Reflections of a Newsosaur

Daily paper going the way of the milkman

2012-01-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

Daily newspaper delivery will go the way of the milkman in a growing number of communities in 2012 and beyond. Barring a miraculous turnaround in the economy, a sea change in the thinking of media buyers or a late-breaking proclivity for print in the sub-geezer population, publishers in ever more communities are likely to reduce the number of days they provide home delivery – or print a

Newspaper shares plunged 27% in 2011

2012-01-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

In a year when the stock market flailed mightily to end up almost exactly where it started, the shares of the publicly traded newspaper companies plummeted an average of 27% in 2011.Of the 11 publicly held newspaper companies, the stock of only one – the broadly diversified News Corp. – gained ground in the last 12 months. The stock of the publishing-cum-broadcasting company rose 10.7% in 2011

Newspaper job cuts surged 30% in 2011

2011-12-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

The number of jobs eliminated in the newspaper industry rose by nearly 30% in 2011 from the prior year, according to the blog that has been tracking the human toll on the industry for the last five years. Meanwhile, a separate analysis confirms what most of us already suspected: The proportion of cutbacks was higher in newsrooms than it was for the industry as a whole – twice as high by the

Digital giants closing in on local media

2011-12-12T05:00:00.000-08:00

Next year will be the year that the big technology companies go after local publishing and broadcasting businesses more fiercely than ever before. Most local media companies have no idea what’s about to hit them – much less a plan to respond. Google already has feet on the street from Portland to New York City to sell search advertising and directory listings to small and medium business (SMBs).

Making Facebook work for publishers

2011-12-06T05:00:00.000-08:00

Last month, we discussed the generous contribution publishers have been making to the dramatic growth of Facebook, a wondrously addictive medium that seems to be commanding ever-greater amounts of time from an ever-larger number of consumers.Today, we’re going to talk about how newspapers can get Facebook to work as effectively for them as most papers have been working for Facebook.With roughly

Newspaper ad sales head to new low: $24B

2011-12-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Newspaper advertising sales this year will come in at less than half the record $49.4 billion achieved as recently in 2005, according to an analysis of the year-to-date performance of the industry.With industry revenues declining in each of the first three quarters of this year, publishers are unlikely to surpass a collective $24 billion in revenues for 2010. Here’s the math:After slipping by

Romenesko didn't do anything wrong

2011-11-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

Twelve years ago, the Poynter Institute hired Jim Romenesko to aggregate interesting and important stories about the world of journalism. Yesterday, he was pressured into premature retirement for leaving out a few quotation marks while doing it.What the hell was Poynter thinking? The priggish and self-righteous individuals who hustled Romenesko out the door for this flimsy technical infraction

Publishers need to focus on Facebook

2011-11-08T05:00:00.000-08:00

Facebook is perhaps the most disruptive of the many powerful forces to rock the traditional media since the Internet burst into the common consciousness in the mid-1990s.So, stop thinking about Facebook as one of the many projects on your endlessly expanding digital to-do list and start focusing single-mindedly on ways you can turn this captivating new medium to your advantage. The addictive

Paid news potential limited on tablets: study

2011-10-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

The potential for selling news through applications on iPads and other tablets appears to be “limited,” according to a study released today.Although consuming news on a tablet is one of the most popular activities discovered in a survey of 1,200 tablet users, only 14% of them had subscribed to a paid news app, according to a study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism

Can investors get News Corp. under control?

2011-10-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

At long last, some of the public shareholders of News Corp. this week will try to put some discipline into the management of the scandal-ridden company that Rupert Murdoch built. Regardless of what the investors achieve – if they get anywhere at all – a lot of damage already has been done by the slipshod way Murdoch runs his sprawling media empire. The California Public Employees Retirement

Engagement: The new digital metric

2011-10-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows you have to measure things correctly to manage a business well. But the converse of this axiom is that you can get into a lot of trouble if you measure the wrong things. Unfortunately, this has happened in the newspaper industry with respect to the digital media. Now, it has got to stop. In a misguided effort to apply the historically successful print business model to the

How newspapers are losing next-gen readers

2011-09-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

A new study shows the dramatic degree to which consumers under the age of 40 have repudiated newspapers.The must-read report, which was released Monday by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, found an alarming disconnect between younger and older consumers in the value they put on newspapers as sources of information about their communities. Pew split the 2,251

Time for a sales tune-up

2011-09-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Though newspaper ad sales have been sliding steadily for 5½ years, many publishers have yet to take a deep look at the four components necessary for a healthy and forward-looking revenue program. They are Products, Process, People and Pride. If your sales are not where you want them to be, this is what it will take to fix them: ProductsOnly $3.50 of every $10 spent by local businesses on

Abramson faces toughest test of any NYT boss

2011-09-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Jill Abramson will have a tougher job than any of her predecessors when she becomes executive editor today of the New York Times, because she is being thrust into completely uncharted territory where she will have to choose between two irreconcilable paths.She either will have to cannibalize the flagship print product to build the strongest possible digital franchise for the Times – OR – she will

Newspapers need a jolt of Silicon Valley DNA

2011-08-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

I started my career as a newspaperman, became a Silicon Valley CEO and work today as a consultant helping media companies understand technology and helping technology companies understand the media. Here’s what I have learned: The talented people in these seemingly disparate industries are remarkably alike but the cultures of the businesses are completely different. And here is why this matters

How harsh should an obit be?

2011-08-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

It’s ordinarily an honor to merit an obituary in the New York Times, but it didn’t work out that way for Sherman White, who was treated rather roughly in his sendoff for a 60-year-old mistake. The obit for the former college basketball star pubished on Friday underscores the need for sensitivity and balance when journalists try to squeeze a lifetime into a few hundred words – especially when

Get ready for mobile payments

2011-08-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

It’s not a matter of if, but when, your ever-smarter smart phone replaces currency and credit cards as the way you pay for everything from a latte to a load of lumber for the deck you have been meaning to build. The arrival of mobile payments will restructure the way marketers interact with consumers, leading potentially to epic shifts in the balance of power and dollars from financial services

Will business model ‘stabilize’ for newspapers?

2011-08-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Quizzed by securities analysts last week about his company’s disappointing financial performance, the best McClatchy boss Gary Pruitt could say was that he hopes the newspaper “business model will stabilize” at some unspecified point in the future. But it will not.And it had better not, if Pruitt intends to save what’s left of his newspapers, where relentless cost cutting has halved the headcount

Why journalists need to build their own brands

2011-07-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Gene Weingarten recently wrote a deft and snarky column in the Washington Post suggesting that journalism educators should have their butts sizzled for telling students to pay attention to building their personal brands.As one of those* Weingarten would like to see blistered, I am here to say he is dead wrong. Here’s why:Given the steady fragmentation of the media, the growing paucity of jobs and

Murdoch scandal staining rest of media

2011-07-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Like an unchecked oil spill, the toxic and oozing News Corp. scandal is staining the already less than stellar image of the rest of the press, too.On my semi-annual visit to friends and family in the Midwest, I was asked time and again how frequently American news media hack into the mobile phones of unsuspecting celebrities, politicians and crime victims.The answer, so far as I know, is hardly

Why newspapers can’t stop the presses

2011-07-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

With newspaper ad sales falling at an unexpectedly abrupt rate, many publishers at mid-year were laying off staff, requiring unpaid furloughs, consolidating plants and taking other measures to buttress their bottom lines.Although some analysts have interpreted these expense-cutting tactics as a repudiation of the print newspaper business by publishing companies, they are anything but. Publishers

How to sell content by making it easy to buy

2011-06-22T05:00:00.001-07:00

A resolute consortium of media companies in, of all places, Slovakia appears to be proving that you can charge for digital content, so long as you (a) hang together as a group and (b) make it simple for the consumer to pay.The companies, which include seven newspapers and two television broadcasters, are the charter members of a new service called Piano, which allows a user to register at one

Cable news overdosed at the Weiner roast

2011-06-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

Anthony Weiner disgraced himself, his family and his constituents by his bizarre misbehavior on Twitter, but he has an explanation: He has some sort of psychological problem.The cable channels and other news organizations that whipped his indiscretions out of all reasonable proportion have no such excuse. They were being cheap, cynical and opportunistic. And they ought to be ashamed of

The value of journalism, sir, is not ‘zero’

2011-06-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

John Paton, the chief executive piloting the radical remake of the Journal Register Co., declared last week that the value of journalism is “about zero.” But he is dead wrong.First and foremost, Paton is wrong to dismiss the intrinsic value to society of vigorous, ethical and independent journalism that is committed to comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. There is no other

Time to bring back a P.M. news product

2011-06-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Back in 1940, 80% of the 1,877 of the daily newspapers in the United States were published on the afternoon cycle, meaning that editions were printed some time prior to noon for delivery to consumers coming home from work. And it was good.By 2000, 52% of the nation’s 1,480 newspapers were publishing on the morning cycle to accommodate people who worked later, had longer commutes and were more

Newspaper sales crisis enters sixth year

2011-06-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Following an unexpectedly sharp decline in advertising demand in the first three months of this year, newspapers now appear to be entering the sixth year of an unprecedented collapse that has vaporized half of their principal revenues since 2006.The Newspaper Association of America, the industry’s trade association, reported yesterday that print sales fell by a steep 9.5% in the first three

Will newspaper values recover?

2011-06-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

Dan Walters, the star political columnist at The Sacramento Bee, is not only the celebrated dean of the statehouse press corps in California, he also has been a loyal shareholder for 22 years of the company that owns his paper. But his faith in his employer, McClatchy, has not been rewarded.After buying his first stock when McClatchy went public at $18.98 a share in 1989, Walters kept

Getting the Osama bulletin in a Moslem land

2011-05-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

We all remember where we were on the morning of 9/11 but I found myself in an equally memorable place - Turkey - on the day the world learned that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a daring raid at his lair near Pakistan's equivalent of West Point.Stepping out of my hotel in the ancient Sultanhamet sector of Istanbul on the first day of a long-planned, 30-day getaway in Turkey and Greece, I was

Why newspaper ad sales are not recovering

2011-04-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Nearly two years after the U.S. economy began climbing out of the worst recession since the 1930s, advertising sales at newspapers have yet to hit bottom.Now, the question haunting every newspaper executive is: How low will they go? And the daunting question for them is: What can turn things around?Clearly new ideas are in order, because economic recovery has not done the trick. And the

Ready for the mobile ad revolution?

2011-04-13T04:25:00.000-07:00

The next revolution in advertising is buzzing in your pocket or purse. Are you ready?Far surpassing the powers of print, broadcast and the web, a host of new technologies is converging on the opportunity to use smart phones to intercept – and influence – the consumer as she walks past a store, wheels through a supermarket or reaches toward a product on the shelf.The technologies include not only

Bid duel likely for Orange County Register

2011-04-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

A bidding war appears to be shaping up for the Orange County Register, where the winner could emerge as the dominant player in a series of consolidations that eventually puts the major dailies in Southern California in the hands of a single owner.The leading bidders in what is likely to be a small but vigorous duel for the Register are MediaNews Group, which operates the neighboring Los Angeles

Who needs newspapers? One couple’s answer

2011-04-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

Two days after former news executive Paul Steinle retired last summer, he hitched a 31-foot mobile home to his champagne Silverado pickup to discover first-hand if newspapers have what it takes to succeed in the digital age.Now that he has visited at least one paper in each of 37 states – with stops scheduled in the rest by July – the preliminary verdict is in.“This is not an industry that is

Newspapers get 3x too many ad dollars, says study

2011-04-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Even though newspapers have lost nearly half of their ad revenues in the last five years, some analysts believe they still are getting three times more advertising than their readership deserves.This good news/bad news for publishers comes from eMarketer, a research firm specializing in digital marketing trends. I’ll tell you in a moment why this is both good and bad news. First, the story:In a

A shock video to keep news execs up at night

2011-03-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

“The newspaper model is broken and can’t be fixed, unless you have the same definition of winning as Charlie Sheen,” said Publisher No. 1. “Newspapers will disappear in 10 years unless the model is changed now.”The high cost of creating original editorial content for newspapers “is not sustainable,” said Publisher No. 2. “I don’t know if it will blow up the industry this year or next year…but

A big op to upgrade op-ed at New York Times

2011-03-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

The departure of two heavyweight columnists affords the New York Times an unprecedented opportunity to belatedly diversify, ventilate and otherwise modernize its opinion pages by opening them to, quite literally, a world of contributors.While the op-ed pages of the Times aren’t shabby in comparison with the rest of the American press, this statement unfortunately damns the Times with faint praise

NYT.Com pay scheme can succeed, but…

2011-03-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

The long-awaited, much-delayed digital pay scheme at the New York Times should work just fine, but that doesn’t mean it can be replicated successfully in other markets. Accordingly, other publishers should proceed with caution.After spending nearly 1½ years to retool its web publishing engine to accommodate what’s known as a metered pay scheme, the Times announced yesterday that it would begin

Newspaper ad sales hit 25-year low in 2010

2011-03-16T03:00:00.000-07:00

While ad sales rose in every other mass medium in 2010, newspaper revenues plunged to the lowest point since 1985, falling to nearly half of the all-time high of $49.4 billion achieved just five years earlier.Combined print and online sales at newspapers slid 6.3% in 2010 to $25.8 billion, according to end-of-year statistics released yesterday by the Newspaper Association of America, the industry

Paper erects pay wall – and traffic goes up!

2011-03-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

They (including me) said it couldn’t be done, but the Augusta Chronicle put up a pay wall without losing traffic.In fact, page views rose a nifty 5% in the three months since the Georgia newspaper installed a metered system similar to the one just implemented at the Dallas Morning News and soon to debut at the New York Times.Traffic remains healthy at the Chronicle because its pay wall is about

Schiller case shows fed media funding problem

2011-03-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

The back-to-back resignations this week of two top National Public Radio executives are dramatic proof that federal funding is unhealthy for public broadcasters because it persistently puts them in the crossfire of national politics.NPR boss Vivian Schiller reportedly was forced out of her position yesterday after Ron Schiller (no relation), the network’s fund-raising chief, was caught in an

Will classified advertising come back?

2011-03-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

Nowhere have newspapers suffered as mightily in the last five years as in the meltdown in classified advertising, where nearly $14 billion in highly profitable revenues were vaporized between 2005 and 2010.The classified ad crash, of course, resulted from the worst global economic calamity since the 1930s. The real estate market collapsed. Employers stopped hiring. Two of the three domestic

So long again, Chicago Daily News

2011-03-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

"It's fun being the publisher when things are going well," squeaked the young man who stumbled awkwardly to the top of a battered desk in the unusually silent newsroom of the Chicago Daily News. "But it's no fun today."Swallowing a nervous giggle, Marshall Field V cleared his throat and read the assembled staff the short, typewritten death warrant of one of the most distinguished newspapers in

Facebook comments: Friend or foe for pubs?

2011-03-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

In its highly successful effort to insinuate itself into every aspect of our lives, Facebook now is offering publishers the opportunity to outsource comments on their websites to the social networking juggernaut.This slick idea could be one of the best things anyone ever did for newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, bloggers or anyone else who thinks he has something to say on the web. Or, it

Get the gray out of America’s newspapers

2011-03-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

In 1995, the Society of News Design counted a dozen American newspapers as among the best-looking in the world. By 2010, there were none.Though it may not be fair to judge the problems of American newspaper publishers strictly by their covers, you can’t help but wonder how much their weary- and retro-looking products are contributing to their faltering readership and advertiser support.The

Hyperlocals like TBD: More hype than hope

2011-02-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

The rapid implosion of the high-profile TBD news site is further evidence that hyperlocal journalism is more hype than hope for the news business.Launched with considerable fanfare and generous funding only six months ago by Allbritton Communications, TBD was the latest effort in the nation’s capital to create websites filled with intensely local coverage that, it was hoped, would attract large

Why feds should not fund public broadcasting

2011-02-22T05:00:00.000-08:00

There is no logical reason for the federal government to continue funding public broadcasting.Fortunately, public broadcasters can afford to tell the feds to get lost. Thanks to nearly $9 billion of sometimes-grudging federal support since 1969, public radio and television have become mature, powerful and self-sustaining businesses.While I cherish This American Life and the PBS NewsHour as much

Google trumps Apple on subscription plan

2011-02-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

It’s rare when the sharpest marketer in Silicon Valley stumbles, but Google scooped Apple by introducing a subscription service that hits the sweet spot for publishers.Just one day after Apple unveiled a gotcha-laden iTunes subscription service for publishers of newspapers, magazines and other media, Google yesterday stepped forward with a competing system that presciently obviates the most

iTunes subscriptions won’t stop free news

2011-02-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

While the new iTunes subscription service for publishers may inspire more efforts than ever to charge for content, it won’t put a dent in the overwhelming consumption of free news on the Internet.The Apple subscription service unveiled yesterday intends to do for publishers of newspapers, magazines and other media what iTunes did for music: Create an attractive, convenient, one-click environment

The gotchas in Apple’s app-subscription plan

2011-02-15T09:18:00.000-08:00

Theoretically, it is possible for publishers to hang on to 100% of their revenues when they sell subscriptions through a new service launched today at the Apple iTunes Store.Realistically, however, publishers are more likely to continue forking over 30% of most of their sales to the House that Jobs Built. Accordingly, the House in most cases will continue to win.This entirely unsurprising

Mobile apps turbo-charge legacy digital media

2011-02-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

We already knew mobile phones were a big thing but who knew the power they had to turbo-charge the growth of digital media that got their start on the desktop?The dramatic ability of mobile apps to drive growth at legacy digital properties is illustrated in the latest mega-survey of the media marketplace from Mary Meeker, a former Wall Street analyst who recently became a partner at the legendary

The state of play for paid content, 2011

2011-02-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

The late but not necessarily lamented 2010 was supposed to be the Year of the Pay Wall for newspapers.But consumers overwhelmingly repudiated the efforts of the few publishers who dared to demand payment for access to the news, leaving newspaper content about as widely and freely available on the web at year's end as it had been for the prior decade and a half.Because hope springs eternal among

Not all content is king on Wall Street

2011-02-09T05:00:00.001-08:00

While journalists and other media types like to think professionally produced content is king, our friends in the financial community apparently don’t agree.Recent deals like the Facebook financing, the Demand Media IPO and the Huffington Post sale show that investors put far more value on companies aggregating cheap or free content than on dedicating generous resources to original, high-quality

AOL overpaid for HuffPo. Can deal pan out?

2011-02-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

AOL is vastly overpaying for Huffington Post from a strict financial point of view. So, the big question is: Will this deal ever make financial sense?A once-massive Internet service provider that is struggling to turn itself into a content powerhouse, AOL is paying $315 million for HuffPo, or approximately 10 times the reported HuffPo sales of $31 million in 2010.With the stock of AOL trading at

Faults aside, The Daily is the digital future

2011-02-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

Although The Daily may lack journalistic and intellectual heft, don’t sell it short: This revolutionary app is a living, breathing glimpse into what digitally delivered news, entertainment and advertising will look like in the future.Publishers, editors and entrepreneurs who underestimate this valuable experiment – generously underwritten by News Corp. to the tune of $30 million – will do so at

The Daily debut flops: What went wrong?

2011-02-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

The inaugural edition of The Daily was a dud. Unless it suddenly gets a whole lot better, we all can save the 99 cents it hopes to collect each week from subscribers.The Daily debuted yesterday as the first scratch-built news publication for the iPad. But the initial edition of the long-awaited News Corp. project, which consisted of the barest possible news report backfilled by a bunch of vapid

Why The Daily will succeed – or not

2011-01-31T05:00:00.000-08:00

The Daily, which is set to launch this week, could be a capitvating hit, a spectacular miss or something in between. But one thing is sure:Rupert Murdoch, the last swashbuckling publisher of our time, will shake up the media world on Wednesday when he introduces the first iPad-only news product, which is expected to be sold in subscriptions costing 99 cents a week.While it is too early to tell

Build broad app portfolios, publishers told

2011-01-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

Publishers can’t base their mobile strategies on a single app for the iPad and another for smart phones, warns a thoughtful new white paper from the International Newsmedia Marketing Association. Rather, the study says, publishers have to produce an ever-evolving variety of apps for each platform to appeal to an increasingly fragmented market of consumers. The INMA report, which was released

UC-Berkeley invites international journalists

2011-01-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

Applications are being accepted through March 14 for a unique program providing mid-career journalists from outside the U.S. with an opportunity to pursue advanced professional training and academic study at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.In the non-degree Visiting Scholar program, participants can audit courses offered at the journalism school and

Prime time for iPad may be prime time

2011-01-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

Just as video recorders let consumers time-shift their television viewing, the iPad may be encouraging users to do the same with news and other content, according to an intriguing – but unfortunately limited – new study. The study was conducted by the company that makes an app called Read It Later, which lets users electronically earmark content for consumption at a more convenient time

Mobilizing for mobile before it's too late

2011-01-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

This column originally appeared in Editor & Publisher Magazine. Click here to subscribe for timely delivery of the magazine.Amazingly, newspapers are making the same self-defeating mistakes with their mobile initiatives that they did with the Internet.If they don't do better this time, publishers will blow a major opportunity to preserve the value of their franchises as the power of print

Partisan media helped pull trigger in Tucson

2011-01-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

The partisan media helped pull the trigger when an apparently deranged young man gunned down Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a crowded supermarket on a sunny Saturday morning.It is time for everyone from Fox News to MSNBC to amp down the hateful hyperbole that created the toxic atmosphere that likely helped push the Tucson shooter over the edge.There is little doubt that the partisan media share blame

Wall St. spanked debt-laden publishers in 2010

2011-01-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

Wall Street repudiated the shares of debt-heavy newspaper companies in 2010 at the same time the stocks of generally less leveraged publishers advanced. In a decidedly mixed year for the 11 remaining publicly traded newspaper companies, share prices last year soared as high as 51% for A.H. Belo while they plunged by an almost identical amount – 50.5% – at GateHouse Media. As illustrated

How to rescue magazine sales on iPad

2010-12-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

It is no surprise that magazine sales on the iPad have fallen since the summer, as the novelty of pawing through a publication on the new toy wore off. In the most extreme case of fatigue, Wired sold 100,000 copies of the first issue it put on the iPad in June but only about 22,000 in November, according to statistics culled from the Audit Bureau of Circulations and first reported at Women’s

Groupon, iPad and Twitter: 2 much 2 hope 4?

2010-12-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

With iPad apps, Groupon-like buying programs and Twitter campaigns topping the to-do lists at most newspapers, it’s time to place these putative publishing panaceas in proper perspective. Recent research into consumer acceptance of these varied ways of serving readers and advertisers has found that each initiative may lead to underwhelming results, unintended consequences or, in the worst

Robust ad recovery bypassed newspapers

2010-12-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

Newspaper advertising revenues continued sinking in the third quarter of this year despite a robust recovery that has fueled healthy gains in all – not some, but all – of the other competing media. While television, radio, magazine and Internet ad sales have moved into positive territory in 2010 after suffering recession-related setbacks in the last two years, newspaper revenues dropped

‘Objective’ journalism is over. Let’s move on.

2010-12-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

It’s time to retire the difficult-to-achieve and impossible-to-defend conceit that journalists are now, or ever were, objective.Let’s replace this threadbare notion with a realistic and credible standard of transparency that requires journalists to forthrightly declare their personal predilections, financial entanglements and political allegiances so the public can evaluate the quality of the

Another setback for non-profit news

2010-11-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

A year ago, I wrote that David S. Bennahum might do for non-profit journalism what Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, did for hamburgers. But it has not worked out that way. Bennahum’s disciplined approach to franchising a network of non-profit news ventures has faltered, casting further doubt on whether there is a viable model for filling the void in local coverage left by the meltdown

Why deadlines don’t matter any more

2010-11-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

This column originally appeared in the October issue of Editor & Publisher Magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine here.It’s a good thing deadlines don’t matter any more, given the growing number of newspapers forced to go to press earlier in the day to accommodate the production of multiple papers at a single plant.Although the idea of putting the morning paper to bed before dinner might

How the press let us get in the mess we’re in

2010-11-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama’s failure to focus on the economy is being rightfully blamed for the resounding repudiation he suffered in the mid-term elections, but the national press deserves a whack upside the head for helping to let it happen.The looming battle over national policy in the new Congress matters to everyone, regardless of political persuasion. Unless and until Washington gets its act together,

Ice cream shop out-‘fans’ S.F. Chronicle

2010-10-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

The report yesterday that newspaper circulation declined another 5% in the latest reporting period got me thinking about ice cream for two reasons. First, anyone who loves newspapers would rather ruminate about rum raisin than the relentless, 20-year slide that has brought weekday circulation to less than 40 million copies today from an all-time high of 63.3 million as recently as 1984.

Digital sales at newspapers caught up in Q2

2010-10-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 3½ years, digital sales at newspapers caught up with the growth of the rest of the online advertising industry, according to newly released data. In a bright note for publishers, figures provided this week by the Internet Advertising Bureau showed that sales in all online categories rose by 13.9% to $6.2 billion in the second quarter. The industry-wide

Digital Natives: More different than you think

2010-10-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

This column originally was published in Editor & Publisher Magazine and is being reprinted with permission. To subscribe to the magazine so you can see the full array of industry coverage when it first appears in print, click here. The French, as Steve Martin once cracked, have a different word for everything. But a recent ground-breaking study of modern media consumers by BVA, a French

‘Community news sites are not a business yet’

2010-10-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Although Jan Schaffer just produced a masterful analysis of how to run a grassroots news site, she came up dry on the crucial question of how to turn those journalistic labors of love into sustainable businesses. The best she could do was tell the truth: “Community news sites are not a business yet,” says the forthright Schaffer.She ought to know. As the director of the J-Lab at American

Faced with falling circ, publishers retool rules

2010-10-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Unable to arrest a decline that has consumed nearly a third of print circulation in the last decade, newspapers are doing the next best thing: Revising the way they count readers to make themselves look better to advertisers. In the second major overhaul of circulation rules in two years, publishers as of Oct. 1 will be able for the first time to include certain types of free products in

Schneider exit clouds Newspaper Consortium

2010-10-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

The departure of Hilary Schneider at Yahoo could be a major blow to the Newspaper Consortium she founded, as well as many of the 800 newspapers that count on the partnership to boost their online revenues. The four-year old Newspaper Consortium was formed to help publishers in two ways: By giving them the opportunity to sell unsold inventory on the vast number of websites operated by Yahoo

1 in 4 local firms plan newspaper ad cuts: poll

2010-09-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Nearly one in four local businesses plan to cut back on newspaper advertising this year, according to a poll being released today. And there is no mystery about what they are doing with the money.At the same time those businesses trim newspaper expenditures, the survey found, many of them plan to aggressively ramp up spending on a broad array of web, social and mobile media. Insights into the

Eight strategies to help newspapers thrive

2010-09-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

This column originally was published in Editor & Publisher Magazine and is being reprinted with permission. To subscribe to the magazine so you can see the full array of industry coverage when it first appears in print, click here.“What trees do they plant?” the original Major Richard J. Daley once demanded angrily of his critics in the Chicago press. He had a point. Anyone can find fault with

Newspaper ad sales head to 25-year low

2010-09-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

Newspaper advertising revenues are on track this year to dive to a 25-year low of approximately $26.5 billion, or 47% of the record $49.4 billon in sales achieved by the industry as recently as 2005.Even through the rate of sales decay at newspapers slowed to -5.6% in the second quarter of this year from -9.7% in the first three months, the total $12.4 billion in sales booked in the first half of

Next big thing? TV-newspaper staff mergers

2010-09-01T09:13:00.000-07:00

Newspaper and TV newsroom mergers could become the next big thing as profit-pressed publishers and broadcasters seek to cut costs and strengthen their digital presence. But will hybrid newsrooms live up the promises of producing better journalism? The performance of the longest-running major newsroom merger – the combination 10 years ago of the Tampa Tribune and WFLA – is far from

Local news rivals doom publisher pay walls

2010-08-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

The local news sites being developed by Yahoo, AOL, Huffington Post and a growing number of other online players will dash the hopes of most newspaper publishers of charging for access to their online content. While newspaper executives have agonized for the better part of two years about whether and how to charge for their costly-to-produce content, every indication is that the portals,

Yahoo readies San Francisco news site

2010-08-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Moving quickly to leverage its $90 million-ish acquisition of Associated Content, Yahoo has begun recruiting writers to begin building a local news site for the San Francisco area. Though hundreds of news shops of every shape and size already cover Northern California, Yahoo will be an instantly formidable competitor because of its vast market reach. In a breathless email blast to registered

Flagship newspapers wane in audience mix

2010-08-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

The flagship newspaper produces barely half of the weekday audience delivered by some major metro publishers, according to an analysis of data recently issued by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. While papers like the Kansas City Star continue to pursue the traditional model of publishing only the main title and a free once-a-week advertising product sent to the homes of

Note to editors: Respect your elders

2010-08-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

With most newspapers drawing more than half their audience from people who are 55 years of age and older, you would think they would avoid insulting those readers. But you would be wrong.Although respectable media practitioners generally have learned to mind their manners when referring to individuals of different races, religions, genders, sexual orientation, physical capabilities and mental

Q2 newspaper sales: Less bad but not good

2010-08-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

Advertising sales for most newspaper publishers were less bad in the second quarter of this year than they were in the first three months. But less bad is not the same as good – and the outlook for the remainder of the year is decidedly murky. Based on the performance reported to date by the publicly traded publishing companies, it appears that sales for the industry on average will be

Deals showcase newspaper marketing clout

2010-07-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

This column originally was published in the July edition of Editor & Publisher Magazine and is being reprinted with permission. To subscribe to the magazine so you can see the full array of industry coverage when it first appears in print, click here.One of the biggest challenges for newspapers in the age of interactive media is proving that their advertising works. The San Diego

News stocks lag despite dramatic rebound

2010-07-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Although the shares of the publicly traded newspaper companies have advanced impressively from their all-time lows 12 months ago, they still are worth on average about a fifth of their value on June 30, 2005. The good news for the battered publishing sector is that publicly held newspaper shares rose by an average of 332% in the 12 months ended on June 30 – handily surpassing the 12% gain

How about an iHype ‘tax’ to save the news?

2010-06-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

The pesky problem of paying for the news could be resolved rather fast if publishers and broadcasters just charged Steve Jobs a nickel a word for all the free hype they provide to sell his iParaphernalia. While I admit to being as fascinated as the next guy with Apple’s electronic confections, it is nonetheless staggering to see how much scarce reporting talent and news

Make no mistake: Newspapers are still in trouble

2010-06-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

With newspaper share prices up some 380% in the last 12 months, even the ordinarily incisive Economist Magazine last week offered an upbeat appraisal for an industry that many had written off for dead a year ago. But it is flat wrong to believe that newspapers are on the mend in the United States. In fact, American publishers missed out on the broad advertising recovery that took place in

iPad app watch: Hits, runs and terrors

2010-06-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Now that we have bought all those expensive iPads – and we know who all of you early adopters are, too – what are we going to do with them? Here’s the first in an occasional look at what’s hot – and not – in App-Land. Top Picks All-Around Best: Safari Safari has been named the best app for the iPad by several commentators and I couldn’t agree more. The snappy (unless it’s on the ATT

The secret to innovation: Aim! Ready! Fire!

2010-06-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Springtime seems to have brought a refreshing zeal for innovation to the nation’s battered newspapers. And, not a moment too soon, given the 27% drop in advertising sales in 2009. But, as I learned in my decades of running and financing start-up businesses, it takes more than desire to successfully bring new products and services to market. Product innovation requires

Journalists running start-ups face tall odds

2010-06-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Fed up with furloughs and down-sizing – or forced involuntarily out of their jobs – journalists across the land are taking matters into their own hands by starting their own news sites. While I applaud these brave and commendable efforts, I fear a good many journalistic entrepreneurs are doomed to fail because they are not objectively confronting the steep odds they face – or putting nearly

Picturing the BP blob at a town near you

2010-06-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

A clever bit of programming has provided a visual aid to illustrate the unfathomable damage being caused by the 880-fathom-deep gusher pumping untold gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. This visual aid is a customizable Google Map at a website called IfItWasMyHome.Com, which makes it possible to superimpose the latest known contours of the BP oil spill over any location in the world.

Yahoo signals major challenge to newspapers

2010-06-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Yahoo appears to be getting ready to produce local websites filled with original content that could compete with newspapers, posing a particular challenge to the hundreds of publishers who now sell advertising for the powerful portal. The apparent intention to target the sweet spot for publishers was signaled last month when Yahoo announced plans to buy Associated Content for $100-ish

Newspapers now have lost half of core sales

2010-05-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

The decline in newspaper advertising eased in the first three months of 2010, but the industry exited the quarter with less than half the revenue base it had in the same period in 2005. Print ad sales for the industry skidded 11.4% in the first three months of the year to $5.2 billion, according to data released yesterday by the Newspaper Association of America. This compares with $10.3

Newspapers need objective reader research

2010-05-25T06:00:00.001-07:00

This column originally was published in Editor & Publisher Magazine and is being reprinted with permission. To subscribe to the magazine so you can see the full array of industry coverage when it first appears in print, click here.“I sell bellybuttons,” said Robert M. McCormick, one of the greatest newspaper ad salesmen who ever lived. That's the best description you'll ever hear of

The potential economic threat to local TV news

2010-05-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is the second of two posts adapted from testimony I am scheduled to present at a Media Ownership Workshop being conducted today by the Federal Communications Commission at Stanford University. The first post is here.Once traditional television programming is married with a robust Internet feed to the family entertainment center, there is every reason to believe most modern consumers will

How local TV could go the way of newspapers

2010-05-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is the first of two posts adapted from testimony I am scheduled to present at a Media Ownership Workshop being conducted Friday by the Federal Communications Commission at Stanford University.The tipping point is not yet at hand, but the economics of local broadcasting may begin to unravel as dramatically – and irretrievably – in the next five years as they did for newspapers in the

Murdoch out to challenge local papers?

2010-05-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Just weeks after launching a Big Apple edition to challenge the New York Times, Rupert Murdoch may be getting ready to put a bit of competitive pressure on other newspaper publishers, too. This possibility was signaled when it was revealed last week that the Wall Street Journal is buying tons of new press towers to enable it to print color on an estimated 75% more pages of the newspaper than

MSM earn middling marks on first iPad apps

2010-05-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

The mainstream media have earned only middling grades from consumers for their initial iPad applications, leaving plenty of room for improvement. A quick survey at the iTunes Store found that the average user rating of the 10 most popular news applications was 2.8 out of a possible 5 stars. Key findings: :: As detailed in the table below, two of the three most popular apps came from

iPad users are big news consumers: study

2010-05-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

In good news for the news media, iPad users are twice as likely to be interested in news, sports and finance than the typical visitor to the various websites operated by Yahoo, according to an analysis provided by the web portal. Marking one of the first efforts to understand the burgeoning iPad population, Yahoo found that the initial audience for the Apple tablet is weighted toward men

Newspaper ad drop eased sharply in Q1

2010-05-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

The decline in newspaper advertising sales appears to have abated significantly in the first three months of the year. While this has cheered the embattled industry, it must be noted that a decelerating rate of decay should not be confused with healthy growth. The industry, as discussed below, has lost nearly half of its principal revenue base in the first period since 2006 – and it has yet