Results matching “for a smaller paper”

Colin Myler, editor of the UK Sunday tabloid newspaper News of The World, says that "back door" privacy laws are restricting Britain's media. Myler put forward that smaller publishers  are placed under undue pressure by the legislation, since they frequently do not have the budget to take legal action.

He added that the lack of parliamentary discussion about these issues was worrying. According to Myler, the edicts from High Courts in London are prompted by Human Rights judges from the European Union, who are "unfriendly" to freedom of expression, while the MPs remain silent. 

Although the media may be partly responsible for the privacy situation, instructions imposed by Justice Eady, senior libel judge, and other prominent legal figures have left the UK media in an "unrecognisable" state.

Myler's paper was ordered to pay £60,000 in damages to world motorsport figure Max Mosley in July, AFP reported. Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre previously said that the "public shaming" of high-profile figures may be meaningful in "defending the parameters of what are considered acceptable standards of social behaviour."

"Some [newspapers] will struggle to survive, but, as an industry, we really do have to be more positive and not allow those so-called media experts and commentators to tell us how badly we are doing," Myler said.

Source: Journalism.co.uk, AFP

One month after its initial trial period, a meeting of about 30 editors will be held in Atlanta to hear about CNN's wire service.

CNN has made plans to broaden its service to provide coverage of national, international and possibly local events "on a smaller scale and at a lower cost" than the Associated Press, according to Editor and Publisher.

Roger Alton, editor of UK daily newspaper The Independent, said in an interview on Sky News Online that he takes responsibilty for the publication's declining economic situation. Alton also sttates that there are no plans to sell the newspaper in the future.

Alton goes on to say that the price increase startegy (from 80p to £1 in September) failed and pushed sales down further. The price rise made The Independent more expensive than other papers in the UK market, such as The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times.

The Guardian's Peter Wilby asks the question:  just how many journalists do you need to publish a newspaper?  In today's failing economy, circulation declines, dried up advertising revenue and the transition to new media, can a newspaper staff maintain its numbers?  Is "small," he asks, inevitable?

As newspapers across the United States redesign and relaunch; readership has not increased, neither has ad revenue.  So is a new design the most effective way to tackle the changes to the industry?  A recent article in Portfolio, takes a look at the Tribune Co. redesigned papers and ultimately concludes that their redesigns have not landed the success they should have.

According to Ken Doctor, a news industry analyst for Outsell and Content Bridges, "it's a distraction.  The major challenge to a company like Tribune is not to try to incrementally either stop circulation declines or add a point or two, but to really remake itself into a multimedia modern company." 

In what was the first meeting in a decade, a discussion amongst 25 editors of the Atlantic Coast Region of the Associated Press Sports Editors turned from whether or not they need the AP to how the AP could "better serve its members."

The list of grievances is familiar.  Paying for use of the AP is "one of the biggest expenses at most newspapers."  Larger newspapers are charged more than smaller newspapers, yet "on average," smaller newspapers use more AP content.

The Oklahoman has followed the path of a swath of newspapers across the western hemisphere and undergone a redesign. The redesign has been headed up by Dr Mario R. Garcia.



















The regional US paper is now narrower and longer, making it easier to carry and following the trend of The Times of London and the European edition of the Wall Street Journal. Garcia believes that the future of newspapers is heading towards a smaller format.

The redesign also features a new navigational system, on page one allowing the reader to survey what's in the paper. The paper is also introducing a new typographic style. Garcia reports that two fonts have been incorporated into the design: Chronicle and Retina, that make the newspaper easier to read (especially for readers 50 and older). The page grid follows a basic six-column format. The width of the page is 60.9 picas, and each column is 9.3 picas.

Source: Garcia Media

French regional daily newspaper Centre Presse announces that as it celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, it is shifting to tabloid format. The paper, based in the Vienne department, will also undergo a redesign and will be smaller, lighter, more practical and more colorful, said chief editor Richard Lavigne.

A number of US newspapers have submitted cancellation notices to the Associated Press (AP), announcing that they are dropping their contracts with the news service. Reasons range from the recent changes that the AP has made to its fee structure to its diversion from regional news. The Wenatchee World of Wenatchee, Washington, The Yakima Herald-Republic of Yakima, Washington, The Spokesman Review of in Spokane, Washington and The Post Register of Idaho Falls, Idaho, spoke to the Editors Weblog about their decision to cut back on AP content and future plans that they have.

The AP's new fee structure

The new pricing structure, approved by AP's board last year, includes state, national and international breaking news and allows newspapers to buy individual articles and other services, as opposed to its old structure of one bulk membership fee. The AP claims this will cause fee increases for only 10% of its subscribers,

But the Post Register's editor and publisher Roger Plothow refers to the new fee structure as "too rigid" and "too expensive", pointing out that the AP hasn't adapted too well to the changing newspaper industry.

Spokesman-Review editor Steve Smith mentions that he had to lay off 16 of the papers staff in December 2007 and choosing to unsubscribe from the AP ("even considering the cost of replacement services") would save the paper nearly USD$300,000 and permit it to keep 10 to 15 jobs.

"The AP's declining content contribution?" or "Focus on Local News"
 
"They do far less for us than ever before. This year, we would have had to pay extra for basic Olympics coverage once included in the basic rate. And the AP staff in Olympia, the state capitol, told us they were unable to provide statewide coverage of last month's primary election. That is simply not acceptable, not considering how much we pay," says Smith.
 
The Wenatchee World, apart from financial concerns, dropped the AP for similar reasons. It wishes to pay more attention to regional news and the AP's regional reports have "gone by the wayside," says the paper's editor and publisher Rufus Woods.
 
"We've started a free story-sharing service with other papers in our region to enhance our regional report. We do it for free and it works great for everyone," says Woods.
 
"I believe that successful news organizations are gonna be the ones that will have the strongest local content and the challenge for us is that it's more expensive to provide local content than anything else," says Jenkins.
 
Plothow predicts that smaller and medium-sized regional papers will rely less on the AP for content since most of it may be obtained through other sources or be less relevant to readers of papers like the Register. He says that in two years time, the Register will be 80-90% regional and local, with only the most important national and international news articles.

"We will take our savings and invest it into local reporting resources. For newspapers like ours, local is the only future," says Plothow.

Smith reflects a similar idea: that while his paper has international and national coverage, its focus is primarily on local and regional events. For this, the Review cannot rely on the AP, he says. Perhaps it is due to the news outlet's job cuts or the "restructuring and emphasis online and in multi-media." He also mentions that dropping the AP's online service, like audio and broadcast coverage, made no change to the Review's site traffic.

"The big question is what kind of news report resonates with readers. Given changing reader habits, it may be that an all-local paper is in our future. Or perhaps just a slimmed-down national/international report," says Woods.

Newspapers defecting to AP competitors?

The Register is replacing the AP with other services such as Thomson Reuters, the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times-The Washington Post, European Pressphoto Agency, sports providers like PA Sports Ticker and a  "reconfigured coalition of regional newspapers that share content," according to Plothow.

The Review is adapting a similar technique. It may also make use of McClatchy-Tribune's proposed network that would be set up "under their auspices" and would pay the paper for any Review content that it would use.

Tim Brettingen, the AP's chief revenue officer, said that an AP contract is "one of the great bargains in the industry," in an interview with PaidContent.org.

But Spokesman Review's Smith countered that opinion, saying, "Frankly, I think it's highway robbery. And obviously, I am not alone. I have heard from several dozen editors who have dropped or soon will drop the service for most of the same reasons. Most of the major papers in our region are opting out."
 
Jenkins says that submitting a two-year cancellation notice gives the paper time to look at alternatives "that are available now" and those that "are being developed".

"When you look back two years, so many more sources would have become available in that period that it's hard to tell what will be available two years from now," Jenkins adds.

The effects of AP's pricing structure on the US newspaper industry

"The industry's going through dramatic change and we have to be open to radically new ways of doing business to stay in business. AP assumes they are a necessity but more newspapers are viewing it as a luxury and are weary of the "corporate" approach of the organization. If AP wants to partner with members in this evolution, great. If not, so be it," Woods says.
 
Smith, referring to the way in which the American media landscape is evolving, said "If more regional papers begin to share their content between themselves (as has begun in South Florida), the change to our industry will be seismic. AP has been the backbone service for more than 100 years. That could change in the next few years with AP becoming less of a provider and more of a competitor in the race to survive the new information revolution." He continued, " The mere fact that once competing news organizations -- The Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Palm Beach Post for one example; a growing Northwest coalition for another -- will now collaborate signals a huge and unprecedented shift in the news landscape. And any sort of mass shift is going to boost the growth of fledgling content providers such as PA/SportsTicker. There will be some entrepreneurs who will make their fortunes with these changes. And new partnerships will grow between unlikely parties such as CNN and MLB.com."
 
The Post Register's Plothow predicted, "The AP will likely become a service for large newspapers. In the U.S. 1,200 of the 1,400 daily newspapers are under 50,000 circulation - these are the papers that will begin leaving the AP en masse over the next year or so." He concluded, "This will likely only improve local journalism, and national and international journalism is rapidly moving onto the Web. Whether that's a good thing remains to be seen."

Circulation:

Wenatchee World: 22,579 daily, 24,414 Sunday
Yakima Herald-Republic: 38,000 daily
Spokesman Review: 89,000 daily, 113,000 Sunday
Post Register: 25,500
(last audit, June 2005)

Eric Beecher, former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, says that Australian politicians have to support the idea that journalism may be vital to a democracy, while pointing out that quality journalism risks dying out.

"We can cherrypick. We can do the commentary and a little bit of investigative journalism and that kind of thing, but I can't see a business model for independent journalism funding hundreds of journalists to do the bigger things that you have to do to fulfil the democratic mission," said Beecher.

According to The Australian, Fairfax Media's recent decision to cut 5% or 550 workers from papers like The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age may "blow a hole" in Australia's traditional quality media that new online media like blog sites would not be able to fill since the number of staff employed at such outlets may be about 10 times smaller than at traditional ones.

Beecher thinks that Fairfax is sending a message that its duty is to shareholders and "not to maintaining quality journalism and its place as the fourth estate".

Rupert Murdoch's News Limited remains as the "sole" commercial source of serious journalism, The Australian writes. The future holds "celebrity-driven pap" as paper and magazine content, for which advertisers are moving to the Internet, according to Beecher.

Source: The Australian

"We've reached a point where we have to go beyond user comments as the sole means of interaction on news articles," writes Steve Outing. "It's time to integrate staff content and eyewitness reports supplied from your community."

User comments all too frequently don't add to a story. "Comment threads in many newspaper Web sites are filled with bad behavior, crude humor, and uncivil discourse, punctuated by the occasional worthwhile tidbit that adds to a story. We must do better," writes Outing. Gawker recently suggested cutting comment boxes all together; however, readers can add value - perhaps we just need to look outside the comment box.  

In his latest Editor & Publisher column, Outing argues, "most newspaper Web sites remain largely stuck in the we-tell-you mode of news," and that it's time to "get past that outdated strategy (and) integrate staff content and information from your community."

In its current form, reader-created content "is shuffled off to the side in its own area, set apart from the professional journalism."

Outing suggests that for any - and every - story, along side the reporter's piece is an "info-box sidebar ask(ing) people who were eyewitnesses to the accident to share any photos (or video) they may have taken, and to describe what they saw. Any content shared by eyewitnesses would be posted on the same page as the reporter's story."

Further, this feature should be included for all stories, big or small. "I argue that it's actually more interesting when applied to the smaller headlines," wrote Outing. "Because it serves the people for whom a 'small' story is actually big to them. Small stories often are reported by a small number of news organizations at a shallow level, so expanding them provides a powerful public service for those who want or need to know more."

For example, recently a local paper reported about a bear spotted in a neighborhood. Six users left comments, but most fell into the "smartass category." Outing writes, "By asking for eyewitness accounts... we'd actually get a look at that bear. After all, if you live in that neighborhood, you will be interested in that story... A wildlife expert reading the story might be prompted to post advice on what to do if you spot a bear foraging in your garbage cans."

Outing also suggests adding an story-specific email alert feature, so that as content is added, interested readers can stay up-to-date.

Reader involvement can even allow "big" stories to simultaneously be local, "for example, for the essential hurricane preparation story, local residents can be asked what they are doing to prepare... Retailers can be asked to report if they have essential preparedness materials like plywood available, to spare residents the hassle when trying to find something that everyone in town wants... For a personal-interest story about a specific family's losses, a call can go out -- accompanying the story -- to neighbors or friends of the family who may have additional information to share."

Outing cautions against creating "community content ghettos"  and instead highlighting user-generated photos, videos, tips and opinion. "This stuff is important and can be important to the overall coverage of a story, so don't bury it."

Last, Outing addresses quality control. "How do we know that the eyewitness account is for real? Has the user-contributed photo been doctored in Photoshop? If the submission is written really badly or is riddled with factual errors, are we supposed to run it anyway?"

Outing recommends both user registration (so editors may contact contributors to verify information) and a vetting system, perhaps run by the story's reporter, who filters any community-created content and can moderate these reports. Outing also suggests ranking incoming submissions, so that the most valuable contributions get put at the top of the page.

An interesting point Outing makes is not to "cherry-pick." "If you gain a reputation of only picking the best stuff that community members contribute (the old "letters to the editor" model), you may see contributions dry up. My answer to that is to publish everything that looks to be legitimate and doesn't violate your terms of service, but for the lesser stuff hide it behind a 'more' link for those who want to dig a bit deeper. Present the best stuff at the top layer."

Source: Editor & Publisher

Regional papers don't produce journalists with enough investigative and writing skills, according to a London national paper editor reported Birmingham Post's chief blogger Joanna Geary.

"We no longer see the regional newspapers as a source for staff. We find that training graduates ourselves produces better journalists," said the editor.

"I had always been told that regional journalism was one of the best ways to cut your teeth in the trade and could - if you wanted it to and were good - pave a way for a career in the nationals. Now it seems national newspapers may regard themselves as an entirely separate industry," wrote Geary.

Roy Greenslade, a Guardian blogger, said one of the reasons why there is a divergence between the big cities and the smaller regions was due to the shut down of nationals' northern offices, which provided a link to the regionals.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

US newspaper editors seem to have a positive outlook on their publications' futures, in spite of dropping revenue and job cuts that some papers experienced. As the news reallocates to the Web and other technology is being integrated, newspapers may find a way to balance themselves, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Database journalism and mobile reporting both grew, a survey by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Staff blogs, micro sites, videography and online-only editing have all become more widespread across newspapers, demonstrating newspapers adaptation to the digital age.

Newspaper readership increased, thanks to the Internet, the survey showed. However, online advertising hasn't been able to bring in as much revenue as print.

The Internet is allowing for stories to be published faster and for updates to be more frequent, which may make the newsroom environment more demanding but also more dynamic.

"The newsroom staff producing the paper is also smaller, younger, more tech-savvy, and more oriented to serving the demands of both print and the web. The staff also is under greater pressure, has less institutional memory, less knowledge of the community, of how to gather news and the history of individual beats. There are fewer editors to catch mistakes," the survey said.

Larger papers consider it vital to preserve investigative journalism, something that distinguishes them from other new media such as blogs, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Database journalism and mobile reporting both grew, the survey found. Staff blogs, micro sites, videography and online-only editing have all become more widespread across newspapers, demonstrating newspapers adaptation to the digital age.

Source: The Los Angeles Times, Yelvignton.com, Knight Digital Media Center

See Also:
US: Study shows newsroom cutbacks are hurting coverage Part 1