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Journalism Online has announced that it has retained ITZ Publishing to lead its efforts in working with small- and medium- sized newspaper companies to maximize their online revenue opportunities. ITZ will help Journalism Online's affiliated news publishers to design marketing and packaging strategies for online subscriptions, micropayments and combined online/print subscription packages.

It will do this by assessing audience usage patterns and hence helping the newspaper companies to build appropriate pay strategies through Journalism Online. "Greg Swanson and the ITZ Publishing team have been market leaders in developing breakthrough solutions for news publishers," Journalism Online's Co-founder Steven Brill said in a press release.  Another of the co-founders, Gordon Crovitz commented that "The marketing and data analysis expertise of ITZ Publishing will be especially valuable to publishers in retaining a large number of unique visitors and page views online while converting many free users to paying subscribers."

San Diego is set to be home to the new Watchdog Institute, which will provide "data-driven investigative journalism" to media outlets.  The venture is being led by Lorie Hearn, a senior editor of the town's only printed daily, the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Institute and the paper will collaborate closely.  The details of the project were illustrated by in an email sent by U-T editor Karin Winner to newspaper staff last Friday.  The Institute team is comprised of the director, Hearn, two reporters and a data specialist, who will work closely with the newspaper staff on 'long and short projects'.  

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

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

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and Labour MP Tom Watson go head-to-head on Twitter, as Watson and the Daily Mail accuse the centre-left paper of going too far. Last week, the newspaper went ahead with a front-page editorial urging the British PM Gordon Brown to resign.

Daily Mail obsessed with idea of Guardian 'putsch' (in collusion with BBC?). A question of media ethics, apparently. http://tiny.cc/7Wp3M"

And so went the tweet that started it all, with Rusbridger linking to the Daily Mail article, in which Stephen Glover asks "Was it [the Guardian] trying to orchestrate events so as to secure the resignation which it had called for in its editorial?"

It is becoming increasingly clear that a proportion of general news content is going to be put behind some kind of a pay wall in upcoming months. Several publishers have expressed their intentions to start charging, and several third parties want to help them do it. Journalists don't seem to want it, it seems pretty unlikely that readers would want it, so how are publishers going to succeed? Can it restore value to good journalism which is increasingly becoming a commodity? The Editors Weblog takes a look at some of the different services on offer and strategies being considered.

Journalism Online

First, Journalism Online, a start-up founded in April by industry experts Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery, has taken facilitating charging for online content as one of its core goals. Brill made a presentation at the NAA-organised newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago on May 28 at which Journalism Online's mission was stated as enabling "news organizations to restore the optimal mix of circulation and advertising revenue necessary to finance original reporting and editing" hence giving them the chance to "realize the revenue they deserve--and can command--from readers and distributors for their digital content."

Journalism Online is marketing its proposal as an e-commerce platform. The idea is that it would make premium content from multiple publishers easily accessible to readers and allow annual, monthly subscriptions, day passes or single articles. There will also be all-you-can-read bundling options. Publishers will decide what content they want to charge for, how much to charge (though it is unclear how all-you-can-read prices will be decided) and how to charge. In the presentation, Brill suggests $50-60 a year and $5-6 a month for small to large city papers, but he stressed that this was an arbitrary choice and clearly the price would depend on how much content the publisher put behind the pay wall. He had previously suggested $15 a month for an all-you-can-read subscription.

The company maintains that implementing its system will not lead to a substantial loss in traffic or ad revenue, claiming that papers would be able to keep 88% of page views and 91% of ad revenue, as any paid content would be part of a hybrid model. In his examples, Brill demonstrates how he believes a paper could essentially double its income. Brill has also stressed that Journalism Online will incorporate lots of sampling. He told Nieman Lab's Zachery Seward that Journalism Online's assumptions are that 5-10% of current monthly unique visitors will be willing to pay for content; that 95 percent of those paying customers will choose subscriptions over micropayments; and that after subscribing, those readers will view 30-40 percent more pages than non-paying readers.

Overall, the company seems to be presenting its service as a chance for newspapers to focus on their best customers, offering a premium service to those who are prepared to pay. At the Chicago meeting, Journalism Online also emphasised the advantages of paid online content in terms of preserving the print product: it is "about the value proposition of print... about print subscriber acquisition and retention costs."

ViewPass

Another third party service was presented at the NAA-organised meeting in Chicago: ViewPass. It is the brainchild of Alan Mutter and Ridgely Evers, and could be implemented in 9 months at a cost of $6 million. The idea is that newspaper readers would be required to register once with ViewPass and it would then track their activity across participating websites.

Like Journalism Online, it would aim to offer readers the chance to purchase premium online content from multiple sources, with potential for subscriptions, micropayments and bundling. Essentially, the ways in which it differs is that ViewPass would be industry-owned, giving publishers the chance to (hopefully) share profits in the business itself, and it most crucially it would allow users to 'pay' for their content with their time or their information instead of with cash, because of their increased value to advertisers. In fact, ViewPass would focus on presenting readers that were attractive to advertisers for highly targeted ads. Mutter himself is not enthusiastic about charging for much online content, suggesting to Nieman Lab that it would only work for specialist content.

Circlabs

The creation of another start up was announced the day before the Chicago meeting: CircLabs, founded by Bill Densmore, Jeffrey Vander Clute, Martin Langeveld and Joe Bergeron. Its first product, code-named Circulate, aims to "offer a solution" to publishers who are experimenting with micropayments and subscriptions, suggesting that they should charge for content which is "both scarce in nature and of high utility to a segment of the audience." CircLabs is also focussed on developing opportunities for "high-value" advertising revenue, and plans to incorporate personalised news services. Further details are yet to appear.

Efforts of individual publishers

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has announced that all the company's newspapers would be charging within a year. It is looking at bundling content, according to chief digital officer Jonathan Miller, such as putting all the media conglomerate's New York-based content into one subscription package. One of the company's prime assets, the Wall Street Journal, is proof that paid premium content does work, although of a specifically financial nature. The paper is to expand its paid online options, with plans to introduce micropayments later this year along with a further level of premium subscriptions. Murdoch suggested that the company wants to "test" a pay model on some of its stronger properties first, and there has been speculation that the Sunday Times will be among these. The paid online content debate, although definitely present in the UK, has not been as strong as across the Atlantic, and it would be interesting to see what sort of reaction such a move would provoke.

MediaNews Group is planning to charge online under the belief that "we continue to do an injustice to our print subscribers and create perceptions that our content has no value by putting all of our print content online for free." A memo to staff from CEO Dean Singleton and president Jody Lodovic suggested that a part-paid strategy is in the works, and made it clear that the company is intending to charge for existing content rather than for new products or services.

The New York Times is apparently looking at two different ways in which it could charge for online content. The first would be somewhat similar to the Financial Times' model, whereby readers could surf the site without charge until a page-view or word limit were reached, when a 'metre' would start running and it would charge a user for the rest of their time spent. (The FT allows 10 free articles per user per month, then demands a subscription.) This would have the advantage of not putting specific content behind a paywall, and therefore not angering journalists.

The other option is a 'membership' scheme: readers would donate money and subsequently be invited into a "New York Times community," which would offer them free merchandise and other benefits. Possibly a tiered membership scheme could be implemented. When these proposals were discussed, Bill Keller told staff that a decision would be made by the end of June. The NYT is wary following its failed TimesSelect experience back in 2007 and seems determined to find a solution that will not damage its significant ad revenue.

Potential obstacles: search and antitrust

Currently many people find their news through search engines such as Google, and for articles to get good Google rankings and appear higher up in search results, they cannot be behind a paywall. Newspapers must strive to find an appropriate solution to this when they start charging: the Wall Street Journal's tactic of allowing its paid content to be accessed free via Google is clearly not fair to its paying customers, and is a definite deterrent to potential subscribers.

Antitrust regulations in the US effectively prevent publishers from coming to a joint agreement on when and how they should start charging for content. At the newspaper executives' meeting in Chicago on May 28, an antitrust lawyer was present to make sure all the discussion was legal. Poynter analyst Rick Edmonds suggested that the use of a third party "vendor" such as Journalism Online could be the solution to these concerns. Journalism Online has taken on David Boies and Ted Olson for antitrust advice.

So, is it going to work? And how?

Undoubtedly, implementing paid content is going to be a considerable challenge and is likely to involve substantial experimentation. Newspapers need to consider what exactly they would want to charge for, for example whether they could create a new paid service or put what is currently free behind a pay wall. It seems as if it would be easier to persuade people to pay for something new, rather than telling them they have to start paying for something previously free. But then people might decide that they are happy with what they get now and that they do not want to pay for anything extra. A paper with a highly developed website such as the New York Times could possibly offer basic news free but keep its interactive graphics and other more innovative content for its premium customers.

As yet, Journalism Online seems to be ahead of the pack with regards to third party services. No papers have publicly signed on but Brill told Seward that he had already spoken to about half of those at the Chicago meeting. In terms of connections and credibility of its founders, Journalism Online has a head start. ViewPass and CircLabs do seem to be onto something, however, with their focus on offering consumers as targets for higher-revenue advertising and effectively allowing them to pay for their news by looking at ads. Could these companies coexist, or is there only room for one?

A crucial factor which should not be underestimated in any attempt to charge online is ease of use for the consumer. People will be far more likely to part with their cash if doing so is simple and straightforward. For this reason, sign-in-once and all-you-can-read offers are likely to appeal. And once people are paying, the level of service should reflect this: good journalism presented attractively and accessibly. An element of personalisation would also seem worth paying for.

Can paid online content 'save' newspapers? If Journalism Online's figures are correct, it looks like it could make a significant difference to a newspaper's fortunes. The next few months will be telling in terms of experimentation and competition between proposals, but it will take some years for the definitive answer to this question to be realised.

The I Want Media's The Future of Media: 2009 discussion held at NYU yesterday gathered the most renowned names in the new media world to present their visions of the future of information media.  Present were Gawker chief Nick Denton, Jack Dorsey, cofounder and chairman of Twitter; Bonnie Fuller, creator of Us Weekly and founder of Bonnie Fuller Media; Alan Murray, deputy managing editor and executive editor online at The Wall Street Journal; and Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.

Perhaps of most interest to have come from the exchange were Denton's statements about journalists' attitudes, their inaptitude for internet blogging and the pay wall debate which is currently dominating news provision dialogue.

News Corp chief digital officer Jonathan Miller has said  the company is looking into bundling its online content when it adopts a new pay model, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He also expressed his belief that paid online news is the future and indicated that the media conglomerate is willing to lead a push for change.  

Miller, speaking at the Hollywood Reporter's Digital Power event in New York, explained that "we want to see a model established" for charging online, adding that  "what works for consumers, I think - and this has to be tested - are bundles." He suggested that News Corp's various papers or various New York media outlets could be bundled. It is an idea which has proved successful for cable TV channels and which many believe could also work for news, as an alternative to individual subscriptions to general news sites, which largely failed. It is one of the options proposed by start-up company Journalism Online.

A new portal supported by the European Commission "aims to get EU citizens across the 27 member states talking and reading about the same issues" by translating selected articles from 250 of the continent's newspapers into 10 different languages. Titles such as France's Le Figaro, Spain's El Pais and the UK's Guardian will be involved in the project, which will employ 10 journalists and receive €3 million of EC funds per year.

The site is lead by Courrier International, along with Internazionale in Italy, Forum Polityka in Poland and Courrier Internacional in Portugal, and hopes to have all 23 of the EU's official languages involved within the next five years. EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom explained that the site will "broaden, enrich and expand coverage of European affairs," allowing Europeans to read European coverage from other nation's perspectives, instead of being limited to their own national newspapers.

Lawrence Roberts, prolific investigative editor at the Washington Post since 2004, has been employed by the Huffington Post to lead its nascent Investigative Fund, it was revealed this morning.   The announcement was made by Arianna Huffington,  Chair of the Fund's Advisory Board and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post, and Nick Penniman, Executive Director of the Fund.  Huffington said:

"We are delighted to have Larry on board. Larry's background in investigative journalism -- including being part of three Pulitzer-winning teams -- as well as his experience in online journalism make him an ideal pick to spearhead the Investigative Fund. Plus, his experience as a business editor is perfectly aligned with the Investigative Funds initial focus on covering the economic crisis."

Yesterday, the recently founded Media140 held its first Twitter and microblogging conference. Held at London's Southbank Centre - a venue in the heart of the UK capital synonymous with innovation - the event largely focussed on the effects that Twitter and micoblogging are having on the news gathering process and was attended by journalists from Guardian.co.uk, TimesOnline, TechCrunch, BBC, Aljazeera, Reuters and Sky News.

Kicking off discussions, associate editor of the Sunday Herald and author of 'The Play ethic', Pat Kane, opened up the conference with a keynote presentation on the way breaking news services were dramatically changing the face of journalism: "Reading a newspaper on a street corner might be seen as banal. What's becoming just as banal is producing news on that street corner," said Kane. You can access his slideshow from the presentation here.

New York Times journalist David Carr has written his regular Media Equation piece about the very paper he works for. Prompted by questions from interviewees who continue to ask him about the fate of the paper, he has decided to address some of the main issues, though stressing that he does not have access to information from "the people in charge."

He addresses the question of the paper's ownership, and concludes that the Sulzberger family's control of the stock and the board, coupled with the barrier created by Carlos Slim's loan, means that nobody else is going to be able to take control any time soon. Carr also asserts that despite the company's debt and declining revenue, it is "well within its existing debt covenants," and Slim's loan and the mortgage of the headquarters have given the company "the wherewithal to operate into 2011." The company has said it is not for sale, and as it is not in imminent danger of default or bankruptcy, it need not be pressured into a deal.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal issued a new set of guidelines for professional conduct to its staff which, among other things, detailed the do's and don'ts of social networking. At the time, reaction to the rules was unknown, but writing on her Save the media blog, newspaper journalist, Gina Chen, clearly disagrees with the WSJ bosses.

"This is an open letter to the Dow Jones and Co.," begins the post. The author says that executives at the WSJ "fail" to grasp the point of social media and proceeds to address each specific rule, line by line.

The Economist has made the news industry the special focus of its business section for its latest edition. "Established" news is described as "being blown away" but news in general is otherwise considered to be "thriving."

In an opening paragraph which does not bode well for advocates of traditional media, the Economist ponders if "the surest sign that newspapers are doomed is that politicians, so often their targets, are beginning to feel sorry for them," in reference to Barack Obama's pledge to newspapers last weekend at an industry dinner in Washington, as well as Massachusetts senator, John Kerry's commitment to help the "endangered species" and, in particular, his region's beloved Boston Globe.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has reported that the Post Co.'s chief executive Donald Graham has been in talks with Google CEO Eric Schmidt to discuss working together. Post executive Philip Bennett described the meetings as "an informal collaboration."

Bennett confirmed that "we're talking to each other about improved ways of creating and presenting news online." Details of how this could develop are unclear: Kurtz suggests that the collaboration could lead to creating new web pages or technological tools for journalists or readers.

Last Wednesday, May 6, the US Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing to review the plight of the newspaper industry, to better understand new media and the new model emerging, and to assess the role that government should play in the media as it evolves. The Future of Journalism hearing was presided over by Subcommittee chair Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who called the hearing in response to the threatened closure of his local paper, the Boston Globe, and the troubles facing newspapers across the country as advertising and circulation decline and the Internet replaces traditional media.

In his opening statement, Kerry says the committee has met to discuss not only the jolting condition of the newspaper, but also its implications for the future of journalism and the country. He believes it is important to "preserve the core society function served by independent and diverse media" and questions whether online journalism will "sustain the values of professional journalism the way the newspaper industry has." The committee invited five prominent representatives of various types of media to express their views about the Future of Journalism and offer their solutions.

"Why is the government interested?" asks Kerry. "We do have a responsibility for the licensing of broadcast. We have a responsibility for the regulatory oversight of ownership of cable, satellite, other issues with respect to communications; and needless to say, how the American people get their information--what the structure of ownership is--is of enormous interest to all of us because it is the foundation of our democracy." Is there even any government role at all, he wonders, or is this simply a normal transition in the marketplace?

Considering the nonprofit model

Before it heard from the media representatives, Maryland Senator Ben Cardin spoke to the committee about his Newspaper Revitalization Act, which proposes a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status for newspapers. Cardin stresses that online journalism does not supply the in-depth reporting and investigative journalism provided by traditional newsrooms that are essential to a free and democratic society. His bill would provide an opportunity for local supporters--whether individuals, foundations, or educational institutions--to come together to preserve their community newspaper.

The major criticism of Cardin's bill is that it could threaten a newspaper's freedom of speech: 501(c)(3) status allows editorializing but prohibits a paper from endorsing political candidates. The independence of journalism from government is crucial to its role as watchdog, and it is undesirable for a newspaper to have the government involved in judging its content. However, in their addresses to the Committee, both Steve Coll, former managing editor of the Washington Post, and former newspaperman David Simon, say that while they seriously oppose government interference in newspapers, they are intrigued by the nonprofit model.

Newsrooms provide an important public service, so why shouldn't the government give them the tax exempt benefit of becoming non-profits? After all, the danger of government interference in content could be exaggerated. Any single politician or political party attempting to manipulate a publication would be immediately exposed through other media outlets, and the threat is not much greater than private ownership where powerful investors might maneuver the paper to serve their own interests. Nonetheless, the greatest issue faced by nonprofit newspapers and their investors will be where to draw the line between endorsing and editorializing. If a newspaper's responsibility is to provide the public with unbiased information, then blatant political endorsements seem in violation of that role anyway, but nonprofit status could limit criticism and commentary on politicians and legislation that might reduce the media's role as watchdog.

As Coll and Alberto Ibargüen, President of the Knight Foundation, point out, nonprofit is not a universal remedy nor will it solve newspapers' profit problems. The initiative could be viewed less as a savior of the newspaper entity and more as a bridge to preserve local journalism during a transitional period. Ibarguen says that relieving profit pressures with nonprofit status might help newspapers "extend their useful life until we figure out what's next and what online model can afford professional journalism."

Relaxing antitrust could help publishers charge for online content

The other great appeal for government intervention in newspapers has been the request for changes to media ownership and antitrust policy. Last month the Justice Department rejected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's request to change the boundaries of media antitrust to include all media in a geographic area--including radio, TV, and newspapers--when deciding whether a sale is anticompetitive.

Pelosi's antitrust proposal raised obvious criticism about the independence of newspapers and consolidation of ownership. However, at the Senate hearing, Simon and James Moroney, publisher and CEO of the Dallas Morning News, approached antitrust from a different angle: they urged the Committee to give newspapers an antitrust exemption so that industry leaders could convene to discuss copyrighting from aggregators and charging for content online.

Unable to foresee the digital future, at the advent of the Internet newspaper publishers made the mistake of offering content free online. Now readers are accessing that content for free, not through the publisher's site, but through aggregators like Google News, which also does not pay publishers for content. Marissa Mayer, vice president of Search Products and User Experience at Google Inc., defends Google to the committee, calling it a "conduit" for journalism that provides a free service to online newspapers by driving traffic to their sites.

However, Simon and Moroney argue that aggregators do not provide adequate compensation for the revenue generated from publishers' original content. They contend that as of now, the profits publishers make from online advertising are not enough to sustain the quality journalism newsrooms have been providing. There must be an industry wide initiative to charge for content online, says Simon, as no individual can swim against the tide. According to Moroney, under the current antitrust laws, publishers cannot even begin to have a conversation about possibilities for pricing or charging aggregators.

If the government does relax antitrust to allow for this industry wide "conversation," it could possibly lead to major publications placing a pay wall around content, charging users and aggregators, but does such a pay wall threaten the free market? One of the virtues of the Internet is the accessibility of information, so where do pay walls and content hoarding fit in? A generation of Internet users already views information as a free commodity, and charging online users for content will significantly reduce traffic, which will in turn reduce advertising revenue. Even if industry leaders can convene and discuss, they still might find themselves at a loss for a viable solution.

Experimentation and innovation rather than government intervention

The hearing's last speaker, Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, opposed antitrust exemptions, paywalls, or really any government intervention. In fact, she countered some speaker's doom and gloom position with the opening statement, "Journalism will not only survive, it will thrive." Her main point is that the industry has changed and moved forward and there is no going back.

Huffington says, "The future is to be found elsewhere: it's a linked economy, it's search engines, it's online advertising, it's citizen journalism, and the foundations supporting investigative journalism. That's where the future is, and if you can't find your way to that, then you just can't find your way."

Ibargüen, Mayer, and Huffington all support embracing new media and encouraging experimentation and business models that promote digital possibilities. For Ibargüen that means providing universal, affordable digital action and adoption in the US and more inclusive public media that reaches every American. Neither he nor Huffington mourn the decline of investigative journalism, and both praise the efforts of nonprofits like ProPublica and the Knight Foundation supported Voices of San Diego for providing quality journalism outside the traditional newsroom.

According to Mayer, "The structure of the web has caused the basic unit--the atom of consumption--to migrate from the newspaper to the individual article," and because of the Web's ability to operate in real time, this allows for "living" instead of "static" stories that are constantly changed and updated like Wikipedia or the New York Times' "Times Topics." These changes to the way information is viewed, insist Mayer and Huffington, mean a different approach to monetization is necessary, which requires innovation and creativity. The solution for newspaper publishers is not to appeal to the government for a handout to preserve the old ways, but to adapt quickly and direct their time and resources into experimenting with the monetization of traffic through advertising.

What will the Senate decide?

Despite Kerry and Cardin's concern for the American newspaper, more than one of the subcommittee's senators held up a Blackberry during the hearing, proving themselves a part of the new digital audience. The general consensus of both the senators and media representatives seemed to be that their priority is not to save newspapers but to promote policies that sustain journalism.

How enlightening were the testimonies of the media representatives? Though certainly thorough in unveiling all the problems facing the media today, they failed to provide the government with a cure-all solution as to how it should proceed.

It seems fairly likely that the Senate could pursue the nonprofit solution as it seems basically harmless and might help some local newspapers stay on their feet at least long enough to find another answer. Relaxing antitrust could prove more risky, giving industry leaders the occasion to consolidate prices and possibly restrict information in a move that could prove more harmful than helpful to their own purpose.

The testimonies may have encouraged the Senate to do nothing at all for the newspaper but instead to accept that the audience and the market is evolving and no legislation can hold it back. If this is the case, then publishers will be faced with only one choice: innovate or fail. Instead of resisting change, they must get a grasp on technology and the new audience, paying attention to the success of others, then find ways to provide creative content and advertising solutions. As a few of the speakers said, this is still a transitional period for old media and new media, and there is still immense possibility for originality and advances. Though certain publications might lament their own fate, it is too early to be mourning the future of journalism.  

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.

On Tuesday the Obama administration rejected the newspaper industry's request to change antitrust and media ownership laws to allow newspapers to compete with the threat posed by the Internet, reports the Associated Press. "We do not believe any new exemptions for newspapers are necessary," said US Justice Department's Carl Shapiro, an assistant attorney general for economics.

The hearing took place before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy and was prompted partly by an appeal to the Justice Department from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reexamine antitrust laws. Newspaper industry representatives complain that existing laws do not consider newspapers' new advertising competition with bloggers and online news.

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?

Yesterday, the Australian reported that following a period of sustained economic growth peaking at the end of 2008, India's newspapers are beginning to show signs of economic retreat, with advertising revenue falling by unprecedented amounts.

With economic retardation sweeping the world, emerging markets are also beginning to suffer as foreign investment dries up but printing costs continue rising. "Newspaper sizes are coming down, staff are being retrenched, marginal titles closed and expansion plans put on hold," reports the Australian.

Amazon has reported that sales of its e-reader, the Kindle, have been better than expected. Bloomberg quoted a letter to shareholders from CEO Jeff Bezos in which he claimed that "Kindle sales have exceeded our most optimistic expectations." Amazon does not release actual figures, however.

The company brought out the Kindle 2.0 in Februrary, which is thinner and faster than the original, and is on sale in the US for $359. As well as the more than 250,000 book titles available, many newspapers have offered their readers subscriptions via the product, with editions of the newspaper delivered wirelessly each day. USA Today recently announced it is offering its blogs on the Kindle, in addition to existing subscription possibilities.

Small Texas newspaper the Daily Sentinel employs Twitter to publish breaking news alerts on its Web site, and Online Editor Matthew Stoff and Lead Developer David Durrett have shared a tutorial, including code, explaining how to create the Twitter widget. "If you can send an e-mail," they say, "you can publish breaking news."

Stoff and Durrett devised the Twitter widget as a solution to a newsroom problem: because publishing online required Web staff's technical expertise, breaking news would often go unpublished until certain staff members were available. "We wanted to take advantage of Twitter's ease of use so that reporters and editors with little or no training could post headlines quickly without special software and without having to memorize a technical process," the tutorial explains. "The resulting method uses e-mail as the interface for posting short headlines (which are actually Twitter messages, or 'tweets') to the Web site."

The Internet is set to overtake television as a main form of media consumption in 2010 says a report by Microsoft called "Europe Logs on: Internet trends of today and tomorrow." The report covers Italy, France, Spain, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, Norway Turkey, Gibraltar, Cyprus and Greece.

If the current growth trends continue, Microsoft states the turn could occur in June 2010 with a weekly average of 14.2 hours on the web and 11.5 hours on television. The report also states that TV will continue to be a strong source of media, however it will be experienced in new ways. Already, online videos are shown to be the most popular entertainment feature with 1 in 4 Europeans watching all kinds of videos.

The study found that Europeans are spending an average of 9 hours a week online, more time than they spend reading print media. They found that 65% of online activity was dedicated to news websites, social networking and email.

In the United States, online news consumption overtook print media, yet local television remains strongest. With cable, local and network TV combined, TV lead at 70% of news consumption, according to Pew Research Center's State of the News Media 2009 report. The report also stated that with the current growth of Internet, it will eventually pass television.  

Source: Brand Republic, Europe Logs On, Journalism.org

Rupert Murdoch, News Corp Chairman and CEO, has announced that the company is to create a new portal that will allow its worldwide editorial properties to share content and resources across the entire organisation. "The creation of a new unit designed to share valuable news content and harness the power of News Corporation's vast editorial resources is vital to our success as a global media entity," he said.

Executive VP of News Editorial for Fox News John Moody has been appointed to oversee the new unit. He will be reporting directly to Murdoch, and will collaborate with news chiefs across all News Corp properties "to improve news gathering efficiencies and identify areas of cost savings," which implies that the move is largely financially motivated. News Corp's vast empire includes the Wall Street Journal, the Dow Jones Newswire, the Times of London, the Sun, the New York Post and Sky Italia, as well as Fox News.

The second day of the Logan Symposium at UC Berkeley had a panel devoted to the future of investigative journalism, considering "recently it has not been a high priority for editors and publishers," due to the time, money and energy that goes into it.

The discussions involved different leaders in the field such as Robert Rosenthal of the Center for Investigative Reporting, and Buzz Woolley, chairman of the board and primary funder of Voice of San Diego. The air was relatively optimistic as the speakers focused on collaboration as the key to the future of investigative journalism.

Bill Keller of the New York Times commented, "I don't think investigative journalism will go away, and there is emerging media that will be partly profit, partly non-profit, partly collaborative, partly competitive, mainly online". Robert Rosenthal was hopeful: "Last year I said the business model for newspapers was toast. Now I believe that collaboration is going to be very important for profit and nonprofit journalism". Esther Kaplan, of The Nation Institute Investigative Fund says that partnerships in the field "are in their infancy" and they take a lot of work to happen. "We should consider a lot more, like joint investigation sites, shared technology for micro-financing," she added.