Results matching “the lead over print”

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

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

Vendors shipped a record 54.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2009, 39% more than the 39.2 million shipped in the same quarter in 2008, according to IDC information on PC World.

Four of the top five smartphone sellers beat their shipments records for a single quarter, according to numbers released by the International Data Corporation (IDC). Following a 98% increase in smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2008, Apple has regained its spot as third largest smartphone vendor, behind longtime leaders Nokia and Research in Motion

Back in November the newspaper rumour mill whispered word of an all-new freesheet to grace the streets of the capital, The London Weekly. By December, marketing manager Paul Morris announced a launch date of the 1 February and its partnership website went live.

Despite a rather unpolished online offering (from a company that claims to have £10.5 million  in the kitty), displaying few regular news updates written by just two users and registered from a German server, Morris last week maintained that the 250,000 copies of the freesheet would be handed out every Friday and Saturday - although the start date would now be delayed until the 5 February.

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

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

Tom Boswell's usually revered sports column fuelled a not insignificant number of outcries from WaPo's most fastidious readers back in November, when it graced the publication's website littered with errors and typos. At the time the Post's ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, explained such occurrences as an undesirable side effect of tighter deadlines and fewer copy editors, after recent jobs cuts and a total of four buyouts since 2003.

But despite complaints from agitated readers, Boswell's typo strewn offering has been by no means an isolated case, and eagle eyed grammarians have been quick to point other errors as and when. Many ask pertinent questions, such as Phillip K. Cohen: "If they don't care about basics like grammar and spelling, how much do they care about factual accuracy?"

Three media industry analysts, Magna Global, ZenithOptimedia and GroupM, have raised expectations for next year's ad expeditures but mostly only for the internet and TV, paidContent reports. 

The New York Times was in some good business news yesterday showing a slowdown in print ad decreases and reporting that it will not sell the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. 

The Times of London is to start charging online during the first half of next year, James Harding, the paper's editor, said at the Society of Editors conference in Stansted, Essex. He said that the Times would charge for 24-hour access to the website, alongside subscription models, it was widely reported. Micropayments will not be implemented, however.

The move will be accompanied by a redesign of the website, paidContent reported, also confirming that a standalone Sunday Times website will indeed be launched.

As journalism morphs in the digital age to become more comprehensive than just the written word, newsrooms are looking for more efficient ways to get their stories out across all mediums, fast.
 
One proposed method is platform journalism, a notion that content is developed centrally, with the presentation later fine-tuned according to whether it is for television, internet, radio or print.

Gazette Communications in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is amongst the latest that has taken this concept, brought it to life and has been 'producing content' since February.  Gazette Communications, which owns newspaper The Gazette, local TV station, KCRG and website, Gazette Online, relocated all of its reporters, photographers, and other journalists from these outlets to a new "content room" at the newspaper, reports Editor & Publisher.

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.

The Washington Post is to merge its print and online operations as of January 1 2010, reported the Washington Business Journal, which obtained a copy of a memo sent to WaPo staff by publisher Katharine Weymouth. Weymouth outlined how important it was to create one organisation for print and online, as this was how it was perceived by readers, users and advertisers.  

She specified that Washington Post Digital employees responsible for washingtonpost.com would become employees of The Washington Post as of January 1. Website leadership with remain in place, however, and current washingtonpost.com leader Goli Sheikholeslami would become general manager of digital, and vice president of digital product development at the Washington Post. 

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. 

Recent changes to media laws, which have given accredited journalists permission to observe family court proceedings, are causing much confusion within the courts. That there is much uncertainty surrounding the meaning of the laws was demonstrated last week at the family courts at London's Royal Courts of Justice. Journalists were refused entry into the courts as court staff were apparently unaware of the changes to the law, while lawyers and other parties came out as explicitly adverse to press presence.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Speaking at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington DC on
Saturday 9 May, president Barack Obama said that "a government without newspapers, a government without a tough and vibrant media is not an option for the United States of America."

In what was mostly a speech packed with jokes and humorous anecdotes, Obama ended his discourse on a serious note about the state of journalism in the country, acknowledging that there were many good journalists who had recently found themselves out of a job.

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

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

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

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

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.