, what action does La Repubblica intend to take in the coming weeks to raise awareness of the situation?

EM: We will inform. Report the news. Ask questions. What journalists in 'normal' countries do.

EW: Have you come across or do you expect expressions of solidarity from other Italian or European newspapers?

EM: I have read expressions of solidarity and awareness of the Italian case on the part of editors of European newspapers, all the most important, even if I have not spoken with any of them (except the editors of El Pais and Liberation during a forum in Lyon last week). Nothing else.

EW: How has the conflict with the prime minister affected La Repubblica's readership?

EM: The number of readers has grown considerably in the last three or four months. Emails and letters have also been flooding in.

EW: Assuming that there is a press freedom problem in Italy, what steps do you think must be taken to resolve it?

EM: It is necessary to resolve the conflict of interest of the head of state, to free the television system from the influence of all parties, and to ask the government to respond to public opinion. He might be able to get away with not replying to a single newspaper, but to the problems that he raises, and to the questions, he must answer.

EW: Your paper is being sued by the prime minister. Do you think he will be successful?

EM: No, I don't believe so.  

With the government's introduction of gross profits tax in the U.K., the gambling industry is enjoying a rise in profits - which is not reflected in racing's dwindling share of the market, reported the Independent.

Sales of the Racing Post, a daily publication dubbed the "horseracing bible", are currently down at around seven per cent year-on-year, forcing the publication to include listings on anything from reality TV shows to politics in a bid to generate revnue. According to Alan Byrne, the Racing Post's chief executive; "If you can bet on it, we report it and analyse it and would attempt to provide statistical basis for that analysis," thus drawing parallels between the niche role of the publication with that of financial papers, commenting; "rather like the FT we are analysing data and focusing on a series of markets. In our case they happen to be horse races, the Premiership or even The X Factor".

A new investigative journalism project, InvestigateWest, has been set up by a group of journalists who worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which went online-only and shed many of its staff earlier this year. The new site aims to provide "high-quality investigative journalism about environmental, health and social justice issues across the West," according to a press release.

InvestigateWest is nonprofit and will produce work for online, print and radio and TV stations. It will distribute its multimedia content through individual partnerships with media organisations and through its own syndicated service. A core group of six journalists, who between them "have won or been finalists for every significant national journalism award for investigative and narrative work," will be supplemented by a network of correspondents throughout the West.

Arizona's oldest community newspaper, the Tucson Citizen, finally printed its last edition on Saturday with the headline: "Our epitaph". Owner Gannett Co. had initially threatened to close the newspaper back in March, bu this was delayed when two potential buyers came forward. Unfortunately, negotiations fell through and unable to find a buyer, Gannett has proceeded with the closure.

The Bangor Daily News has announced its intention to launch a free weekly newspaper from May 21st. Entitled the Midcoast Beacon, the publication is based on a Bangor-based paper called the Weekly, also published by the News. It aims to target 43,000 Maine residents and businesses via post, and will also have an online component.

Executive editor of the News, Mark Woodward, explained that the Beacon is "designed to reach a broad audience in a targeted geographic area". Given the current well-publicised struggles of the US industry, the launch of the Beacon could be seen as a very small light at the end of the tunnel.

Source: Editor & Publisher

This June the Chicago Tribune will launch a new website, Chicago Now, which will combine social media, e-commerce, blogs, news content, and advertorials to "connect Chicagoans through a network of niche sites." According to its promotion video, the project will be "Huffington Post meets Facebook for Chicago" and aims to attract new local audiences who will engage with each other as well as advertisers.

Chicago Now does not intend to replace ChicagoTribune.com, which will continue, though it will replace the Tribune's web site for RedEye, its free daily targeted to a young urban audience. The new site's goal is to build an authentic and engaged local community quickly and to secure 35% of local web traffic.

Following the launch of an English-language paper recently launched by the Chinese government, a monthly newspaper for English-speaking expatriates in France is due to launch in June. Nicki Wade aims to make The French Post a paper that will enlighten expats with "what's being debated around French dinner tables." The ex-Emap publishing director has chosen Michael Streeter, a former news editor of the Independent on Sunday and other UK dailies, to edit the new paper.

About 40 former members of the Star-Leger staff who took buyouts last fall, joined together to launch newjerseynewsroom.com. "We had started talking about doing this even before the buyouts were made," said Matt Romanoski, former deputy sports editor at the New Jersey daily.

It has been two weeks since the website launched and it receives 10,000 page view per week. The only advertising so far is from Google. Newjerseynewsroom.com focuses on news that pertains to the state of New Jersey and any other news that may interest its residents. There are also links to other news sources, which include the Star-Ledger itself.

Even though newspapers are closing in some parts of the world, new ones are opening in others. Both Zimbabwe and Taiwan are expecting new papers to open in 2009 hoping to promote freedom of speech, spread the news as it is and also generate new jobs.

This week the New York Times launched two new hyperlocal news sites entitled The Local in New Jersey and in Brooklyn, each supervised by an NYT staff member with content provided by local citizen journalists. According to the Local sites, they will provide "news, information, entertainment and informed conversation about the things that matter to you, your neighbors and your family, from bloggers and citizens who live, work and create in your community -- as well as journalists from The New York Times."

Senior editor of Editor and Publisher Joe Strupp, who reported last week on the launch of the local sites, discusses the New Jersey site in an article yesterday. The Local covers three communities in New Jersey, including Maplewood, the town where Strupp and his family reside. The Maplewood site provides daily updates by local residents and includes children's artwork, comments, and photos.

As the financial climate forces many local newspapers to cut jobs or shut down, news teams search for a rescue solution. Many publications are debating the non-profit model and the micropayment model to sustain newspapers. One of the latest ideas to save the newspaper is community ownership or the so-called Packers model, named for the Green Bay Packers, the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States.

The Packers model idea and the metaphor were proposed in January by Jonathan Golob in an article of the Stranger as a solution to save the Seattle Post-Intelligencer after Hearst Corporation announced plans to sell the publication. Golob stresses that he does not think a city government should own a paper, just as the city of Green Bay does not own the Packers, but rather have many shareholders, each only owning a few shares of the paper.

Unlike many major newspapers across Europe and the United States who are jumping on the integration bandwagon, Le Figaro has kept its print and online operations separate and intends for them to stay that way. It is, however, working hard to develop its website and keep up with online trends, as well as investing in printing plants. The Editors Weblog spoke with Bertrand Gié, Director of the department of new media at Le Figaro and Luc De Barochez, Editor in Chief at Figaro.fr, to get a better understanding of the paper's unique strategy for print, online and new media.

Strategy: Le Système Figaro

According to De Barochez, Le Figaro is unique because integration is not its objective, it has no interest in fusing print and online together.  De Barochez explained that it was a matter of specializing in two different types of media; to him print journalism is something entirely different from online journalism.  "We think that the web journalists have a specific job, that the Internet is a specific media and it's a new type of journalism that is developing - a multimedia journalism. Journalism for the daily paper is something completely different," De Barochez told the EW.  At Le Figaro, although print and online journalists work closely together, they remain independent of one another.

Investing in print    

This separation echoes the universal strategy of Le Figaro; they believe in both media and strongly support the development and integration of new media and their website, however they also believe that print is a core foundation of the brand.  Gié confirmed this belief when he described the construction of a new printing plant in the north of France due to open in September of this year.  Last year they completed a new plant in the south of France; their aim this time around is to recreate the same thing in the north, but also allowing them to "produce a brand new Figaro with a new format, and significantly reduce printing hours."

Gié went on to explain what a monumental investment this is; "In an epoch where everyone talks only of online editions and the disappearance of paper, we are, without a doubt, the only group in France to have constructed two new ultra-modern plants.  So it is very important to understand that there is a strong investment in new media, but that doesn't mean that the paper is dead."  Of course, as Gié confirmed, there is a lot of work involved in making a paper profitable while retaining its high quality, "there were a few layoffs in 2008, but that's doesn't signify the end of the paper, we are not abandoning our paper, absolutely the opposite."

Newsroom

The newsroom of Le Figaro's paper edition is made up of nearly 300 journalists, while just 30 work for the online edition. De Barochez described the layout of the web newsroom: it is a large open space is divided into four sections, economy and finance, women, sport, and news (which covers everything else, including managing the homepage).  The online newsroom is in the same building as the daily paper, allowing them to communicate easily with the print journalists.

The website

Figaro.fr was relaunched in 2005, before then, according to Gié, "it basically didn't exist," with only five people working on the site and no clear strategy of how to develop the content.  Now, Figaro.fr is the number one site in France with 5.3 million unique visitors per month, leading second place Le Monde with 4.4 unique visitors monthly.  Gié explained that the goal was for the site to be the biggest and most comprehensive portal, so they combined all of the sites and publications of the Figaro Group on Figaro.fr.  

Together but not connected

According to De Barochez, much of the online content comes from the print version and magazines owned by Le Figaro.  Although the print and online journalists work separately, they collaborate fairly often.  The print journalists are not required to write for the website and have the choice to place their articles online or not.

 De Barochez explained the different ways in which the work of print journalists goes online. Firstly, an article written for the print version could be simply reproduced online.  Secondly, when exclusive, breaking news is obtained by a print journalist, they would collaborate with the online department in order to put the news up quickly.  They write a short summary and go back and produce a more in-depth analysis.  A third possibility concerns Le Figaro's online video content, which is all created and edited in-house at its television and editing studio.  For example, a print journalist will interview a person for an online video, or a print journalist will be interviewed on a certain subject that he or she is a specialist in.

Integration

Gié acknowledged that building the website and all of its content was a lot of work, but they did it "step by step," never forcing print journalists into the realm of new media, rather allowing them to voluntarily adapt and work in collaboration when they wished.

Gié maintains that the key to successfully integrating the site into the daily workings of the newspaper was to produce a high quality website that remained independent from the print version.  "We were able to make a good site on our own and slowly we have introduced it to the print journalists and they have grown to accept it as part of the paper."  According to Gié, as of today still not all print journalists contribute to the website, but most of them are drawn to the quality of the site and they are "eager to participate."

The other new media: E-papers and Mobile technology

As for the electronic newspaper, Gié believes (for now) it is a niche technology, and "as long as the designs remain as they are, a little heavy, in black and white, with a navigation system that is not very intuitive, it will remain a niche technology - for businessmen and for people who travel."  But, he finds the e-paper to be a technology that has the potential to develop into something very interesting for newspapers.

Gié believes that mobile phones are "very different, because traffic on mobiles is very important," and there have been significant improvements in mobile technology in the last few years.  Before, all the "operations and platforms were locked by the operators, you had to pass through the operators, it was complicated and expensive."  But now, there are mobile sites and portals that are designed for mobile users and allow them to easily access content online.  According to Gié, because of this, Le Figaro's iPhone site now has an audience of over 100,000 per month and growing since its launch.

Social Networking with Mon Figaro

Gié explained that interaction with readers is key at Le Figaro.  So in 2007, Le Figaro became the first mainstream news site in France to open all of its articles to comments.  Because it worked so well, with over one million comments on the site in the first year, they realized that it was a system that was very important to their readers - their ability to express themselves and interact with the content.  

They also realized that "people really wanted to communicate amongst themselves, and they started to communicate with each other and we really wanted to give them the tools to better manage their commentary."  So in November 2008, Le Figaro launched social networking tool Mon Figaro using a basic platform, which allows "users on Figaro.fr to place other users as favorites and to follow their activities."  Gié confirmed that 2009 will bring additional developments to Mon Figaro.

Personalized News

Gié believes that personalized news is "important but not fundamental."  For the last two years, Le Figaro has been allowing readers to personalize their page through Net Vibes.  However, Gié feels that because there is so much information on the Internet, it is hard for users to select what is worth reading.  For the most part, they select who is going to organize and sort the information for them, in most cases a trusted site like Le Figaro or The New York Times.  Otherwise, they have to select and find the information themselves, which is always  time consuming.  Gié sees Le Figaro's online role as a trusted brand that "provides news based on the notion that our readers want us to select it for them."

Le Figaro's active development of both its print product and website is admirable, and it will be interesting to see whether the paper maintains its separated operations or follows the example of other high profile papers such as the Washington Post, the Guardian, and El Pais, who, after initial reluctance, eventually caved in and integrated their newsrooms. 

To say the least, 2008 proved a difficult year for newspapers in many nations. Rising printing and distribution costs, waning circulations and fragmented audiences continued to challenge a business model that seems increasingly outdated. And despite many promising advancements made by newspaper companies in Internet and mobile, revenues remain far behind those of print.

But the news is far from all negative. Below is some food for thought for newsroom executives everywhere, ways in which newspapers began adapting to the modern media landscape in 2008 that will continue through 2009.

INTERNET TRENDS BECOMING NEW TOOLS FOR JOURNALISM
2008 saw the continued proliferation of social and professional networking sites Facebook and LinkedIn, with newspapers and journalists, with newspapers and journalists, such as the New York Times well-known columnist Nicholas Kristof, creating their own profiles, applications and connecting with new audiences. User-Generated Content (UGC) continued to gather speed as well, with CNN's iReport in the US and LePost in France among many others around the world. A December report by the Bivings Group also noted that 58% of US newspapers now use some form of UGC.

But the biggest social media revelation to journalists came in the form of 140 characters. The social site, Twitter, which allows users to post short messages for all to see, officially became a widespread tool for journalists in 2008. For example, journalists covering the US Presidential Elections took live notes from conventions and rallies that readers could follow and that also helped to shape those journalists' main story. During the Mumbai terrorist attacks, "tweets", or Twitter messages, appeared as the first news of the attacks. Twitter feeds can also be aggregated, bringing all angles of those covering a certain event into one, comprehensible, instantly-updated record.

Another Internet trend is the "Personalized Web", evoked by newspaper experiments such as MyTimes and start-ups such as Netvibes that provide customizable pages based on RSS feeds and widgets. Arguably the boldest example of personalized news is the BBC's revamped homepage, released in March 2008, which allows users to create their own page based on the BBC information they use most. But personalized news seems to be picking up more slowly than social media. For one thing, Internet users are used to getting the information they seek from many Web pages and may not yet be ready to create their own pages. Secondly, search engines still rule, meaning that traffic to most news sites continues to come through Google, its competitors and their various news and alerts functions. So a customizable homepage like the BBC created, which could ultimately prove a competitor to search engines, remains to become a habit of the general Internet public.  

Personalized news and social media are just two examples of all of the innovation that is occurring in digital media. As technologies continue to rapidly develop, how are journalists and publishers going to keep up? Is it worth learning to use all of these tools if six months down the line they prove to be a fad? Are these technologies hurting or helping newsrooms gather and report news?

Chances are, in 2009 journalists everywhere will continue to experiment with the latest digital fads, and smart newsrooms will set aside R&D funds to play around with new ideas. Who knows? Despite predictions that 2009 will be a difficult year for newspapers, with a lot of hard work, calculated risk and a bit of luck, the industry could find the online golden egg that it has been seeking.

PROLIFERATION OF ONLINE-ONLY NEWS SITES
Perhaps filling in for the difficulties of the print product, more high-profile Internet-based sites began popping up in 2008. Perhaps most notably, The Huffington Post, launched in the summer of 2005, has already jumped to one of the US' top-30 news sites, bolstered by the US Presidential Elections, according to Nielsen Online. Media pundit, entrepreneur and Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff trumpeted the late-'07 launch of his news aggregator Newser as a "revolution in how people get their news." One year after Wolff's launch, he gained a competitor in Tina Brown, a former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor, who launched her own, rapidly growing online-only site, The Daily Beast, a mixture of aggregated and original articles. And these are only the high-profile, American examples. The relatively low overhead costs of launching an online-based site combined with the ease of aggregating content and news commentary means that this trend will surely continue in 2009. But there is one problem with the sites mentioned above. Aggregation and commentary can only go so far: in an online environment, what happens to the investigative journalism that newspapers have provided for the past two centuries?

NOT-FOR-PROFIT JOURNALISM
Investigative journalism is expensive to produce. Money-wise, it has always been a loss-leader for newspapers. But with modern-day information ubiquity, investigative journalism is just a loss. Whereas once newspapers could claim ownership of a groundbreaking piece and sell papers and advertising around it, now readers are often unaware of the original source of the story they are reading on the Web. So what is going to happen to the type of watchdogging we need for democracy?

Several non-profit start-ups have begun to answer that question. In late 2007, former newspaper editor, Joel Kramer, took his print expertise and moved it online with the launch of the non-profit Minnpost.com. Former WSJ editor Paul Steiger did something similar with ProPublica. The Voice of San Diego, and other similar sites around the US, are making a name for themselves as "serious, original reporting by professional journalists," with the New York Times declaring the sites "stand out" amongst Internet news sites. Crowdsourcing site OfftheBus, a partnership between the Huffington Post and the non-profit NewAssignment.net, helped capture the 2008 Elections and the Knight News Challenge winner Spot.Us is collecting donations from the public to fund investigative stories. Even former Merrill Lynch newspaper analyst Lauren Rich Fine backed the non-profit model in 2008.

With this in mind, are the days of major metropolitan and national newspapers digging up the dirt on businessmen and politicians over? For the time being, no. But newsrooms everywhere are under extreme economic pressures and have been cutting core staff, making it even more difficult for newspapers to conduct the type of investigative journalism their communities need. Don't be surprised if more non-profit (no dividends to shareholders), Internet based (low operating costs) ventures spring up to fill the gaps.

COMPETING NEWSPAPERS PARTNERING UP
As many newspaper newsrooms are cutting staff, wire services should be in greater demand than ever. But 2008 saw a backlash against the world's biggest news agency, the Associated Press, by its members. Several publishers handed in their notice to the non-profit agency partially in response to price hikes and complaining of low value for their money.

In response to the AP mini-exodus, some papers, even those in competition with one another, began joining forces. Papers in Ohio and Florida whose geographical coverage overlaps are swapping stories and even combining bureaux. Not only will this help the papers save money, but it frees up time for reporters to cover issues not being covered elsewhere. In the current economic climate, this trend will continue, but not without its effects on the industry.

Some traditional news hounds would argue that two papers covering similar stories in a certain region add depth and uncover more facts that may otherwise be lost to readers. This may be true. But is it really worth having two reporters on the scene to gather one or two more different pieces of information when there may be other stories elsewhere? And what about the multitude of photojournalists that different organizations send to press conferences and like events where the story subjects don't move much? Is it really worth sending all of those photogs? Couldn't photos just be shared? Without a doubt, these are questions that cash-strapped publishers and editors are asking themselves right now. Expect to see more cross-corporation cooperation in 2009.

IS PRINT REALLY THREATENED?
We've said it before and we'll say it again: print is not going to die. But, considering the trend of the past year, print's reach will be considerably reduced, at least in Western nations.

During the last few months of 2008, publishers' struggle to maintain the high costs of printing and distribution has become apparent. In October, The Christian Science Monitor, a beacon of quality American journalism, announced that it would stop printing its daily edition. In mid-December, the Detroit Free Press, which recently won a broadcast award, decided to limit home delivery to Friday's and weekends while trimming the daily single-copy sale paper to one section. Most recently, the American Society of Newspaper Editors is considering dropping "paper" from its name.

What do these cuts mean for the news"paper" industry? As circulations drop across the Western world, it could mean substantial savings. Weekday papers often make a loss to begin with, so cutting the costs of printing those papers should cover any lost advertising revenue in those same papers.

Perhaps the question publishers should be asking themselves is "Do cutbacks on the paper product matter to readers"? Well, cutbacks will certainly change the face of the newspaper industry. But in the end, media houses are in the news "distribution" business, not the news"paper" business. As long as their news is published, media houses will have completed their service to the public.

In an effort to "capture a greater share of the market," the new owner of Racing Ahead Weekend, a better newspaper, has relaunched the product under the name Racing +.

Owner Lee Power, ex-footballer and racehorse owner, obtained a majority share of Racing Ahead Weekend in March 2008, five months after its initial launch.  He has redesigned the weekly, giving it new features, including an increased focus on "betting tips."  The first new title was published last Saturday.

The weekly will run cheaper than its predecessor at 90p, but will still print 16,000 copies, far behind the circulation of the daily Racing Post at 61,893.  

Source:  Brand Republic

Trinity Mirror has launched a website designed for viewing on mobile phones for the Birmingham Post.  The new Post site follows the launch of the Daily Mirror's mobile site last week.

In addition to the launch of the mobile site, the print version of the Post was relaunched this week.  The site offers personalized news and allows users to build their own homepage.

According to the Guardian, ten more of Trinity's regional papers are expected to get their own mobile sites within the next few months. 

Source: Guardian

A new French language newspaper L'Hebdo du Vanuatu is set to launch in Vanuatu, an island in South Pacific Asia. The title will be published by the country's Daily Post paper and will offer coverage on Vanuatu as well as New Caledonia, where it will be additionally distributed.

L'Hebdo du Vanuatu is the most recent deal for Daily Post publisher Marc Neil-Jones, who acquired backing from the European Union.

Source: European Journalism Centre

The Daily Mirror has launched a mobile phone service, Mirror Mobile, offering news without having to register or subscribe.  Users can personalize their service, or have it personalized for them based on pages they previously visited.

Trinity Mirror, the papers owner has views the technology as "a fully converged third publishing platform."