Editors Weblog: Search Results

Trinity Mirror buys Guardian's regional business

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 9, 2010 at 5:39 PM

The Guardian Media Group (GMG) today sold its regional media business to Trinity Mirror in a £44.8 million deal, it was widely reported. Of the price, £7.4 million comes in cash and Trinity Mirror is releasing GMG from a £37.4 million print contract.

The deal is due to be completed by March 28. The Guardian, which was previously known as the Manchester Guardian before moving its main office to London in the 1960s, will still have a Manchester-based reporter.

Study looks into what news articles you share and why

Posted by Maria Conde on February 9, 2010 at 5:14 PM

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have extensively studied The New York Times list of most e-mailed articles, checking every 15 minutes for more than six months, analyzing the content of thousands of articles, and controlling for factors like the placement in the paper or on the Web home page, The New York Times reports.

Results from the study show that NYTimes readers have exalted tastes - seeking to inspire awe in their friends, colleagues, and family by choosing to e-mail positive articles over negative ones, and long, intellectually challenging articles over short and shocking ones.

Video cameras for reporters as newspaper moves into the digital age

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 9, 2010 at 4:15 PM

All reporters at the Journal-Register Co. (JRC) will get video cameras, under an ambitious plan to bring the newspaper into the digital age, the company's 3,100 employees have been told. The company's new CEO John Paton has also told staff that they now work for a 'media company', not a 'newspaper company'. Appropriately enough, he announced the news in a seven-minute slideshow, emailed companywide, the New Haven Independent reports.

"We're not looking to make any cuts," Paton told the Independent. "We need to improve [local coverage]. We don't need to make it worse." The company, which runs 19 daily and 150 other newspapers, including the flagship New Haven Register, filed for bankruptcy last February.

Guardian's Rusbridger: 'iPad could produce significant revenue streams'

Posted by Maria Conde on February 9, 2010 at 3:09 PM

Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger told Reuters that "if we get the right functionality and design," the iPad could "produce interesting, significant revenue streams," according to PaidContent.

Because developing an application for the iPad will not require any different skills from the ones required to launch an iPhone app, news publishers that have had success with iPhone apps, are now looking to cash in on the iPad.

Jobs to go at Swedish daily

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 8, 2010 at 3:08 PM

Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter has announced that it will cut between 100 and 120 jobs after sustaining multi-million euro losses, The Local reports. This amounts to almost one sixth of the newspaper's workforce.

The company employs 580 people, with half of these in the newsroom. Most of the cuts are expected to affect editorial staff, with more than a third of these set to go.

The newspaper reported losses of 97 million kronor, or around €10 million, last year. Despite this, union official Hans Arbman said that the cuts were unexpected.

Mobile news gains ground in France

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 5, 2010 at 5:48 PM

News applications for iPhone have met an undeniable success with French readers, but the task of monetising this through selling content, services and advertising still remains, according to Les Echos.

The director of electronic editions for Libération, Ludovic Blecher, said that the iPhone had revolutionised the consumption of news on mobile platforms. The Libération iPhone app was launched in the autumn, as was that of Le Figaro, and they have been downloaded 400,000 and 600,000 times respectively. "Around 30,000 people open it every day," Blecher said. Figures for Le Monde are even higher: it launched its app in November 2008 and has just reached 1.3 million unique downloads, attracting between 200,000 and 250,000 hits a day.

Guardian staff oppose changes to pay and conditions

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 5, 2010 at 10:57 AM

Staff members at The Guardian have voted to oppose proposed changes to their pay and conditions, including cuts to sabbaticals, and instead claimed a pay rise for editorial staff.

The Guardian reported that the local branch of the National Union of Journalists for The Guardian, The Observer and website guardian.co.uk voted against proposals to outsource technical support and some work involved in the production of sponsored supplements.

Parent company Guardian News & Media (GNM) also has plans to cut rates paid to casual staff and to end journalist sabbaticals, currently set at a four week paid break for every four years of service. Union members opposed these proposals.

London Evening Standard readership rises

Posted by Maria Conde on February 4, 2010 at 5:25 PM

The London Evening Standard's readership has gone from 556,000 in April to September to 1.37 million in the last three months of 2009, Stephen Brook from Guardian reports.

These positive readership figures follow the newspaper going free in October of last year and more than doubling its circulation to 600,000 copies in the process. The London Evening Standard was bought by Russian billionaire Alexander Lebeveb in 2008, and his decision to drop the paper's 50p cover price was made in the hope that boosted circulation would increase advertising enough to make up for the lost revenue of having no cover price. His move towards the freesheet format prompted speculation that other London quality newspapers may drop their cover price as well.

Gothamist founder criticizes New York Times

Posted by Trafton Kenney on February 4, 2010 at 3:43 PM

Jake Dobkin, co-founder and publisher of the local New York blog, Gothamist, gave New York Times' executives an idea of what to expect during their Thursday morning panel discussion with him with some provocative comments published via his Facebook page last Tuesday.

In preparation for the panel, the moderator, the Times' media critic David Carr, sent Dobkin the following question in advance: "Jake, you've competed with the NYTimes in the metro space. It has formidable resources, but how do you see the newspaper landing in the local market? Do you think that the incoming cohort of consumers see the Times as a credible editorial resource in New York political and cultural affairs?"

New Kindle coming? Amazon said to buy touch screen tech start-up

Posted by Maria Conde on February 4, 2010 at 2:25 PM

In what seems to be the latest move in the battle of the e-readers, Amazon has acquired Touchco, a start-up based in New York that specializes in touch screen technology, to possibly update its Kindle e-reader so it can better compete with Apple's iPad.

The New York Times reports that Amazon will merge Touchco's technology and staff members into its Kindle hardware division, Lab126, based in Cupertino, California, a source briefed on the deal said on Wednesday.

Update: More time to bid for Canwest

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 3, 2010 at 12:54 PM

Potential bidders for the newspaper properties of Canwest will have an extra week to make their offers, under a ruling by an Ontario court, Reuters reports.

Parties interested in purchasing well-known Canadian newspapers including the National Post, Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun now have until 5 March to offer their bids. These will need to top a C$925 million offer made by Canwest's lenders.

Journalism Online's payment system to be in place in a matter of weeks

Posted by Emma Heald on February 3, 2010 at 12:10 PM

The Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era intends to start using Journalism Online's payment system in the next few months, reported the New York Times. The software system will be called Press+ and GlobalPost and the Fayetteville Observer are also interested, said the NYT.

Journalism Online has also sent a memo to its affiliated publishers (reproduced by paidContent) in which it informs them that the company is "just weeks away" from having the technology ready for use, and that multiple publishers are currently integrating the software.

Lebedev to bring in billionaire partner for Independent deal?

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 3, 2010 at 10:51 AM

Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, in exclusive talks to purchase the Independent newspapers, may attempt to bring an Egyptian partner into the deal, according to reports in The Guardian.

Lebedev is trying to persuade Egyptian billionaire Samih Sawiris to join him in investing in The Independent and Independent on Sunday, according to sources close to the deal. The details of the proposed agreement are unknown.

Former editor takes on Birmingham Post with web launch

Posted by Maria Conde on February 2, 2010 at 5:31 PM

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.

Google News tunes into favored topics

Posted by Maria Conde on February 2, 2010 at 3:16 PM

Google has just launched a new tool that allows visitors tell its news website what topics they would like to follow, AFP information on Yahoo! News reports.

This will allow users to click on "stars" to mark groups of stories on preferred subjects to signal Google News to watch for updates or developments, according to Google software engineer Jude Britto. When there are significant updates, Google will send alerts by putting the headline in bold for its users. Google will also allow people to follow their 20 most recent starred stories in the "Starred" section of Google News, according to the Google News blog.

Gannett sees profits and circulation increase in 4Q

Posted by Maria Conde on February 2, 2010 at 2:15 PM

In a time where newspapers seem to be losing more and more revenue, figures from Gannett Co. Inc.'s fourth quarter released today, showed potential positive results for the months ahead.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Gannett swung to a profit in the fourth quarter following $5.6 billion in prior-year write-downs. Lower declines in advertising sales combined with much lower expenses helped the newspaper publisher show improvement.

Guardian executive: specialist content could be charged for

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 2, 2010 at 1:11 PM

The Guardian has ruled out implementing paywalls on its website, but may still decide to charge for specialist or niche content, the Financial Times reports.

Chief executive of the Guardian Media Group Carolyn McCall told the Financial Times that although her position is not entrenched, she sees no commercial evidence that paywalls generate returns. "It is not really the way the web works," she said.

"That is not to say there are not areas of specialist content that cannot be charged for," she added.

The paywall you can't see: bundling newspaper and TV subscriptions

Posted by Maria Conde on February 2, 2010 at 11:50 AM

Although only 35 people have signed up for Newsday subscriptions since it was put behind a paywall last October, these dismal figures hide the Long Island daily's grander scheme: a paywall that nobody notices because it is bundled with a cable television subscription.

The owners of Newsday also own Optimum Cable, according to Guardian, which supplies cable TV to 75% of Long Island homes, Newsday's backyard. Newsday.com was offered to these subscribers at no additional charge, bundled with cable and high-speed Internet services. Therefore, the number of people who signed up for to the Long Island daily since October was not 35, but 1.5 million, the people that currently have Optimum Cable subscriptions.

Local newspaper Lakeland Echo closes print edition

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on February 1, 2010 at 12:36 PM

A weekly newspaper in the British region of Cumbria has closed its print edition after 30 years in publication, Hold the Front Page reports.

The Lakeland Echo closed at the end of the last year. Its website will continue to operate and will feature news from north Lancashire and the Lake District.

There were no redundancies as it was produced out of the same office as sister publications The Visitor and Lancaster and Morecambe Reporter.

Twitter trending topics go local

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 29, 2010 at 5:40 PM

Twitter has introduced a 'Local Trends' filter, which allows users to see what others are posting about on the site in their area.

The official Twitter blog explained that the trends function began as a way to see what was popular on a global scale in real-time, but this would create another way for members to discover relevant topics to them.

"The big events that come up around the world will always become a global conversation," a spokesperson writes, "but what about the big events that only happen in your world that only matter to those around you? Or the slight differences in the way Californians perceive an event, like Obama's election victory, versus those (in) São Paulo, Brazil?"

Australia: Media regulation body to get blogs, Facebook and Twitter

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 29, 2010 at 3:39 PM

The Australian media regulatory body is set to start using social media, having appointed a former newspaper editor to create its social media strategy.

Tom Burton, former executive editor of broadsheet newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald, has been appointed to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to oversee its government 2.0 and social engagement strategies.

Burton was previously working in the US as the Communications and On-Line Director of The Center for American Progress. His role involved implementing web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 practices, that is, changing how the government used social networking sites, blogs, video sharing sites and wikis to interact with the public. He has also worked as a ministerial adviser to a former Australian Minister for Communications.

All eyes on Davos: how media players are bringing the WEF closer to you

Posted by Maria Conde on January 29, 2010 at 2:45 PM

As world leaders plan the future of the global economy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, journalists are using social media and other innovative ways to bring the discussion closer to the people.

NYT's paywall: of symbolic significance but unlikely to increase revenue?

Posted by Emma Heald on January 29, 2010 at 11:54 AM

Time's James Poniewozik has suggested that the significance of the New York Times's paywall is symbolic, rather than a sign that paid online content is the future for news. "Any pricing scheme that can raise actual money risks chasing away actual readers," and this why the NYT's charging method "probably won't make much difference to the Times's coffers or its readers at first."

As Poniewozik says, there are many people who won't end up paying for an online subscription to the New York Times. Print subscribers will get free access, casual readers won't have to pay, and those directed via other websites won't pay.

US: Study shows government subsidies to media have declined

Posted by Maria Conde on January 28, 2010 at 4:49 PM

Newspapers have not only lost significant advertising revenue in the last couple of years, they have also been losing government support in the form of subsidies in the last forty years, concludes a new study by the University of Southern California.

According to Poynter, a new study of historic subsidies and emerging trends tracks various tax breaks, reductions in postal subsidies first enacted in 1792, and upcoming cutbacks in public notices that government regulations have traditionally forced into American newspapers. The study provides valuable insight, if not clear-cut recommendations for print media to follow, about the thorny issue of government funding for media.

Fewer young people read news online than their parents

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 27, 2010 at 1:20 PM

Online news consumption has dropped among young adults, but risen among older consumers, according to a new study by IBM's Media and Entertainment Group. The study's full findings will be reported in coming weeks, and may mean the newspaper industry needs to decide even faster how to make its online offerings economically sustainable, Dorian Benkoil reported in Poynter Online.

Young people aged 18-24 were the only segment that recorded a year-on-year drop for any digital media category, specifically for online newspapers. In 2008, around 64% of those surveyed said they had read a newspaper online in the last year, while by 2009 that figure had fallen to 54%.

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