Results matching “print editor to blog”

Print media may not die if the printing press is put in the hands of the consumer.  It's this idea that drives the Newspaper Club, a London-based startup that allows members to print small runs of their own newspapers at low cost. 

The venture began when a group of friends decided to compile their friends' best blog posts and photos and print it as a newspaper titled Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet.  Because printing presses sit idle for most of the day, a small run of newspapers turned out to be remarkably cheap--about 364 euros for 300 copies.  The small price led the friends to form a company and start marketing the printing option to others.

In Janowo, an 850-person village in north eastern Poland, on a Monday last month, a dozen people - mostly teenagers or over 40s - were gathering in a multi-activity meeting hall. They were listening to Igor Hrywna, a journalist at Gazeta Olsztynska, the dominant newspaper in this "Warmia-Mazury voivodship" (Varmia-Masuria). That day he left his base in the regional capital of Olsztyn to meet this group for the third time in one month. With his assistance, they are learning how to contribute to the recently launched hyperlocal website janowo.wm.pl, covering the 3,000 people "gmina" (commune) centered on Janowo, one of the smallest of the region.

"There are fewer than 120 broadband Internet subscribers today. Our goal by the end of the year is to have at least 6000 unique users", explains Hrywna, who supervises Gazeta Olsztynska's commune portals. "To achieve this, we are organizing two to three hour long training sessions for citizen journalists. I also learn from them!" The training for citizen journalists always begins with the easiest things, like sending pictures with a short description. It includes how to search and browse in the website, how to write, and how to be accurate.

Gazeta Olsztynska's hyperlocal websites like Janowo's are typically 80% filled by local citizens, with user generated content (UGC) mostly on social events. Staff journalists provide the rest, through their assistance and through their own written and edited pieces. "Small communities know what kind of information they need. That is why we base our portals on civil journalism supported by our professional knowledge. The goal is to have the so far marginalized villages really exist in the social cyberspace," comments editor-in-chief Ewa Bartnikowska.

During the Janowo training session, a retired music teacher, Janina Sadowska, who has been a reader of the regional daily for a long time, explained that she was there for two reasons. "First, it is a natural prolongation of my habit of sending readers' comments to the editor. Second, I am at the head of a women's club, and we want to have a presence in our gmina's website."

The young aspiring journalists, between 12 and 18 years old, came from a nearby agricultural school. One of them was filming the reunion with a small camera, planning to post some sequences in the website. Another one, Przemyslaw Ciesielski, 18, explained in clear English: "We don't buy newspapers, but we are interested in news."

For Jarek Tokarczyk, the president of Edytor, Gazeta Olsztynska's publishing house, the involvement of the young in his online projects is critical, because "they already know the Internet, which is accessible at school, even in the most remote villages; through them we can also reach their parents for other publications." Bartnikowska added: "It is very important for us to have roots in print, even though we go at the lowest geographic or smallest community levels only online. This strategy for localism is also only possible if we have social and not only media projects."

Edytor is already managing 35 such hyperlocal websites, as a way to get closer also to small advertisers. In the villages, the biggest companies are often the bakery which employs only eight persons, or the hairdresser with a staff of four. "We want to reach the places where print is not profitable, asking our advertising salespersons to monetize potential markets which have been ignored until now. For this purpose we also train our print representatives to understand the web, setting online revenue goals for each of them," explains Tokarczyk. "We know that the number of Internet users in the country and small towns is going to grow. We have to do it now because tomorrow will be too late." This "deep in localities" strategy is timely with new legislation to be implemented in the coming weeks, for broadband access everywhere in Poland. There are also local governments elections in September, which will boost the interest for hyperlocal news.

Gazeta Olsztynska and its separate edition Dziennik Elblaski, covering an area integrated only ten years ago into the region, have a quasi-monopoly in Varmia-Masuria, one of Poland's 17 voivodships. National daily Gazeta Wyborcza has local editions, but they are read principally in the biggest cities like Olsztyn, where they have a weaker position. In addition to the Internet portals, Edytor controls 21 hyperlocal weekly freesheets, which encompass numerous news areas, social to e-commerce activities. Each has its online version, is available as a supplement of the daily, and corresponds more or less to a county ("powiat").

Janowo, for instance, is attached to the local newsroom based in Nidzica and covering a 35,000 people powiat. Weekly Gazeta Nidzicka's editor-in-chief Jerzy Grala is assisted by four reporters and three sales representatives. The portal nidzica.wm.pl is updated at least twice a day, and links to and sometimes feeds the central newspaper's website gazetaolsztynska.wm.pl. It is enriched by content provided by its communal websites, including janowo.wm.pl, which is updated a few times a week. Grala also posts occasional on his blog grala.wm.pl, which is easily accessible from his newsroom's portal.

There are 25 regional dailies in Poland in total, Edytor being an exception as an independent group. Most others are controlled either by Polskapresse (owned by Germany's Verlagsgruppe Passau) or Media Regionalne (owned by Great Britain's Mecom). The Varmia-Masuria voivodship is one of the less populated, with 1.4 million inhabitants, out of a total population of 38 million in the coutry (plus about 6 millions Poles living abroad). The region has a particularly high unemployment rate, exceeding 19% versus less than 12% on average nationally.

Given this context, Gazeta Olsztynska's intense efforts to develop online activities and "deep localism" are unusual. "We have over 30 equipped multimedia journalists covering the region, who already produce around 600 pieces of different information every month. With the contributions of the mobilized civil journalists, we expect to double within one year the level of 500,000 unique visitors we got last month," explains Bartnikowska.

Edytor is multiplying editorial and marketing projects, both in print and online, including 200 different supplements and freesheets, family service and obituary websites, a schools of excellence campaign (proposing pupils to write about their schools), celebration contests requiring payment via SMS, special publications promoting the natural wonders of the region and its lakes. "The wm.pl suffix that we use online [for "Warmia-Mazury"] is the most important brand here. We want to be a regional Google!" Tokarczyk says.

Another illustration of Edytor's focus on "hyperlocalities" are its Nowe Miasto operations. In this 11000 people town - or large village - about 85 kilometers far from Olsztyn, it publishes weekly Gazeta Nowomiejska, covering a population four times bigger. Its online hyperlocal news endeavours are already one year old, as shown in the "gminas" listed at the bottom of portal nowemiasto.wm.pl. Unlike in Nidzica, the newsroom is not based on a main central square, but its position may be more strategic. Gazeta Nowomiejska is located on a street in front of the church where, for deeply catholic Poland, mass sermons easily hit the headlines and a significant part of social life relates to religious activities. "The priest sometimes promotes our portal during the mass," says chief editor Stanislaw Ulatowski, also a local celebrity as a print journalism veteran.

His deputy, Lukasz Paczkowski, is a young online and multimedia reporter and Internet geek, who manages his blog paczkowski.wm.pl, which is also displayed in the front page of Gazeta Nowomiejska's portal. "We start updating the website before 10 am, when most people open their computer, until 8.30pm", he says. His partnership with Ulatowski also illustrates the complementary cross-promotion between the platforms. "The photo galleries encourage user generated content" comments Paczkowski. "Our online correspondents are very helpful, because our staff cannot be everywhere in the county, and they are more likely to create communes' portals. Then we print the most newsworthy pieces in the weekly."

To extend his team's expertise, Tokarczyk has built a partnership with the promoters of the C3 concept ("Complete Community Connection"), Chuck Peters and Steve Buttry in the United States (the former is the CEO of Iowa's Gazette Communications, and the latter just left this paper to be the director of community engagement at a high-profile, Washington DC based digital start-up). In spite of being based in a remote region of central Europe, Edytor is being very pro-active in looking for ideas directly provided by the world's top experts in its fields of coverage.

Along with the hyperlocal websites, the Gazeta Olsztynska team has also launched numerous thematic portals about students, community centers, and even an "ethnic" group recently. Website ukraincy.wm.pl is dedicated to the 60,000 strong Ukrainian community, made of descendents or survivors of the group displaced by force to this part of Poland in 1947. It is benefitting from and promoting the revival of their language and religion (Greek Orthodox). "Our aim is to have half of the community visit the portal at least once a month by the end of this year. It will be 100% UGC, and fun," says Hrywna, who is also Polish-Ukrainian.

In an interview with The Hofstra Chronicle last Thursday, Will Shortz, editor of The New York Times crossword, discussed how the puzzle fits into the transition to digital media.

In the 17 years that he has been at the Times, Shortz has helped the country's most celebrated crossword make a profit during trying times for print media. While a puzzle is printed in every newspaper, the crossword is the only same-day feature in the Times that the website charges for.

Over 50,000 people had paid the $39.95 annual subscription fee to access the day's puzzle as well as the Times' archive of over 5,000 crosswords, according to Shortz. In addition to subscriptions, there is also an 900 number line for people desperate for a hint as well as Times Crossword Books, the best-selling books of its genre.

6 and a half years ago, Michelle Leder was a business journalist running an obscure website with juicy tidbits about the financial disclosures that publicly held companies are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today, Michelle Leder is a businesswoman: she sold her website to Morningstar, the giant, Chicago-based publisher that sells nearly $500 million a year in research and advisory services to large and small investors.

As Alan D. Mutter from the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog reports, her story shows that a modern journalist no longer needs a job at a major media outlet to build a satisfying and remunerative career. All he or she needs is a dose of entrepreneurial journalism and time.

Yesterday, following months of deliberation, the New York Times announced that it was to go forward with charging online, with a plan to implement a metre system in 2011. It is the biggest publisher yet to lay out paywall plans, and the move is undoubtedly highly significant for the newspaper industry as it struggles with a failing business model. Will this save the New York Times? Could it signal the end for free online content?

Similar to that used by the Financial Times, a metered payment system would allow readers to access a certain number of articles free per month, and then request payment for more: a flat fee for unlimited access. Print subscribers will continue to have free access, even those who subscribe to just the Sunday paper. An online subscription will also cover access via smartphones. The first click free from search engines, which is used by the Wall Street Journal, will also apply. More details such as pricing have been released yet, and the publisher's statement said that the next year will be used to build "a new online infrastructure designed to provide consumers with a frictionless experience across multiple platforms."

A metered system rather than a more fixed paywall has the advantage of not alienating the casual reader who can still visit the site free on occasion, and not angering journalists by blocking off specific articles (an issue with the Times' previous attempt at charging online, TimesSelect). "It allows NYTimes.com to remain a vibrant part of the search-driven Web," reads the Times memo sent to staff by executives Arthur Sulzberger and Janet Robinson, published by Poynter.

It does have potential flaws, however. Before the NYT's announcement, Reuters writer Felix Salmon criticized the way that the FT's flat fee system does not actually work like a metre: suggesting that instead the New York Times should implement a payment process under which readers are charged depending on how much content they consume. And presumably those who are determined not to pay will find ways around the paywall, using multiple accounts, for example.

The Financial Times welcomed the New York Times' decision, according to the Guardian, with CEO John Ridding saying "We welcome the New York Times' new online business model, which is similar to the FT's. We believe in the value of quality journalism and we are pleased that others feel the same way." The FT recently announced that for the first time, its content revenue was greater than its advertising revenue in 2009, after raised cover prices and more online subscribers signing on.

The FT now has 121,000 subscribers. Going by the pricing on the FT's website, it seems that they pay between €186 and €363 per year (depending on whether they choose a standard or premium subscription). Working on the assumption that about half of subscribers pay for each (and that the FT is not counting joint print-online subscribers in this figure), that would mean that the paper could be bringing in something in the region of €33 million from its paywall in direct revenue from readers. And the Wall Street Journal, which offers a different kind of paywall, has an estimated one million paying online subscribers.

This figure is encouragingly high, but how much encouragement can the NYT take from this? As a general interest paper with the most popular website out of all US papers, the Times has a far bigger pool of potential subscribers. But the FT's specialist financial content is something that more people might see as worth paying for. Indeed for some, it is news that is necessary for their business. And with the FT's main international rival the WSJ also charging, there is not an ubiquity of similar news free on the web.

The New York Times does seem to have a better shot at making charging for online content work than other US general interest newspapers. Its status as the number one national paper is largely unquestioned. It has always made a greater proportion of its revenue from content than most newspapers do, receiving 55-60% of its income from advertising compared to a typical figure of 80-85%. The current price for a print subscription is high, at between $550 and $770 a year, depending on location and offers, but many people are still prepared to pay this: more than 800,000 continue to renew their subscriptions, according to the NYT's David Carr.

Given the paper's financial situation, it is unsurprisingly that the paper is looking at changing its business model. Despite its reputation and high number of website visitors, financial constraints have pushed the New York Times into carrying out lay-offs and pay cuts. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim came to the publisher's aid last year with a $250 million loan, but if the paper is to continue to produce top-quality journalism, it needs a steady revenue stream.

Poynter writer Rick Edmonds maintains that the NYT's decision to charge "makes business sense." He believes that the Times will not "lose any meaningful number of unique visitors," and agrees with Ken Doctor that paying users represent a significant targeting advertising opportunity. The Times' memo sent to employees said that executives expect that "digital advertising will continue to be the major contributor to our success on the Web."

Slate editor Jack Shafter is critical of the NYT's strategy, judging it "too easy for freeloaders to game their way around it" and "a waste of the gargantuan audience they've attracted." He suggests that looking into improving web advertising would be a better way to go forward. Jeff Jarvis argues on his blog BuzzMachine that the NYT's plan will end up charging "the readers who are worth the most while serving free those who are worth least," which he believes does not make sense. 

With the New York Times on board, efforts to charge online are likely to speed up. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp publications are expected to introduce paid online content in coming months, and there is an increasing sentiment that it just doesn't make sense to give away content that should be seen as valuable. Not everybody agrees, however, and over at the UK paper with the most popular website, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has said that his publication will remain free online. Others will undoubtedly stick to a similar course and provide free alternatives, making it harder for those who do charge. Which business model will eventually prove more successful? 

The Telegraaf Media Groep has the advantage of already having a significant presence in the news landscape of the Netherlands, and Brouwers hopes that his new network can collaborate with Telegraaf's more traditional properties. He realises, however, that his platform is going to be very different, and also that the Telegraaf newspapers will be careful about how much of their content they give away. 

The BBC, who yesterday announced a new initiative to grant the general public access to professional media training resources, has also revealed it will expand the content available on its news website by linking to rival sources via an aggregation-like system, reports The Independent.

The move comes after accusations headed by News Corp's chairman and CEO for Europe and Asia, James Murdoch, that the corporation, in choosing to remain free, is flooding the market and preventing competitors from expanding online and charging for their content.  The new plan would reportedly see links to commerical websites added at the end of BBC stories.  

In an interview with David Baird, a professor at Anderson University, Rob Durst, a Boston-based business and technology consultant spoke of the ways in which he believes newspapers can remain viable in the digital age.

"Magazines and newspapers should stop treating their publications as fixed products and start thinking about them as valuable, branded interfaces to online content and services," Durst told Baird, continuing on to say that publishers generally need to move faster and keep abreast of technological developments.

Yet another survey on whether or not users will pay for content has dashed the hopes of publishers. A combined research effort by Ipsos Mendelsohn and PHD has revealed that 55.5 per cent of survey respondents would be very or extremely unlikely to pay for online newspaper or magazine content.

At the other end of the spectrum, results found that only 16.5 percent agreed that they were extremely, very or even a little likely to pay for content.

The New York Times unveiled its Bay Area Report last Friday, a two-page spread of local news designed to raise readership numbers and test the advertising market in San Francisco. The new section, boasting the logo: 'The world and the Bay Area. You'll find it all in the New York Times,' was announced last week and will now be published every Friday and Sunday. The spread is expected to pave the way for an entire San Francisco edition later in the year.

The Bay Area Report's debut coverage included three key stories: a profile of Oakland's new police chief;  a story on tax property assesment and a piece on local restaurant wine lists.

The stories and columns appearing in the section will also be available online at NYTimes.com where the Times will also introduce a complimetry blog called 'The Bay Area,' designed to build on the print pages by offering a space for conversation about the top stories of interest to people in the region.

Scott Heekin-Canedy, Times president and general manager, told paidContent in an interview that the expansion was a way to ensure the vitality of the paper and to 'make the print edition more valuable to subscribers and possibly convert some single-copy buyers': "In doing this, we have reason to believe that it will strengthen our subscriber retention, perhaps result in a little bit of circulation growth, but we don't have big ambitions there," he said. "By itself, it's not going to be a reason to purchase the Times or subscribe to the Times."

Rather, Heekin-Canedy says the Times has always contemplated adding coverage to various editions as part of improving the publication as a whole, but it wasn't until recently that the timing and opportunity matched. Given that the Times now sells more papers in San Francisco than anywhere else outside the Northeast (40, 080 daily) and already has a 10 person newsroom set up there- it seemed a good place to start. "That was helpful with regard to the timetable we had in mind for launching. We have the newsroom staff resources in the Bay Area to jumpstart this," said Heekin-Canedy.

The Dallas Morning News is reacting to advert losses and declining circulation after five years of cuts by increasing coverage, hiring journalists and raising prices - the 'premium product' approach.

After all the cuts of recent years, "The only other place to go was to the consumer to say, 'If you really want this, we may need you to pay more for it,' " said Jim Moroney, publisher of The News. "It was a little scary. This was not without peril." There has been a recent subscription rate increase of 43%, from $21 to $30, and the good news is that so far this risky tactic has worked; 88% of the newspaper's home delivery subscribers have had a chance to renew, and 90% of them have opted to pay the higher prices, Moroney said.

"For newspapers to successfully pursue a premium pricing strategy, which I think is valid and right, they have to deliver a premium product," said Alan Mutter, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and former newspaperman who writes a blog called Reflections of a Newsosaur.

This is exactly what The News has begun to do.

UK current affairs weekly the Spectator is to start charging online for content that is in the print magazine. Website-only content, such as the site's Coffee House blog, will remain free, Press Gazette and others reported.

The Spectator is currently offering an annual subscription to the digital editions of the magazine online for £67.50, exactly half the price of a print subscription at £135. UK readers can subscribe to the print edition at a special rate of 12 weeks for £12: both print subscriptions include online access. The Spectator also offers its US readers a Kindle subscription for $4.99 a month. Like the Economist, it allows one-off delivery orders. 

Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves believes that going weekly is the best option for his paper as its publisher Trinity Mirror starts a consultation process over the future of its key West Midlands title. Trinity Mirror will lose £6 million next year "unless some radical action is taken now," Reeves explains in a post on the paper's blog. The Post is currently the main daily paper in Birmingham, the UK's second biggest city.

Reeves identifies staff and manufacturing costs as the Post's biggest expenses, and these are therefore what need to be cut. The two options that he suggests are reducing the number of pages of the paper each day, or producing just one substantial edition per week. 

PaidContent.org publisher and editor Rafat Ali reports that the Wall Street Journal has changed its embargo policy so that it will no longer play along with PR firms who give a large group of journalists a story but ask that the information be withheld until a certain date. However, the business paper will still accept embargoed exclusives, and may make exceptions when "the story is considered big enough."

In March, Ali notes, WSJ altered its editorial policy to put emphasis on breaking stories on its Newswires. Presumably, the new embargo standards correlate to this shift to make being first the main objective.

Today marks the launch of USA Today's e-Edition, a new offering that looks exactly like the print edition in online form but with embedded links and videos. The e-Edition, which can be read online or downloaded for later, will be free for print subscribers or as a standalone subscription of $99 a year.

The newspaper has also introduced its first regular weekend product called USA Today Extra, which will only be available to e-Edition readers. Extra will serve largely as a lifestyle supplement, with content devoted to movies, sports, technology and travel.

Referring to the notion that "checkbook journalism" rules in Britain, the New York Times ponders whether or not "Fleet Street's freewheeling past has prepared British newspapers better than others for the anything-goes ethos of the web." According to the article written by Eric Pfanner, today's newspaper reporting in Britain is reminiscent of an old-school Fleet Street; the editorial decisions they make and the risks they take, while "not always pretty", help to explain why British newspapers are more successful at scoring scoops despite the fact that word tends to travel quicker online than on paper. 

"We're in a transitional period," says Tina Brown. Brown was speaking to the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal about the shift from traditional to digital media while in Chicago for BlogHer '09, a women's blog conference. Brown is a former editor for the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, both published by Conde Nast. She is now in charge of the The Daily Beast, the online news mag she started in late 2008. Trading in paper for pixels has facilitated her transition from old media to digital media. The numbers don't betray her; The Daily Beast has attracted millions of uniques - 2.1 million - according to June stats, even if those figures do not translate into revenue, yet (more on that later).

True, Brown's expertise comes largely from magazines, but the magazine milieu is experiencing the same slips in ad revenue and print readership is declining in favor of free, interactive online content. Instead of resisting this transition, as she states that many in her pre-digital generation (she is 55) tend to do, one must not be discouraged when witnessing the printed paper become defunct. Print may be stepping down from being the top source for news, but it is not a cause worth focusing on.

In a recent column, Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander highlights a growing movement among media organizations to end the practice whereby officials insist their remarks remain "off the record" at large public events. A number of groups are gathering signatures from news outlets on a letter addressed to members of Congress, federal agencies and the White House asking them to reexamine the issue.

"Standing in front of 300 people and declaring your words to be 'off-the-record' is frustrating for reporters, but it's also silly," Rick Blum, a coordinator for the advocacy group Sunshine in Government Initiative, told Alexander. "With Twitter, blogs and old-style e-mail, the lobbyists, bloggers and other opinion-shapers in the audience will repeat your words a thousand different ways before you step off the podium. But a reporter who respects the traditional rules of the road can't report what you say to a broader audience."

Late last week, Mediaite hosted its first 'Mediaite Office Hours' session in order to answer to the hostility it was met with during the first week of the site's launch. Senior Editor Glynnis MacNicol and TV Editor Steve Krakauer hosted the one-hour segment. Having only been meant to appear sporadically and unannounced, editor-at-large Rachel Sklar ended up spending most of the hour with the hosts. The motivation of Office Hours is to make Mediaite staffers available to converse with those critics who disapprove of the celebrity journalism obsessed website and tackle criticism head-on.

During the first Office Hours sitting, MacNicol explained that despite all the negative publicity that ensued in the week of the website's launch, not a single critic had emailed to complain to the site. She reported with some satisfaction that the critics have fallen silent since they have complained about everything there is to complain about.

The Newspaper Licensing Agency has come under intense criticism for its plans to charge PR companies for links to newspaper sites sent to clients. The NLA claims that charges are necessary to "protect the rights of publishers and help the web monitoring market grow". The propositions, however, have sparked a fierce row between the NLA, PR agencies and media experts as to where to draw the line between workable and "preposterous" methods of protection, as well as what actually constitutes copyright.

The NLA was established in 1996, with the mandate to authorise and gather licenses from "paper and digital copying of press cuttings". It now represents 1,400 newspapers in Great Britain. The most recent proposals came out of the enlargement of the term "press cuttings" to include the forwarding of a URL. Consequently, the NLA now maintains that PR agencies making such links should pay to do so.