Over the past decade, we’ve heard a lot of prognostications on newspaper’s place in the digital world, or perhaps their lack of said place. Inevitably someone comes up with the statement “local newspapers do one thing well: covering local news you can’t get anywhere else.” Over the past year or so, I can think of numerous occasions where I saw something, such as a car accident that tied up Route 146 for hours, which I’d have expected to find under the heading…
When I worked in the Atex marketing department, we lived and died by what we could get published in Editor and Publisher. The once vaunted trade journal was the place you wanted to get mentioned, the measure of your having “made it” in the print world. Those days are now gone – from E&P themselves: Editor & Publisher, the bible of the newspaper industry and a journalism institution that traces its origins back to 1884, is ceasing publication. An announcement,…
Yesterday Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of News Corp, said that he was going to have Google blocked from all New Corp. websites. That means something From EditorandPublisher.com: The Chairman of News Corp. said in an interview with Sky News Australia (reported here in MediaWeek U.K.) that once the newspapers get their paywalls, News Corp. plans to pull its content from the likes of Google and others. Murdoch said: “We’d rather have fewer people come to the Web site and pay. Consumers…
As I was in the local public library picking up a little something to read on Saturday, I realized there was an interesting parallel between that and Internet file sharing. What does the library do after all; it loans books for free to people. The same books which both publishers and authors base their entire commercial livelihood. Thus if the picture the music industry draws of the dire future for music if file sharing is allowed continue were really a…
My 11 yo daughter called me while I was driving home last night, to ask me to pick up a newspaper so she could start her weekly current events assignment for school. Without thinking, I told her “you don’t want a newspaper for that, you need to get the information of the web where it’s up to date.” Now I’ve worked with newspapers on and off since my days atthe University of Vermont, and I worked for Atex where we…
I read an interesting post this morning by Michael Hickins on The Faster Times that posit that “Internet Isn’t Killing Papers, We Are“. His basic premise: that the tech industry, and the web in particular with with the dotbomb era and sky high salaries and insane stock packages, inflated journalist salaries well beyond their regular levels. Why? Because salaries had to be adjusted for the stock options that artificially inflated the potential compensation packages offered by the dot-com start-ups. How…
(Disclaimer: I work for Namemedia, Inc. who is one of the largest owners and resellers of domains in the world. I don’t work in that end of the business, and I don’t speak for them.) I picked up an interesting article today via David Churbuck’s Delicious.com feed, from USA Today with the salacious title “‘Cybersquatting’ crooks profit on marketers’ brand names.” Now I hate cybersquatting, but I have to say this, which I said yesterday and have said ad nauseum…
The “Special Sauce” for news media has always been investigative journalism, ala Woodward and Bernstein. It’s what made myself and an entire generation of young writers want to get into journalism back in the 1970’s, each of us aching to bring the mighty low, to shine lights into dark places and in the process, make our names, too, household words. Today, investigative journalism is a dying craft. Dying not because there aren’t reporters willing to ask the tough questions, but…
…And every blogger as well. From Journalism.co.uk via Brenda Christensen, a list of the skills every journalist should have. 5. That churnalism is much easier to spot online. If you do this regularly, your readers are already on to you – merely re-writing press releases without bringing anything to the table no longer cuts it. 6. Google is your friend. But if you are not using advanced search techniques, you really have no idea what it is capable of. 7. You do…
Via Editor and Publisher…with a pointer from Hart Van Denburg. Less than two years after it was bought by a private equity group, the Star Tribune has filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But wait, there’s more… In December, Harte told employees the “survival of the company” was at stake and asked labor unions to agree to $20 million in cuts by mid-January. Without those cuts, Harte said the newspaper could face bankruptcy. The Star Tribune ranked as the…