Results matching “weekly to be l”

The Economist magazine is refashioning its image through a major new advertising campaign to appeal to a wider readership. It has launched a cinema commercial, its first in eight years, to dispel preconceived ideas about the magazine's content and ethos.  

The commercial is part of a repackaging drive to boost circulation in the magazine's birthplace, the UK, and to emulate the popularity that it enjoys in the US.  The campaign calls upon the "intellectually curious" rather than any specified demographic to "let your mind wander".

 

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. 

The deal was 18 months in the making, but Richard Connor has finally succeeded in buying up the Maine-based properties of the Seattle Times Co. Connor's acquisitions include the dailies the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel, as well as MaineToday.com, the Coastal Journal and The Maine Switch.

As part of his new role as editor and publisher of the three dailies, Connor will write a weekly column, although he said he's not going to "foist" his opinions on the newspapers. Connor aims to make the group profitable by the end of the year - in part by slashing jobs. This week, 31 non-union workers were let go, and up to 100 more could meet the same fate.

On Wednesday, Clarity Media Group announced that Rubert Murdoch had sold the Weekly Standard to Phillip Anschutz. The Huffington Post was one of the first sources of the rumor that emerged speculating that media groups News Corp. and Anschutz were discussing the transaction, more than ten days ago.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Murdoch may not necessarily "need" the right-wing political magazine, since its editorial tone echoes that of the more influential Wall Street Journal, a publication that Murdoch recently added to his media portfolio.

As the Boston Newspaper Guild and Boston Globe management take a break in negotiations until next week, speculation has been mounting on possible buyers for the paper and what its future might be. The union and owner the New York Times Co are trying to come to an agreement on how to make $10 million of savings following the union's narrow rejection of a deal and the Times Co's subsequent imposition of a 23% pay cut for all staff. The company is also looking at selling the paper.

The Financial Times reported that one of the interested buyers is understood to be willing to work with the union to structure a buy-out. Stephen Pagliuca, listed by the Globe last week as one of three potential buyers, is a managing partner at Bain Capital private equity firm and an owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team. Union officials appear willing to work with a prospective buyer.

From today, web users will be able to access more than two million pages of 19th and 20th century history by browsing a selection of 49 British and regional newspaper titles, courtesy of the British Library.

Included in the collection are archives from the Graphic, an illustrated weekly publication which ran from 1869 to 1932. Writing on October 13 1888 after the Jack the Ripper murders, one journalist said: "To the general public it is some comfort to reflect that the late atrocities were aimed at a particular class, and that their object was not robbery. Educated persons, who have many interests and subjects of conversation, can, perhaps, scarcely realise the impression made by these occurrences on poor and ignorant people, whose lives are usually monotonous and uneventful."

BusinessWeek is to create a special online version of its magazine that will only be available to subscribers, reported MediaWeek. The subscriber-only view will be print-like in presentation, and the new paid/free strategy is part of a site relaunch in July.

All the magazine's content will be available free on the site, but subscribers will be offered a different experience in an attempt to provide "a special privilege for print subscribers," Roger Neal, general manager of BusinessWeek.com, told MediaWeek. Users will get other benefits such as instant access to print content online.

On Wednesday, to mark the launch of Hebrew Book Week, staff at Israel's daily Haaretz surrendered their desks, notebooks and pens to some of the country's most celebrated writers and poets.

With the exception of the sports and finance sections, established and up-and-coming authors were entrusted with researching stories and producing copy for the entire newspaper, from the front page headline to the back-page weather report.

The French version of the free daily 20 Minutes will follow its audience to their holiday destinations this summer. The paper, which normally hibernates during the summer as its readership of commuters leave the city, will publish a weekly edition available on 150 different beach localities, where the French typically flock to during the hot summer months, in addition to the usual 20 Minutes hotspots in metro and train stations. The weekly will focus on cinema, beauty and fitness, as well as produce unique games testing readers' awareness of general news and cultural.

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?"

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."

Classifieds website Craigslist has provided a noteworthy boost to alt-weeklies' adult classifieds revenue after its recent policy change that requires closer regulation of its adult-services classified ads.  This is an ironic turn of events for the online colossus of classifieds that has wrought havoc on its competition, in print and online, ever since 2005.

The Washington City Paper reported increases in adult ads of 38% compared to one year ago, a change Andrew Beaujon from the paper's City Desk blog correlates directly to Craigslist's tougher regulation of their adult ads. Beaujon reminisces that for alt-weeklies like his, "Craigslist's free classifieds were an extinction-level event." But now Craigslist's requires would-be adult-services advertisers to waver that their posts contain no "content that is unlawful, pornographic, or which advertises illegal services", no ads "suggesting or implying an exchange of sexual favors for money", and no "pornographic images, or images suggestive of an offer of sexual favors.". These stricter standards have driven adult advertisers away from Craigslist, resulting in the higher figures for the local papers and free weeklies that used to account for so much of the classifieds market.

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.

Are any dailies hiring? That seems to be the question on every aspiring journalist's mind. A recent graduate student who uses the penname "Where to Look?" asked this very question of whether or not daily newspapers are hiring to expert recruiter Joe Grimm. Grimm is a visiting professor at the Michigan University School of Journalism whose Q & A advice column is aimed at tackling 'the toughest recruiting questions.' A former editor, Grimm has moved into public communications and is the host of the weekly live online chats that address a designated issue in addition to his column.

Grimm candidly replies to the graduate that there are jobs available at daily news publications. The future of those dailies, as well as others that are not hiring is, however, less certain. What is certain is that the way media is delivered (as print, on-air, or through the internet) will become far more advanced.

The proposed merger of two Polish dailies and the launch of an entertainment version of a political weely, both intended to conquer a new public and consolidate readership, have raised some doubts in the Polish newspaper industry.

Poland's largest business and legal daily Gazeta Prawna (87,000 paid circulation) will merge with the second quality news daily Dziennik (147,000 readership), in a 51/49% partnership between Infor Biznes and Axel Springer, their respective owners. The transaction, which will result in a combined newspaper strong in economics on one side, and politics, culture and sports on the other, is still subject to approval by the authorities.

The alternative weekly publications of the New Mass. Media group, the Hartford Advocate, New Haven Advocate and Fairfield County Weekly have outsourced all of their editorial content to freelance journalists in India.  

The first editions to have been created in this way will be released this Thursday.  And rather than trying to bury the use of these potentially problematic methods of journalism, the publishers are courting the controversy.  The cover of each paper will be emblazoned with the statement: "Sorry, we've Been Outsourced. This Issue Made In India."

Guardian Weekly has offered its readers a special subscription deal - via Twitter. Its marketing department announced that it would offer its Twitter followers the deal once it passed the 500 followers mark, which it subsequently did. Twitter users are offered four weeks for free and 50% off an initial three-month subscription.

Editor Natalie Bennett explains, "We started out on Twitter not quite sure what it was. But now there are a lot of people following us and we're picking up our kind of people." Twitter has become astonishingly popular incredibly quickly, and has been much praised as a source of stories and real-time news.

Source: Journalism.co.uk

The future of printed media has become a major political issue in countries like the United States or France, even being debated in ad-hoc committees set up by the legislative or the executive powers. Discussions along the Potomac or the Seine rivers have been focusing on the impact of Internet and new technologies, or on the need for state subsidies.

Meanwhile, on the Vltava in Prague, a group of editors and reporters working for PPF Media, the recently created division of insurance and consumer banking group PPF, is already opening new ways of covering a whole country in what may be a newsroom of the future. With other journalists for the moment based in four provincial towns from the Czech Republic, they are launching the so-called "hyperlocal weekly" Nase adresa ("our address"), which combines print and online journalism with particular efforts to sustain high professional standards and get closer to the readers.

"It can only work with well prepared journalists who will be trained in the Futuroom, our central newsroom," explains Roman Gallo, 44, director for PPF's media strategies and conceiver of the project. "We are also opening newscafés in our local bureaus, which will facilitate the contact between Nase adresa's journalists and the public, to enrich the content of our newspaper and of its webpages," adds Matej Husek, 33, director of news operations.
 
The newspoints, combining local newsrooms and Internet cafés in often small, rural towns, may be the most visible originality of this new undertaking. A few weeks before Nase adresa's launch, for instance, PPF Media's already hired staff had the chance to taste two products, the first print prototype of the weekly, and a cake likely to be served in the cafés. "The project represents a special challenge in terms of logistics, of room for storage, as we will be managing dozens of bistrot-Starbucks-like coffee shops in local newsrooms," comments Tomas Chejn, 41, the manager of PPF Media's branded cafés, a food specialist hired for his long time experience in quality catering. Petr Vitasek, 38, the director and chief editor for the Moravia region, based in the eastern Czech city of Olomouc, thinks this effort is worth the investment, because these "well located newspoints will be critical in getting Nase adresa's journalists to work closer to their readers."
 

 
But the whole project is innovative at other, multiple levels. To start with, for the first time a newspaper's birth is tightly associated to the creation of a multi-media training center - with several international partners including Google, Atex and the World Association of Newspapers/ World Editors Forum. The Futuroom will be a newsroom in charge of assisting and training in-house editors, some having no previous reporting experience, as much as a real life teaching field for future journalists. These will include a group of students within another partnership with Brno's Masaryk University, in the second largest Czech town.

Nase adresa's approach could also become a school case due to the organization of the newsroom. "I like how the Futuroom is shaped. Journalists are not confined to one theme, like health or education, but to a way of reporting, and I enjoy changing topics," says Vendula Krizova, reporter in the "Human approach team" and young (25) like many of her new colleagues. Adds Radim Klekner, 50, who joined the "Institutional team" - after working for 10 different newsrooms - to do researches on European Union institutions in particular: "Vertical structures dominate in traditional newspapers, while in Nase adresa it is more horizontal. In my case, for instance, I will be covering many European issues based on the Czech reality."


Klekner had some doubts initially, however, because he has been covering foreign news in the past 15 years.  Why would he join a hyperlocal news project as an international editor, then? "There is a need for benchmarking with other European countries in all aspects of the Czech society, and with Nase adresa I will be able to give a EU presence in the remotest Czech villages", he believes. "Our role is to assess general issues like the lack of general practitioners in the country, compared to others, and connect them to specific cases brought up by the local newsrooms."
 

 
Local journalists with long intensive experience covering their community are also convinced they are working for an innovative project. Vitasek, in Olomouc, even tried a hyperlocal news concept on his own five years ago, called Olomoucky Tydenik. "It was a weekly published on Mondays and strong on local sports, like Nase adresa. We had to stop it after one year, but this time I have with me a 10-people team supported by PPF and by the Futuroom managers and trainers. Our office, in a central strategic area of Olomouc, will be a space for constant direct contact with readers and potential contributors."

Based on her 30 year experience in local journalism, Hana Vojtova, 52, the chief editor of the Teplice newspoint, in the north Bohemian city near the border with east Germany, also believes Nase adresa is a new improvement for community journalism: "We will get nearer to the people from the region, who are tired of politics and want to be informed on human interest stories," explains Vojtova, whose district is dramatically affected by problems like crime and unemployment. "We are going to cover better our readers's activities and their dreams!"
 

 
The project has attracted several other seasoned editors from all backgrounds, including Jiri Zavozda, 50, Nase adresa's head of the copy editing team. He just finished a seven year experience in major private television "Prima", as news editor-in-chief, after working more than a decade for national newspapers. "The TV experience was good because it teaches you how to write short, but I prefer print because it is less superficial," says Zavozda. There are other reasons why he joined the Futuroom. "I see my in-laws, who live in a little village in Moravia and who have only access to media not specifically targeted to them, national daily Mlada Fronta, newsweekly Tyden and the television. Only Nase adresa will inform them well on the Sunday afternoon firemen team's competitions, which are particularly popular in the Czech republic. We will get spectacular photos of fires being extinguished!"

Adds Peter Sabata, 48, the editor-in-chief responsible for the local newsroom: "I strongly believe in the hyperlocal level of information, with the combination of newspoints, and print, online journalism. The weekly will be a bridge from now to the near future, when everybody in the regions will be connected." Sabata just moved back to the Czech republic after eight years at the head of national Slovak paper Pravda's newsroom.

 
Other Nase adresa team members are particularly enthusiastic because of the new challenges specific to a project combining teaching and praxis, online and print journalism, so far never achieved at such a level. Ondrej Besperat, 31, who manages the photo-video team in a duo with veteran photojournalist Jan Silpoch, is well aware of the differences between shooting for a newspaper or for a website. Before joining the Futuroom, he was a photographer for national daily Hospodarske Noviny and then worked for Aktualne.cz, the successful, Internet-only Czech media outlet. "In printed media, you have to do one or two pictures a day, and you invest all your energy in the best one, while in Internet, you try more different perspectives as you know that several pictures are likely to be released for each story."

Besperat anticipates he is likely to spend two third of his time training reporters from the local newsrooms, at the beginning at least. "One of the main challenges will be to shoot sport with our standard high-end amateur cameras," he says. "The idea is not to have journalists who do everything all the time, but reporters who are multifunctional, able to provide good texts and images."

 
Nase adresa will also represent new challenges beyond the expertise usually expected from  journalists, especially for the local chief editors who will have to look after a coffee shop part of their time. "Ten years ago I had a short experience working for Coca Cola, but this will be new because I am not at all a food and beverage specialist," laughs Vitasek, in Moravia. Krizova, who is glad to cover very diverse topics, is also ready for another type of special assignment as a young reporter. She will be asked to take care of children visiting the Futuroom - turned into a "Junioroom" or "media camp" - to learn how to write an article or produce a video footage.


PPF Media's project will be preparing new generations of journalists and not just showing new forms of getting and providing the news.
 

BACKGROUND
The Czech Republic is a country of 10 million people living in 14 regions subdivided in 75 districts in total. Until 20 years ago, only the government and Communist Party related entities could publish newspapers. This was also the case for the regional dailies, and for more local publications at district or town levels. German group Verlagsgruppe Passau took over most of them in 1990 and after, under its Czech branch Vltava-Labe-Press which currently controls over 10 weeklies and over 70 dailies called Denik ("daily", followed by the name of the concerned locality). Nase adresa will have no direct competitors except in a few cases, because its editions will typically cover areas of 20-30,000 people while Denik and its affiliates are designed for larger groups, of over 100,000 inhabitants on average.

Fort Collins (Colo.) is set to lose its investigative weekly paper, Fort Collins Now, the most recent paper to perish in the current economic climate, reports Editor&Publisher.

Dwight Brown, the paper's publisher announced the closure on Monday on its website "the slump that has hit the newspaper industry in recent years has swallowed yet another newspaper: The one you are currently reading."

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

The 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.

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

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

Source: Editor & Publisher