Results matching “big thing in a”

The Internet was responsible for Barack Obama's election to the White House, Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post claims. Although this statement will inevitably incite dissenting views, in the context of Huffington's talk on the power of the Internet it does not seem wholly unreasonable. Huffington was speaking at the Activate Conference 09, convened to discuss the social implications of the rise of the Internet and technology.  

The conference reiterated discussions of technological and cultural trends, which are conditioning not only how news needs to be presented, but how these new forms of diffusion can directly affect politics and society.

 

Do you speak Twitter? Come on, Tweeple... It's time to get with the program. Yes, you Tweeple, people of the Twitter universe, or Twitterverse. Whether you are a newetter (a new tweeter), an occasionitter (an occasional Tweeter) or a seasoned reportwitters (you guessed it, reporter-style twitterer), an entire range of Twitter vocabulary has arrived. 

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.

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.

How is one news source, totally funded by subscriptions, to compete with another that receives government subsidies? Such is dilemma that arose when WAZ, Germany's second-largest newspaper group, dropped its subscription to the independently-run German press agency DPA in favor of government-subsidized Agence France-Presse.

As Isabelle de Pommereau points out in the Christian Science Monitor, the decision has consequences for both WAZ and DPA. Since the WAZ group started relying on AFP for all its wire coverage, "the papers' depth of German-based coverage has become undeniably more shallow." Pommereau adds that the loss of such a major client also puts financial pressure on DPA as it struggles against cutting coverage or raising the cost for its other clients.

French regional La Provence just announced that it is dropping its subscription to the Agence France-Presse news wire. The paper came to the decision after realising that it uses only 20 dispatches per day for an annual cost of 550,000 euros, a journalist for the Marseille-based paper told Le Monde.

AFP CEO Pierre Louette played down the announcement and said he is ready to negotiate. "I am not convinced that the rupture with La Provence is definititive," he commented. "We are ready to make an effort for the regional press, which we feel bound to almost like a cooperative." In fact, six out of the 15 members of AFP's board are from the regional press. However, it represents only 7% of the organisation's turnover.

Earlier this week, the Huffington Post replaced CEO Betsy Morgan with media-industry venture capitalist Eric Hippeau. The change seems intended to mark a new era for the news aggregator site as it seeks to capitalize on its immense popularity.

"In our space, staying still doesn't work," Arianna Huffington told paidContent.org. "You can't stand still. We need to keep monetizing our traffic at a higher level - and we need to keep expanding. Everything on the internet is accelerated; we need to accelerate."

When NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch spoke in an interview with Fox Business Network on June 8, he said:

"I can see the day, maybe 20 years away, where you don't actually have paper and ink and printing presses. I think it will take a long time and I think it's a generational thing that is happening. But there's no doubt that younger people are not picking up the traditional newspapers."

Michael Kinsley has offered his insights into what type of ownership model is preferable for a newspaper. He discusses how US newspapers often used to be owned by "grandees: wealthy and civic-minded individuals or families," but many of these sold out to large chains. As newspapers make less money, these chains cannot afford to keep them, so Kinsley considers whether ownership by a 'grandee' or a nonprofit foundation is the solution.

"Which will be most likely to provide the combination of financial security and editorial freedom that newspapers need?" he asks. Having experience of both different arrangements, he believes that "being owned by or dependent on a nonprofit foundation is the worst possible solution." Kinsley was editor of Harper's Magazine when it was set up as a non-profit foundation with money from the MacArthur Foundation. He reported to the board of directors, and had to comply with their "ruthlessly conventional views" and the tendencies of their friends to "take offense at any attempt to be interesting." He mentions that he had to publish a board member's wife's poetry.

Online pioneer and blogger Dave Winer does not view his blog posts as 'published' until he has sent a link to them on Twitter. He describes in his blog Scripting.com how 'Tweeting' has become an integral part of his routine: "I've been posting links to new blog posts on Twitter since I started using it two years ago. It's just a natural thing, another step in the publishing process."

Essentially, he is encouraging newspapers, writers and bloggers alike to be Twitter junkies. In other words, one must litter the Twitter airways in 140 characters or less with news about a story they have published for it to be really considered 'published'. How else would you direct readers to your content if you do not broadcast it on Twitter?

This week Microsoft unveiled its new search engine, Bing, aimed at challenging market dominator Google as the world's second most popular search tool after Yahoo and AOL.

Launched on Wednesday, the European version was available to use in Beta mode while in the States the decision was made for Bing to go live. Bing was coined thus for it is supposed to represent the "sound of found," although some say it is already floundering.

Speaking at the Google I/O Developer Conference that took place in San Francisco between May 27-28, Google has unveiled Google Wave, a new online communication service.

Described as a "personal communication and collaboration tool," Google Wave allows users to chat and share documents including audio files, videos and photos in real-time.

According to the New York Times, American television network CBS has joined efforts with live video web site, Ustream, to have its news video content and special reports streamed live on the site, in a bid to draw in a younger crowd.

"Seeking a younger audience more accustomed to watching the news on the Internet than on television," reports the Times, Ustream will show the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, as well as a variety of real-time news reporting and other coverage, including news conferences and speeches.

"Who guards the Guardian?" went the headline in last week's edition of political magazine, New Statesman, who asked if the Guardian was abusing its status to damage commercial rivals.

The New Statesman referred to the Guardian as "influential" "imposing" and "corporate" and suggested that the MediaGuardian, in particular, was being used by owner Guardian Media Group as an editorial battleaxe to discredit competitors.

According to United Press International, one of Thailand's leading political parties announced on Friday that it is set to launch its own newspaper.

The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), often referred to as the Red Shirts is expecting to launch the Red News by the end of the month.

75% of newspaper editors surveyed by the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) said "their ability to inform readers has diminished with their steadily shrinking staffs," according to an article which appeared on both the APME and San Francisco Chronicle website.

Responses from 351 editors were collected for the 20-question survey, where some newspapers had more than one editor participate. 66% of editors worked for newspapers with a daily circulation of less than 50,000; 27.5% had 50,000 to 250,000; and 6.5% had a distribution of more than 250,000 copies.

The BBC's in-house magazine, Ariel, earlier this week disclosed that BBC News would be cutting its Paris envoy, as well as making similar cutbacks to its offices in Moscow and Brussels, a Guardian article reveals.

The reductions within the news arm of the BBC is part of a savings strategy that should see the corporation save about £155 million, although "the BBC is planning to plough £70m over the same period back into BBC News for new investments in areas such as foreign coverage, online and on-demand news." Included in the plans is a reshuffle of the news teams in the UK. By next April, 88.5 jobs are expected to have gone.

According to what appears to be a Wall Street Journal article published on Post Bulletin earlier this week, America's local newspapers are faring better than the country's national titles.

The article, entitled "Smaller newspapers dodge the downturn" refers to a series of interventions on the part of some wealthy individuals who have offered to buy local newspapers in a bid to save them from apparent closure.

Reports recently out say that the Telegraph online attracts an impressive 8% of its traffic from
news aggregators and social networking sites such as Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Reddit, Stumbleupon and Twitter.

The 8% figure is equivalent to a staggering 75,000 unique visitors daily. So, how does the Telegraph do it?

The Internet has affected newspapers in many ways, and though recent focus has concentrated largely on falling revenue due to reduction in print advertising, it has also given papers the chance to greatly expand their story-telling capabilities. As well as just words and pictures, there are now numerous different ways to enhance a story: through video, audio, slideshows, interactive maps and graphics, and more. But are newspapers making full use of the opportunities that the Internet offers to change the way that they produce their stories?

Upendra Shardanand, CEO and founder of Daylife, wrote in Paid Content about his belief that journalistic storytelling is "stuck in a rut." He describes how publishers he meets are eager to revamping many parts of their business such as distribution, and how do generate revenue, but "one aspect of their businesses that very few seem to question is the actual craft of writing and telling stories." The Internet offers so many opportunities that he feels journalists do not take advantage of, rather they leave it to sites such as Outside.In and Everyblock who "treat content like data and tear it apart just to reassemble it into infinitely browsable, non-linear experiences." He compares this process to the way that Amazon has "revolutionized" shopping.

Appearing before MPs earlier this week, a number of editors from some of the country's most
established newspapers warned of the "chilling" costs of legal action which were discouraging many newspapers from the business of investigative journalism, the Guardian has reported.

The editors were invited to demonstrate how privacy, libel and press standards were impacting the day-to-day business of running their newspapers, as part of a review on the part of the culture, media and sport select committee.

A new report produced by the publishing arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers - the world's largest professional services company - in conjunction with the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), examines the outlook for newspapers as they seek to realign themselves within a digital framework and minimise the impact of the global recession.

The study identifies interactivity, specialisation and new business models as being key to ensuring the survival of the newspaper in an online age.

Talk about how to report the "Swine Flu" continues as disease hype propagates. Many journalists and doctors continue to say the news needs to bring it down a notch and make sure readers are not being scared unnecessarily. Others say it may not be such a terrible thing; hype gets the worlds attention to a situation that may need people to be informed and prepared.

Writing two separate articles, firstly in the Evening Standard and then in the Guardian, Roy Greenslade denounces councils for their proliferation of council-run newspapers.

According to Greenslade, "the phenomenon of papers published by local councils" poses a real threat to local titles which are already struggling with advertising losses and dwindling circulation figures.

The Rocky Mountain News published its final edition on Friday 27 February, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's last print edition before its move online was printed on Tuesday 17 March. The demise of these two publications, despite the P-I's continued existence online, left a hole in both Seattle and Denver. However, in both cities, online only publications have emerged. Both staffed by writers for the respective former newspapers, INDenverTimes and the Seattle PostGlobe are now up and running. The Editors Weblog spoke to INDT co-founder Kevin Preblud, and Kery Murakami who is leading the Seattle PostGlobe's effort, to find out more.

Funding

The two publications have taken very different routes in terms of funding. Fighting back against the mentality that information is free online, INDT is charging for subscriptions. Whilst much of the news will in fact be free, "it's really the premium content that we want our subscribers to pay for", explains Preblud. Initially, an target of finding 50,000 subscribers by April 23 was set, in order for the full launch to go ahead on May 4. However, the decision will now be based upon a combination of subscribers, users and page view figures.

Subscribers will have access to the INsider Channel, "where you can have a direct, real time conversations with our editors and writers" as well as a number of other applications and tools. "Insight, perspective, live blogging, live chatting, commenting, interactivity with writers and other readers" are amongst the benefits offered to paying readers.

Preblud believes that "business model is currently not working", largely due to the drop in advertising revenue and the decline in print readership. It is for these reasons that INDT is trying something different, and in terms of its model Preblud believes that "the cost structure is reasonable, the revenues are up, and with advertising and subscriptions I think we could make this work."

The Seattle PostGlobe, on the other hand is aiming to run as a non-profit, free to access publication funded by donations. Murakami presents the project as "for the broader civic good, as opposed to trying to make money." He added that "Seattle has a rich history of community efforts." Discussing INDT's decision to sell subscriptions, Murakami thinks that "it could work" - but his reluctance is attributed to the fact that he does not like the idea that only the people who could afford to pay would have access to information.

Citing the VoiceOfSanDiego and MinnPost as influences for the project, Murakami laments that "the big difference between us and them is that they were lucky enough to find some big pocket donors". He explains that the largest single contribution the Seattle PostGlobe has so far received is just $500. To increase revenue, the SPG has reached a deal with the Seattle Weekly, whereby the Seattle Weekly sells the SPG's advertising space and split the proceeds 50/50.

"We hope it will make the community feel empowered and they will respond - it's going slow so far but we'll see."

Murakami explains that they are giving readers the choice; "What we have done is said, 'We're going to volunteer and we're going back to you, the community, to put this in your hands. If you want us to do the work that we do, then support us. But really it's your choice.' We hope it will make the community feel empowered and they will respond - it's going slow so far but we'll see."

Coverage

Both the SPG and INDT have chosen, somewhat inevitably, to narrow their coverage from that of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Rocky Mountain News respectively, and place more of an emphasis on local coverage than statewide reporting. Murakami points out that "with a much smaller staff we have to be much more focussed, in terms of what we do," whilst Preblud concedes that "because we're an online-only news resource we just can't cover everything that the Rocky was covering."

"The Seattle P-I didn't go under because of a lack of interest or of readership, which is ironic."

Murakami hopes that the SPG will recapture the market that the P-I once held - because, as he explains, "the Seattle P-I didn't go under because of a lack of interest or of readership, which is ironic." There isn't, however, necessarily a call for a more hyperlocal approach to the news in Seattle because of several blogs already in existence which focus on specific neighbourhoods.

"We will be emphasising Seattle coverage as opposed to broader Washington coverage. We are focussed on issues that affect people in the city," Murakami explains. Similarly, Preblud describes how INDT believes "that our purpose is to cover the local market and the local community of Denver in a much more focused manner. We're unfortunately leaving out some of the more statewide coverage".

Both the Seattle PostGlobe and INDenverTimes will be looking at potential content-enhancing collaborations in the weeks and months to come. The SPG is investigating partnerships with public TV and radio stations, namely KCTS-TV. "We could be a demonstration project here in the state, showing how merging a public TV station, a public radio station and former newspaper reporters could work. The idea that we are pursuing is for the three entities to remain separate yet join to create a news organisation." INDT, meanwhile, could "end up partnering with some of the other local news outlets in the smaller cities".

Reception

"It seems that we really were valued and left a void that people appreciate us trying to fill."

The response to the new publications in both Denver and Seattle has been positive. "They've all been positive, keep up the good work, they're all rooting for us, and hoping that we can continue and that we can succeed," says Preblud. Murakami describes the reaction to the SPG as heartening: "It seems that we really were valued and left a void that people appreciate us trying to fill."

Personal impact

Preblud explains that his desire to launch INDT stems from his Denver roots, where he grew up reading the Rocky. He explains that he found it difficult to watch its demise, and that "nobody stepped up and was willing to buy the Rocky." It was this which prompted him to co-found INDT, "I just felt there was an opportunity there with part of what the future solution might look like," he clarified. Working on such a project is unlikely to be the same as working at an established paper, however. Murakami, discussing his new role, comments, "It's weird, I have been a newspaper reporter for 20 years. And now I am part-salesman, part fundraiser, part photo editor, part editor, part IT guy. And I haven't had time to do any stories."

How closures are affecting American cities

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News are two of the most high profile American newspaper closures, but there has been speculation that more could follow. Whilst the P-I is now published online, the Rocky in any official form disappeared completely. In reference to the situation Seattle now finds itself, Murakami says "The paper left a big hole in the community and nobody in the community was ever asked if that was OK. The community had no voice, in terms of this thing that happened".

"I think there's a risk at the moment and there are places where they are losing coverage."

There has been speculation in the New York Times over which American town could become the first to lose both of its newspapers, and Michael Wolff of Newser recently, and somewhat controversially, suggested that all newspapers could have disappeared in 18 months time. In terms of communities losing valued newspaper coverage, Preblud says "I think there's a risk at the moment and there are places where they are losing coverage. A vehicle like INDenverTimes hasn't been put in place to cover the losses. It's critical that we as an industry figure out what the right model is so that we don't lose the core of journalism, which starts with local coverage."

Whilst neither the Seattle PostGlobe or INDenverTimes are claiming to be a replacement for the newspapers whose demise lead to their creation, they are undoubtedly trying to help fill the gap that was left. In the future, will the situation in Denver and Seattle repeat in other towns and states in the US? If there are further newspaper closures, it is somewhat inevitable that sites such as INDT and the SPG will emerge - but can such sites provide a service to the community that is in any way comparable to that of a city paper?