Results matching “reality of newspaper adv”

Editors are struggling with the reality of readers turning to the Internet and mobile devices for their news according to a survey released this week. The survey conducted by Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism discussed the challenges faced by newspaper editors as they try to adapt to readers who are switching from the printed page to the Web as a source of news and information

The survey, done in July and based on interviews with newspaper editors in 15 cities in four regions of the United States and senior news executives at 259 newspapers nationwide, showed that just five percent of editors feel confident in predicting how operations would work in the next five years.  

The study stated that editors seem cautious and "in the face of such uncertainty, several editors cited their staff's willingness to accept change and embrace new technology as the factor contributing most to their competitiveness."

Also at the conference, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won the Innovator of the Year award for launching an investigative reporting team.  Mark Katches, assistant managing editor for projects and investigations at MJS, stated that readers are renewing their subscriptions due to the Journal's investigative work.

Sources: European Journalism Centre, AP, APME
 

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) asked Georgia to stop censoring Russian-language press and has asked for all sides of the conflict in South Ossetia to inform the public through "free reporting", reported gipp.ru.

"The world needs to know what is happening and we appeal to both Russian and Georgian authorities to allow media to operate and journalists to work freely", said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.

The IFJ showed also showed concern that Russian reporters might be too influenced by the Kremlin in their coverage of the events.

"Georgia claims to be a democratic country and Russia claims to respect international laws but in reality they seem to be paying lip service to these obligations. It is in the interest of peace, reconciliation and rights of both communities to let media work freely", the IFJ says.

Source: gipp.ru, IFJ

See also:
Russia: Novaya Gazeta accused of promoting hatred towards Georgians
Russia: Journalists urged to provide content that "proves" Georgian violence
Opinion: how Georgia outplayed the Russians in the PR war
Russia: reporting about Georgia is "propaganda" and "disinformation"

According to Rick Edmonds, in an opinion piece on Poynter Online, for mobile website to become a success they need "to grow: the quality and affordability of the devices, the audience for an assortment of news and information products, appealing medium-specific formatting and, finally, monetization through ads or another revenue stream."

All this can be quite hard for a local newspaper to set up. The result can be quite good to disastrous (hard to navigate or to read). However, mobile is such an important business that local newspapers can't afford to stay out of it.

The reality is that people can easily access national and international headlines on big dailies such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today or The Wall Street Journal on their mobiles, so they may not read their local news sites.

It seems that mobile is another business that big dailies benefit from to the detriment of local newspapers.

Source: Poynter Online

The Los Angeles Times' website drew 115 million page views in June, just short of its all-time traffic record of 120 million PV set in May.

A quick glance at the list of most-read stories and most-viewed multimedia features in June gives a good idea of readers' favorite topics of interest - namely a push towards celebrity news and away from global issues and traditionally important topics such as the general elections. The lists also show that, despite newspapers' widespread emphasis on blogs and videos, these platforms still account for a minimal share of total traffic.

Furthermore, these lists provide some indications about how reader interests may vary from one platform to the other (news, blogs, videos, picture galleries).

If one supposes that latimes.com readership isn't too significantly different from average online newspaper readership, then these numbers hint toward which formats work best for different topics (Skip to 'Insights' for a brief summary).

Text - Top articles:

1. Alex Kozinski suspends L.A. obscenity trial after conceding his website had sexual images (Scott Glover)
2. Mega-mansions are L.A.'s really big show (Jessica Garrison)
3. Oliver Stone and 'W.,' a story of President Bush (John Horn)
4. Fourth day of triple digits sends crowds to L.A. pools, beaches  (Tami Abdollah)
5. Packing in public: Gun owners tired of hiding their weapons embrace 'open carry' (Nicholas Riccardi)
6. Envisioning a world of $200-a-barrel oil (Martin Zimmerman)
7. Judge orders TMZ to remove sex tape of actor Verne Troyer (Harriet Ryan)
8. Lakers have a collapse for the ages (Mike Bresnahan)
9. Offshore oil drilling opponents are rethinking (Richard Simon and Bob Drogin)
10. Obama leads in battle for Latino vote (Peter Wallsten)


The first thing that strikes us when looking at the list is how few stories relate to 'global' issues or to the general elections in the US: ranked 6 is a column about rising oil prices and the only story directly related to the elections is ranked 10. The majority of stories have mostly local relevance about Los Angeles.

(Only) one of the top 10 stories concerns sports - a usually strong section for most newspaper websites although June isn't the biggest season for sports in the US - and the Lakers' basketball team's demise in the championship finals.

The top three stories (and 7) revolve, more or less closely, around issues of sex and the cult of celebrities and entertainment. Number 3 is a story about the making-of Oliver Stone's latest movie about President George W. Bush. Granted, considering Los Angeles' prime location in the movie and celebrity industry, it isn't particularly surprising that many latimes.com readers are going for those stories.

But this doesn't necessarily mean that readers of latimes.com news articles prefer 'softer' content compared to readers of other online newspapers. In fact, this distribution is probably representative of a move towards celebrity news by mainstream media and the audience in general.

Limitations: This is a very cursive overview of readers' favorite topics for news stories only looking at the top 10. A more in-depth study would possibly show that while a few select individual stories about sex and celebrities receive many hits, the sections for 'hard' news (World, Business, National) on the whole generate substantially more traffic than Entertainment.

Top blogs:

1. Top of the Ticket  -- 1,743,178 PV
2. The Dish Rag  -- 1,437,462 PV
3. L.A. Land --  652,605 PV
4. Lakers Blog      
5. Show Tracker                
6. L.A. Now         
7. Technology Blog (first month out, and in the top ten)       
8. Gold Derby      
9. Web Scout      
10. Countdown to Crawford (launched June 17)


Now a look at the top-10 list of blogs gives a more intricate perspective: compared to news stories, the blog format seems to draw more readers to 'serious' topics such as politics and the general elections.

The political blog Top of the Ticket is in the lead, and Countdown to Crawford (a blog that covers the final steps of the elections) has made it to the list although it was only launched in mid-June. Ranked 6, L.A. Now covers general news about California.

It may seem counter-intuitive that readers prefer the blog format, usually associated with a more conversational tone and less formality, to read stories about politics. On the other hand, this preference could also be explained by the fact that those readers precisely prefer a format open to opinion and debate to read about those topics. Since blogs typically allow for more author disclosure, they can also be seen as a more transparent medium.

The last two blogs revolve around technology and developments in the digital landscape, a thematic that was absent from the Top 10 news stories.

Limitations: Again, this is hardly a scientific procedure, and the top 10 blogs on latimes.com account for less than 5% of total page views on the site. To put this in further perspective, five of the ten blogs relate to 'softer' content - three revolve around celebrities and the movie industry - one is about the Lakers and number 3 is a blog about real estate (note the parallel with the news story about mansions ranking 2).

Furthermore, The Dish Rag, ranked 2, is edging close to Top of the Ticket, so that in reality the number of users consulting LA Times blogs for soft and hard news is probably equivalent.

Pictures - Top photo galleries:

1.  Celebrity and sports collide in L.A.
2.  Universal Studios fire
3.  Celebrities' real names revealed (Denise Martin and Stephanie Lysaght)
4.  Hollywood hunks before they were hot (Elizabeth Snead)
5.  Celebrities by The Times
6.  Celebrity shots
7.  Midwest flooding
8.  Top 9 cars women buy more than men
9.  Hollywood's unwedded bliss list (Elizabeth Snead)
10. R-rated firsts (Susan King)

Unsurprisingly, the list of most popular photo galleries is also dominated by celebrities, even more so than for news stories or blogs (seven out of ten).

Of the three remaining picture galleries, two are big general news stories with obviously strong visual content: ranked 2 is the Universal Studios fire and ranked 7 is a gallery about floods in the Midwest.

Video - Top videos:

1. Dogs orphaned in China's quake find a home - 132,239 streams - AP
2. LAPD goes green: Maya Sanchez reports - 112,375 streams - KTLA
3. Tsvangirai on Mugabe - AP
4. Local update: Moe the chimp escapes cage -  KTLA
5. Amanda Beard heads to Omaha for her fourth Olympic swim - LAT
6. 17-year-old decapitated by Six Flags ride - AP
7. Australia marks Iraq withdraw with parade - AP
8. Evening update: USC student sentenced to time served in baby's death - KTLA
9. Fires grip parts of California - AP
10. Bush pleased with war spending bill - AP

The top-10 list for videos also delivers its share of lessons. First of all, despite newspapers' wild rush to boost video content, videos generate a limited amount of traffic compared to most text stories.

Many of the videos in the list are 'soft', but don't relate to entertainment especially. Instead, they are often emotionally-driven (dogs orphaned in China, 17-year old girl decapitated at a fair park). A lot of these popular videos are visual anecdotes with a potential for virality (Moe the chimp escapes cage).

'Hard' news, ie. a Congress debate about legislation or a business acquisition, does not typically constitute a popular pick for videos, as it is often poor visually.

The majority of successful video content is syndicated, generally provided by the Associated Press (only one of the top 10 videos was produced by the LA Times). Considering the average PVs for videos, and although CPMs for video ads are usually higher than for regular PVs, it is still often (too) costly for newspapers to produce their own quality videos.

Insights

In short, here are some of the insights brought by latimes.com's Top-10 lists:

- The Los Angeles Times has strongly emphasized 'soft' news, which is becoming increasingly popular among regular news stories.
- On the other hand, its blogs seem to attract many viewers interested by politics - although half of the blogs in the list deal with lighter content.
- The blog format is also popular when they deal with technological issues.
- To an extent, it could be inferred that the latimes.com is fulfilling its role as a newspaper by focusing on 'local' stories: Hollywood, celebrities and the entertainment industry being part of that local context.
- The photo galleries are overwhelmingly dominated by pictures of celebrities. The only two 'hard' news stories are obviously visual: a fire and floods.
- Video content must also be visually rich, but the most popular videos are those that are emotionally-driven and potentially viral (ie: humorous anecdotes, shocking stories).

The purpose of this piece was simply to make some observations as to the types of topics preferred by online users, depending on the format they were published in. The goal wasn't to quaintly warn editors against the risks of chasing eyeballs at the expense of news judgment.

However, these Top-10 lists are clearly representative of the trend, adopted both by editors and by the audience, towards more celebrity-type news, or 'soft' news in general. In January and April, when the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times announced that they were beefing up coverage of Britney Spears, at the same time as newsrooms across the nation couldn't afford the expenses of covering the elections, many newspaper editors were outraged by this rush towards more catchy, entertainment-driven, stories.

According to others, celebrity is a cultural currency that fulfils a role in the press. But at what cost?

According to News & Record editor John Robinson, Kubler-Ross' model of accepting death can be applied to the current state of the newspaper industry in the US: it is time for acceptance.

In Kubler-Ross' model, the five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

In April, Terry Heaton, AR & D's Media 2.0 senior vice president, said the industry was at the depression stage.

Now is time of acceptance - not of death though, but of the need for change.

Reporter and blogger Doug Fischer wrote that although it may seem that newspapers are dying, they would continue to "exist in radically different frequency and content."

Journalists need to deal with the economic reality and think about the challenges ahead, Robinson wrote.

"That means we understand how the world has changed, and we understand how our journalistic skills and assumptions must change. For instance, learning what it takes to be a digital journalist is vital. Reaching readers -- information consumers, really -- where, how and when they want it is good for journalism. Listening to and learning from them is even better," he said.
 
Two years ago, the Economist published a special report in which it said that the newspapers might survive in the long term if they "reinvent themselves on the Internet and on other new-media platforms such as mobile phones and portable electronic devices."

The situation of the US newspaper industry does seem critical, in light of the massive wave of layoffs in recent weeks and the overall advertising decline. But Robinson pointed out that future journalistic opportunities lie in microblogging, beat blogging and social networking. Journalism is, in his opinion, on the verge of attracting different customers.

Source: News-Record.com
 

This week, Richard W. Stevenson, political editor and deputy Washington bureau chief for the New York Times, will be answering questions from readers. The Q&A is part of the Time's regular Talk to the Newsroom feature, which most recently hosted NYT managing editor, Susan Edgerley.

Stevenson started off by addressing political bias, blogs and content decisions.

What follows is an edited transcript of Stevenson's thoughts on blogging, politics and the attitude that often accompanies the two.

The Blogs/News Balance

Q. As political editor, does your franchise extend to The Caucus blog and, if so, have you established editorial guidelines for the blog that differ from guidelines for news articles and news analysis? I'm not simply referring to tenor but to subjects blogs may cover while articles and analyses shouldn't. It seems schizoid to have Kit Seelye speculating on Hillary Clinton's emotional state of mind in the blog and then doing straightforward political reporting for the newspaper...

-- Patrick Murphy, Lionville, Pa.

A. Mr. Murphy, you are on to one of the biggest challenges we face, and perhaps the solution to it as well.

Yes, The Caucus, our political blog, is a core element of our election coverage, and is fully integrated into our reporting efforts. Nearly all of our political reporters file regularly to the blog, both breaking news and other pieces that are more analytical or observational. The wonderful thing about blogs is that they are infinitely flexible, and we are always experimenting with how we can do New York Times quality journalism that takes advantage of the Web.

But as your question implies, that can be tricky, because the Web ethos is different from a traditional newsroom ethos.

Consider the Web's key attributes. First is speed, immediacy...When news breaks, we can get it online quickly, giving our users quick access to information.

Second is the ability to link to or package with all kinds of resources, from background to primary source documents to audio and video.

Third, for better or worse, is a bit of attitude - or, in many cases, a lot of attitude. A whole lot.

As we have shifted more of our focus toward the Web, we've done all we can to master and take advantage of the first two attributes, while acknowledging but keeping a wary distance from the third.

We have not relaxed our news standards for the Web. The reporting needs to be solid and as transparent as possible. It needs to be presented clearly and concisely. It needs to be fair.

But within those guidelines, we are changing our journalistic culture to adapt to the reality that the Web is a big part of our future. So sometimes we will post on The Caucus or elsewhere on our Web site a first take on a breaking news story. Then we will update it as more information becomes available.

It's a different way of doing things for those of us who came up in a system that was directed to producing a single and comprehensive version of the news at the end of the day. It can be jarring for some reporters and editors to post breaking news on the Web even though there are lots of questions we know we still need to answer for our readers.

... There's much about blogging culture that can work for us on our terms, starting with encouraging a two-way conversation with readers.

Source: The New York Times

Elin Olofsson, News Editor at the Swedish Östersund Posten told the audience at the 15th World Editors Forum about how hyperlocal websites with reader blogs are becoming a reality at the ÖP.

In May 2007, Östersund Posten started eight hyperlocal websites called The HeartProject. Apart from hyperlocal news, the paper launched 101 reader blogs which purpose was to increase the number of online visitors and make more room for hyperlocal stories.

Today, one year from the start of the Heartproject, weekly visitors at Östersund Postens local websites have increased by 60%. Olofsson explained how all bloggers write about everyday life, politics, schools, celebrities, etc. They also help to cover local topics. The paper does not pay their contributors and has established a set of rules about what their contributors can and can't write to avoid any racy content. Every week a "Blog story of the week" is published in the print newspaper.

The project has also been a success financially, helping to increase the interest of advertisers. Overall, "The heartproject has created enormous goodwill for our brand," said Olofsson.

In this section, John Zogby, CEO of Zogby International, and George Brock, World Editors Forum President and editor of the Saturday Times in the UK, comment on the results of the 2008 Newsroom Barometer. Both agree that the results show editors have opened to the new necessities of the digital age, while remaining strongly conscious of the possible threats to their newspapers and journalism.

(View the main results to this year's survey here.)

According to Brock, this year's survey points to the fact that "editors remain confident about a mixed-media future and have quietly got on with the business of integrating their newsrooms," but this is "tempered by anxiety that newspapers are not investing enough in recruitment and training for the future."

The path is clear for many editors: integrate the newsroom, think multimedia, train or hire a team of multi-skilled journalists. So are the threats: lack of investment, lack of training, lack of cultural change.

In the face of these deep changes for the newspaper industry and its organization, editors may often face managerial resistance to undergo these investments. But media companies must be bold. Their editors, for the most part, are ready to be. Said Brock: "I read the message of this year's Newsroom Barometer as an appeal from editors to their companies to be bold in the face of change and as a sign that they themselves intend to make the most of new opportunities."

For Zogby, who goes into more detail about the numeric results (see below), this year's results show that editors have adapted or are adapting to the current redefinition of the 4th Estate, the press, in light of the changes brought in part by the Internet.

"Perhaps the most important finding to emerge from the 2008 survey is that editors remain optimistic about the futures of their papers," as was the case for the previous edition of the Newsroom Barometer, wrote Zogby.

Yet this optimism shouldn't hide the urgency for newspapers to rethink their model. "For these editors the future is self-evident and our survey shows that they see the writing on the newsroom wall.  The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how.  Editors now know the solution:  Innovate.  Integrate.  Or perish."

Read Brock and Zogby's full comments below.

Comments on the 2008 Newsroom Barometer by George Brock

Editors remain confident about a mixed-media future and have quietly got on with the business of integrating their newsrooms. The optimism is not universal and it is tempered by anxiety that newspapers are not investing enough in recruitment and training for the future.

Newspaper managements might reply that investment remains risky when it isn't yet clear where the income from digital publishing is supposed to come from. But newspaper businesses are made by content which creates and sustains demand. The first newspapers did not come about when someone assembled advertising platforms, distribution networks and hardware and afterwards looked for content to put into that system.

The sequence of events was the reverse. Somebody wants to tell as many people as possible something of interest or importance, discovers a sustained curiosity in that information or opinion and eventually a publishing operation grows up to supply the demand. The chain reaction is sparked by interest in the story, view, picture, interview, column, cartoon that's on offer. Without that first moment of ignition, nothing else happens.

You think this sounds a little basic? It is. But you would be surprised how often this simple reality is forgotten as today's media businesses struggle to adapt to a world in which digital technology is rewriting the economics of news publishing.

Online news and opinion has now been with us for long enough to see that no prediction about the future of news which is based on technology alone can tell us the future. Newspapers are not just ink marks on squashed trees: they are what people trust, they amuse people, in short they are a collection of ideas and information with which a reader forms a relationship. Where journalism - whether professional, citizen or any mixture of the two - creates that relationship, something lasting is born and can be sustained. You can see examples of success and failure both online and in print. As the first flush of online innovation and enthusiasm wears off, we can see more clearly that some of the online successes will grow very big indeed, but that only the best will prosper. Making information available - and the web makes it available as never before - does not make it wanted. Newspapers which innovate and adapt will also survive because their qualities are more important than the medium. Some of the failures in both online and print will be terminal.

I read the message of this year's Newsroom Barometer as an appeal from editors to their companies to be bold in the face of change and as a sign that they themselves intend to make the most of new opportunities. Most editors are clear that the essential qualities of good journalism can adapt to a new medium. They accept as a fact needing no further debate that their papers will now reach their constituency by several channels and not by one.

Redefining the 4th Estate: Opinions of the Editors by John Zogby

In the 550 years since the first pages of print rolled off the presses in the Bavarian town of Mainz, printed news evolved relatively unimpeded.  Even the invention and proliferation of radio and television failed to stymie the growth of newspapers, largely due to the ability of newspapers to provide more in-depth coverage.
    
The centuries-long hegemony of the ink and paper news model today faces its greatest threat--the advent of an independent and free Internet-based media.  This threat was evidenced at the height of the 2005 British elections with the publication of the 'Downing Street Memo' by The Sunday Times.  That short but potent document presented potentially damning evidence surrounding the planning in the run-up to the Iraq War, and while British papers seized the story, the leaked memo made only slight ripples in the American print media.  It did create, however, a surge within the rapidly developing blog community who used the lack of traditional media coverage as a call to arms.

Now, as the Internet struggles to define itself in the shadow of the Fourth Estate, the question remains: will these two mediums continue to battle for supremacy or will they find stability in an integrated symbiotic relationship? To help bring clarity to this question, Zogby International was commissioned by the World Editors Forum and Reuters to survey 704 newspaper editors worldwide for the second in a series of annual 'Newsroom Barometer Surveys.'

    Perhaps the most important finding to emerge from the 2008 survey is that editors remain optimistic about the futures of their papers.  As in the 2006 Newsroom Barometer, nearly all editors (84%) are optimistic about the future of their paper.  The editors surveyed are as aware of what the future may hold for their industry as they are unified in their recognition of the underlying threats and potential solutions.

The Future

    The majority of editors (56%) now believe that most news (print and online) will be free in the future--up from 48% in 2006.  Nearly two-in-three editors (63%) believe that within a decade the most common form of  news consumption will be some form of electronic media--whether online (44%), mobile (12%) or through newer electronic media like e-papers and tablets (7%).  Less than a third (31%) believe print will remain the most common form of consumption.

    The perception of editors with respect to the future is not limited to the news product itself.  The overwhelming majority (83%) agree that within 5 years their nation's journalist workforce will be expected to know how to produce content for all platforms (e.g., print, video, audio and web).  Still, perception of the future is but one dimension of the story -- the remainder is defined by the threats to the industry and  how editors address those threats. 

The Threats

    By-and-large editors agree on the nature of the threats posed to their industry.  The decline in youth readership (58%), the rise in Internet and digital media (38%) and the lack of editorial innovation (36%) all speak to the consensus that change is imminent.  These editors tell us their chief sources of pressure are from advertisers (22%), shareholders (20%) and political forces (19%).  All pressure, no doubt,  to confront the changing reality through innovation and integration. 

    On one issue editors paint a mixed picture--the current state of their newsroom.  For some (39%) circulation in the past year is up; for others (29%) it is down.  One-third of editors (33%) have added journalists, a quarter have lost journalists (24%) and for the rest (42%) the number of journalists on their staff remains unchanged from a year ago. 


The Solutions

    When a majority of editors (54%) report that they have an integrated newsroom, they may make such statements not necessarily based on the reality, but also out of necessity.  Regardless of whether integration has or has not occurred, nearly all (86%) agree that it will be the norm in the near future.  Editors also agree on the steps needed to address other threats.  Asked what investments they would make in their newsroom given the opportunity, the top two investments cited--training journalists in new media (36%) and recruitment of new journalists (31%)--demonstrate that editors are looking to make a commitment to the future.  And with the recognition that editorial innovation is needed, 69% of editors agree that opinion and analysis pages will play an increasingly larger role in the future. 


Yes, editors are optimistic about the future of their papers, but they are also aware of the potential danger on the horizon.  Less than half (45%) believe the quality of journalism will improve over the next year.  More than a quarter (28%) believe the quality will worsen; a finding reflected in the high level of importance editors place on the need for investment in training and recruitment. 

For these editors the future is self-evident and our survey shows that they see the writing on the newsroom wall.  The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how.  Editors now know the solution:  Innovate.  Integrate.  Or perish.


Read Part 1: Presentation - main results, the integrated newsroom will be the norm
Read Part 2: Multimedia, multi-skilled and integrated
Read Part 3: The future of the press
Read Part 4: Who participated in the survey?
Read Part 5: Comments by John Zogby and WEF President George Brock
Read Part 6: Threats to newspapers, areas of investment, more results

A FAITHful voice blog details "The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism, a step-by-step approach in dealing with the changing landscape of journalism by integrating the professional with the amateur."

1) Opening up to public comment: This gives the newspaper an interactivity and enhances the news story with things the reporter may have missed or with additional sources. 

2) "Citizens add-on approach:" Citizens can add personal experiences or information to a story. These can be made into a side bar.

3) Open source reporting: Citizens can be part of the reporting process by researching, interviewing, reporting, and writing.

4) "Citizen Bloghouse:" Invite "outstanding and prominent bloggers to blog for your news website." Then your news site will not only have quality blogs, but your online traffic will  probably increase. 

5) "Newsroom citizens transparency blog:" An online ombudsmen who will respond faster to you.

6) "The stand-alone citizen-journalism site - Edited Version:" For more localized and specific news, let citizens blog with minimal editing.

7) "The stand-alone citizen-journalism site - Unedited version:" Citizens have complete freedom to blog and moderate themselves

8) "Add a print edition:"  Publish the best stories and photos in different sections, like a newspaper. This may motivate the bloggers to work harder.