According to Brand Republic, Guardian News & Media will launch a news wire service for Arab speaking countries next year.

The service will be provided through Saudi newspaper, Al Sharq, which is based in Qatar. The paper will translate up to 15 stories per day for media in the region.

According to Tim Brooks, managing director of Guardian News & Media, the launch of the new service is an effort to build upon the company's goal of becoming the "the world's leading liberal voice."

Brooks also stated that the introduction of more services is scheduled for 2010 in order for Guardian N&M to expand into "Anglophone markets, growth markets and those with no strong tradition of free press."

Source: Brand Republic

DNA, an English language daily from Diligent Media whose slogan is "Read the World", has launched its sixth edition in Bengaluru. It will be competing directly with The Times of India, as well as five other English papers.

Senior chief manager Sumit Rohatgi explained that the core target audience is 18-35, "since Bengaluru is one of the youngest cities in India."

The company is implementing a pre-launch subscription drive and maintains that the economic slowdown has not deterred their expansion plans.

Source: afaqs!

The New York Times is to develop its website by launching a new "Instant Op-Ed" feature next month, according to Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal. The new feature will enable NYTimes.com to post expert viewpoints on breaking news almost immediately.

"Our Op-Ed now is very rapid response, but it is at the most the next day," explained Rosenthal. "We are looking at a way to take advantage of the expandability of the Internet, the back and forth of it and the instantaneous nature of the Internet."

Three editors and a Web producer are gathering a list of experts on a variety of issues, who will be ready to provide quick comments or columns on issues in the news. There will be a dedicated Web space for the comments, and readers will also be able to comment.

Rosenthal noted that this initiative is the first collaboration between the Times' editorial page and the news department. Jill Abramson, managing editor, described the development as "a blended kind of journalism" which "convenes outside voices" to discuss their news.

Source: Editor and Publisher

Cox, publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Austin American-Statesman and 15 other papers, was the latest in string of publishers to announce that it would be closing its Washington bureau.

Cox's bureau will not close until April 1 but others such as Advance Publications, owner of The Star-Ledger of Newark amongst others, and Copley Press, owner of The San Diego Union-Tribune, have already closed. And many who remain have significantly cut back on both Washington staff and coverage. The Tribune Company has merged the bureaus of its various papers, reducing staff numbers to 32 compared with 70 a year ago.

This may seem surprising considering the upcoming inauguration of an eagerly anticipated new president, but in light of newspapers' severe financial difficulties, many are choosing to focus on local coverage rather than national or international events, as the latter can always be more easily found online. Besides, bureaus in Washington are expensive.

A report entitled "Size Doesn't Matter" concludes that news sites on the Internet can be profitable, if they reach a certain amount of readers, according to Advertising Age.

Online media-research company ContentNext looked at independently run, low budget sites like Drudge Report to media giants Google News.

Cost-intensive operations by major publications such as the New York Times, AdAge reports, as well as small website operations, can be self-sustaining, according to the report's author Lauren Rich Fine.

The challenge is getting enough readers to create "a discernable enough brand to make advertisers seek them out."

The numbers are "ambitious," Fine writes, with likely numbers around 800 million page views a month to be interesting for advertisers.

This is why local news sites face an uphill battle to be profitable, she continues, and underscores the struggle for local papers to gain revenue, and their "trouble offsetting traditional media declines."

The New York Times could succeed as an online-only product, the report said, but would need to garner at least 1.3 billion page views a month in order to be sustainable. NYT.com had 173 million page views in October, according to ComScore Media Metrix.

India's language dailies are "tapping into the mix of sentiment and technology," as the Internet serves a means of "keeping in touch with one's roots" and staying informed as more people spread around the globe.

Internet "penetration" is increasing in rural areas, adding to the base of nearly 50 million users in mostly urban settings, Exchange4Media is reporting.

Newspapers had been launching their online versions as "customary add-ons to their main dailies," Exchange reports, but more papers have started to launch newer verticals as well as sub-domains, enabling them to "have better control over classifieds" and use the online medium effectively and profitably.

Online versions of newspapers have become "brands" in and of themselves with high page views per month and extensive readership. As an integral part of the newspaper business in India, most dailies are looking to extend the market.

Online has never been considered an "add-on" feature, Mariam M. Mathew of daily paper's web version, Malayala Online, said.

"Online editions of regional newspapers will not only grow in the future as hyper-local information centers, but will also become the key-differentiating factor," Mathew said. "Their strong brand presence in the market will also help in this growth."

Source: Exchange4Media via IFRA

James Rainey of the LA Times finds that the conjunction of the decision by Detroit's two daily newspapers to reduce the days of home delivery, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors vote to take "paper" out of its name in April, indicates an embrace of "the shift of many readers and advertisers to the Internet," Rainey notes.

But a shift in newspaper delivery could have more serious implications for the industry as a whole.

How much longer will newspapers be able to actually deliver the news? Rainey wonders, as does the rest of the industry. The Internet is where many believe the news industry is headed, as evidence by the Christian Science Monitor's decision to go online-only and print a single Sunday edition.

Detroit's papers argue it's better to alter their delivery system than to "further cut the news staffs." The move will save millions for the papers, owners said.

But the break from the 400-year-old delivery system, Rainey notes, is the kind of move that there's no going back on.
Halting delivery services, or ending print publications, would lose the "old and faithful readers who still covet the printed word," he says, who feel a "visceral connection to print," and aren't necessarily technophobes.

Taking on Independent columnist Johann Hari, Media Guardian's Roy Greenslade finds that the "newspapers-versus-bloggers argument is entirely false," and that there is a future for the industry with the involvement of citizen journalists.

Hari uses the financial state of the industry, following the bankruptcy of the Tribune Co. and the arrival of the Internet, to form a new paradox: "more people are reading quality newspapers than ever before," he writes, and yet, "newspapers are dying." The reason for this is, Hari says, because "we don't just want it all, we want it free."

There will be an "aching hole where newsgathering used to be," Hari writes, because the leftover sources of news--online sources, such as bloggers--don't have the resources necessary to "make sense of the world."

Greenslade disputes the "us versus them" attitude that many professional journalists take toward bloggers and other citizen journalists. The future of journalism, Greenslade writes, lies in "participation" between the professionals and citizens.

Traditional newspaper owners are "clinging desperately to an outmoded model," and journalists are following suit, Greenslade writes. The future of news organizations will be "very different," but there need not be a "hole" if traditional sources fail.

A California daily has formed "The Oakland Press Institute for Citizen Journalism," in response to the "changing face" of the industry, according to an editor.

The Oakland Press is looking to its readers to help "tell stories better, quicker and more completely," according to executive editor Glenn Gilbert, by offering instruction in news writing, videography, basics of reporting for news and sports, and still photography.

Instances of citizen journalism are increasing throughout the industry and around the world, from small local news additions to large-scale updates on such instances as the Mumbai terror attacks, which used social media, fueled by citizen journalists, to help cover the events.

The course, instructed by Press staff, is open to anyone, "from high school students to retirees," and upon completing the course participants will be considered for freelance positions.

Citizen journalism is described by New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen as "when the people, formerly known as the audience, employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another."

It is a way by which the reader can participate in the journalism process, adding to stories with photographs or videos, or first-hand accounts.

Wisconsin newspaper, Sussex Sun has been renamed Living. In addition, all other publications owned by the media group have been renamed including: Living Mukwonago Chief, Living Lake Country Reporter, Living Oconomowoc Focus, Living Kettle Moraine Index, Living Lake Country Sunday and Living Kettle Moraine Sunday.

The Living newspapers have also undergone a series of changes including a new reader guide, a mailing label window in order to assure prompt delivery and a new nameplate designed to look more modern and incorporate the company logo. The front page has also undergone a few changes, including a more "dynamic" layout with more art and photography.

According to editor in chief Scott Peterson, the changes are far from pablum, the new look is designed to present readers "with new approaches to stories and to deliver familiar department and content in refreshing new ways."

Source: Living Lake

The American Society of Newspaper Editors has scheduled an April vote to decide whether or not to drop "paper" out of their title and become ipso facto the American Society of News Editors.

Under the new guidelines, editors of news websites and journalism educators would be allowed to join, according to the ASNE website.

According to ASNE president Charlotte Hall, "it is time for ASNE to recognize in its name and its membership that we are way beyond print-only newspapers. All journalists are now digital news producers, and while print remains an important delivery mode, more and more news is being produced only for the Web."

The move comes after several newspapers in Detroit have decided to cut back their print production.

Source: AP via European Journalism Centre, ASNE