According to a new CNW study, 52% of bloggers now see themselves as journalists, compared with 33% in 2008.
You can count me among the 52% because in many respects I don’t see much of a difference between what I do now when writing blog posts, and what I did when I was a newspaper technology reporter with the Globe & Mail, National Post and Bloomberg News.
These days, I write stories that interest me and get to talk with all kinds of cool people. For example, I wanted to do a blog post on Prezi.com, the new presentation tool being used by a growing number of people at conferences these days. So, I sent an e-mail the CEO, and within a couple of days, I had done an interview and published a blog post.
The ability to “report” is one of the reasons why I...
There’s a lot of chatter about a Forrester Research report suggesting that 80% of Internet users in North America won’t pay for online newspaper and magazine content. This bolsters the contention that pay-to-play within the online content world is a non-starter.
But what if you flip the Forrester report upside down, and consider the fact 20% of North American Internet users are willing to pay for content. That’s a fairly encouraging number in the wake of the widespread belief that online content should be free.
The obvious question is what kind of content will people pay to read. My sense is that high-profile brands such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Wall St. Journal, the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, et al could attract a significant number of...
It has been documented to death that the business of journalism is broken but no one has come up with a widely-embraced killer idea to save it.
The exception, however, is News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch who has been leading the charge recently about introducing paywalls – something already done at the Wall St. Journal.
Now, Murdoch has raised the idea of not letting News Corp.’s Web sites be indexed by Google. In an interview with Sky News political editor David Speers, Murdoch suggests that while Google drives a lot of traffic to News Corp. sites, he’d rather have fewer people visiting but have those people pay for content.
“They shouldn’t have had it free all the time. I think we’ve been asleep,” he said after Speers asked him about the fact...
If you’re at all interested in the future of newspapers and journalism, check out this GRIT TV interview with Clay Shirky. There is lots of good material here, including Shirky’s contention that we shouldn’t be focused on savings newspapers but, instead, we need to ask whether we can save journalism.
GRITtv: Clay Shirky: The Social Media Revolutionby visionontv...
One of the things that Clay Shirky mentioned in the panel with Andrew Keen that I moderated at Ryerson University recently (my post with video here, tweet-stream here and live-blog here) was an idea that he has also written about before on his blog: namely, that one of the principal functions of a newspaper was to aggregate completely unrelated things, primarily because the newspaper company (and its advertisers) had to appeal to the widest possible group of potential readers, and couldn’t possibly know in advance which parts of the paper they were likely to be most interested in. As Clay described it in a recent talk he gave at Harvard:
“The idea that someone who is doing a crossword puzzle may also want news about the coup in Honduras or how the Lakers are doing — it...
Since I became the first “communities editor” for The Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto almost a year ago, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what makes for a good community - a healthy community - and what makes for a bad one. I’ve looked at every newspaper I can think of and tried to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve looked at non-media communities like Metafilter and Slashdot and even (so help me) 4chan. I’ve looked at research into real-world communities and how they evolve, and why some thrive and some die out.
There are all sorts of manifestations of community on news sites - blogs, wikis, etc. - but one of the most fundamental elements of community is reader comments. Some media outlets only allow comments on certain...
I finally got around to reading David Simon’s essay in the Columbia Journalism Review about how newspapers, particularly the New York Times and Washington Post, need to erect paywalls to ensure their financial viability. (Note: It’s somewhat ironic that the essay available for free online.)
Simon’s argument isn’t new but it does put the spotlight on whether newspapers can survive if they can’t figure out a way to generate significant revenue from the Web.
As important is the whether newspapers can continue to offer content that people will pay to read – be online or off-line – if industry conditions continue to shrink newsrooms and the quality of the people working in them.
While I love the idea of reading the NYT, The Guardian, The New Yorker...
Maybe I’m alone in the woods but it seems like it’s only a matter of time before newspapers – at least world-class newspapers – start charging for more of their content.
Case in point is the Financial Times, which plans to introduce a pay-per-view system for online content next summer, while exploring whether FT.com content should stay free. (The Guardian has more details on how the FT’s subscription model could evolve.)
It’s becoming obvious – at least to me – the online pendulum is swinging away from free. It may not swing all the way back to paid, but the free buffet is going to over soon because newspaper owners such as Rupert Murdoch have realized their investments aren’t viable under the current free system.
That said, not all...
With Apple apparently scrambling to introduce a tablet computer by early next year, a bigger issue to consider is whether Apple can save the newspaper business much like it has come to the rescue of the music industry.
For years, newspapers have done a terrible job of embracing the Web and reconfiguring their business structures to the new economic, advertising and readership landscape.
Even as dozens of newspapers close or because Web-only entities with skeleton staffs, the industry still hasn’t figure out how to be vibrant and viable. For many newspapers, their only salvation will be charging for online content – something Rupert Murdoch intends to introduce next summer.
So where does Apple fits into the mix, and why could it save newspapers from themselves?
Before Apple...
As the newspaper industry grapples with how to embrace the Web and remain financially viable, I’ve become increasingly convinced newspapers must charge for content in some way, shape or form.
To some, this is a strange approach given premium services have been a failure, which is why most newspapers are still trying to drive online revenue through advertising. Meanwhile, more newspapers are disappearing or becoming streamlined, online-only operations.
The biggest argument against the ability for newspapers to charge for premium access is consumers will turn elsewhere for the newspapers they want.
In many respects, this is accurate, which is why newspapers need to focus on charging for value-added content (columns, features, archives, editorials, inside access) that aren’t...
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that something has to give if newspapers are going to stick around.
The most obvious problem is the availability of free content that doesn’t attract enough advertising to provide newspapers and magazines with enough of a financial return. As a result, a few things have to happen:
1. Business models need to be overhauled so newspapers are leaner and more cost-efficient. This will see smaller newsrooms staffed with tech-savvy reporters capable of writing, blogging, podcasting and video. It will also see fewer paper-based newspapers in an effort to chop away at a huge expense.
2. The amount of free content will have to shrink. If there isn’t going to be enough advertising to completely support the online operations of newspapers, then all...
Here’s yet another example of why “gangster unions” should be abolished: Amid a flux of change in the media industry, employees of The Globe and Mail, one of Canada's oldest and most influential newspapers, will vote this weekend on whether they want to give their union a strike mandate. The decision is aimed at backing up union negotiators as they prepare for another round of talks with the paper on a new contract to replace an agreement that expires June 30, just over 10 days away. But it's also a risky move for the paper's staff, considering that the Toronto-based......
I think the Globe and Mail is on the right track with its new editor-in-chief John Stackhouse: John Stackhouse, 46, a native of Toronto who joined The Globe and Mail in 1989 and went on to become one of Canada's most decorated journalists as a foreign correspondent, was named editor-in-chief yesterday. Mr. Stackhouse, who has served as editor of the Report on Business since 2004, said he takes the reins of Canada's national newspaper at a challenging time for the industry. But news organizations can also seize upon new opportunities to expand online and into mobile platforms, he said. Edward......
Computer-assisted reporting or CAR has been around, well — ever since there were computers. Even when I was in journalism school (which was longer ago than I care to remember), we learned about databases we could search, etc. But the explosion of Web-based tools and ways of sifting through and sharing data has created something approaching a revolution, and the potential benefits for journalism are only just beginning to reveal themselves. If this movement has a patron saint, it is probably Adrian Holovaty, who gained renown while working on data-driven features at the Washington Post, then created the amazing Chicagocrime.org as one of the first Google Maps mashups, followed by his fellowship-financed Everyblock, which aggregates local data about an area.
Another recent example of...
There’s been a lot of chatter recently about newspapers charging for online content, led by media doyen Rupert Murdoch who is pushing the idea of micro-payments.
The San Jose Mercury has climbed on the pay-to-play bandwagon by announcing it’s going to start charging for online content - a move Mike Masnick describes as a “move destined to fail dismally (and quickly)” given there aren’t many compelling reasons for people to read the paper online now for free.
While the Mercury’s move may not work, I wonder whether it’s a sign of things to come within the beleaguered newspaper industry. Over the past few years, newspapers have tried a variety of different models to stay financially viable. They’ve charged for all content; given some content...
Another U.S. newspaper has folded for good: Arizona’s oldest continuously published daily newspaper, The Tucson Citizen, will publish its final print edition Saturday after its owner failed to find a buyer. Kate Marymont, Gannett’s vice president for news, told the newspaper’s staff on Friday that The Citizen would continue with a Web edition providing commentary and opinion, but no news or sports coverage. She said the paper’s 60 employees would know by the end of Friday if they would be laid off, kept on short term or be hired long term. Meanwhile, Newsweek has announced its new format: This first......
Over the past few years, newspapers have salivated on and off about the idea of selling online subscriptions to generate much-needed revenue. In practice, few of them have been successful, mostly because most content a newspaper might have wanted to sell is available elsewhere at no cost.
But with newspapers desperate for revenue as they scramble to survive, newspapers are turning their sites again on getting consumers to pay for online content. According to the Financial Times, the Wall St. Journal, for example, is considering micro-payments for specific stories, as well as, monthly subscriptions.
Rupert Murdoch, who owns the WSJ, recently described the availability of free content as a “flawed” business model, while talking about possible fees to read more newspapers within...
Alan Rusbridger is the editor-in-chief of The Guardian, easily one of the most prestigious newspapers in the English-speaking world, and is widely admired as a journalist’s journalist. At the same time, he has also been one of the driving forces behind making his newspaper a leader online, which has involved embracing community — including ground-breaking experiments such as Comment Is Free — as well as social-media tools such as Twitter. The video embedded here (click through if you’re reading this via RSS) is a great summary of some of his views about the future of newspapers, the wisdom of the crowd, the blurring of the line between journalists and non-journalists, the need for community and the appeal of Twitter. Highly recommended. Hat tip to Adam Tinworth for...
I was listening to an interview on the FAN (Toronto’s sports radio station) on the way down to Waterloo today that featured Boston Globe sports reporter Kevin Paul Dupont.
Before he was asked about the Boston Bruins’ playoff series demolition of the Montreal Canadiens, Dupont talked about how the New York Times has decided that if the Boston Globe’s unions don’t accept huge cost reductions, it may have to consider closing the newspaper.
Dupont was surprisingly frank about the economic realities facing the Globe and newspapers, in general. One of the analogies he used was newspaper are going through the same process that hi the horse and buggy industry at the turn of the 20th century.
It was an interesting comment because it’s simplistic yet pretty a pretty...
The New York Times’ terrible first-quarter results (plunging ad revenue) reminded me to finally read Clay Shirky’s “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable” essay.
As a former journalist and someone who still loves reading newspapers, Shirky’s thesis is alarming but, painfully, on the mark. One thing that resonated is Skirky’s belief that while the newspaper business is dying, no one really knows what the future holds as far as journalism.
Is journalism going to be blogs? It is Twitter or Facebook updates? Is journalism going to be run by non-profits? Is journalism going to be something subsidized by patrons? The reality is no one knows.
Another angle is the mantra that many journalists recite about how they’re covering the news, so if they...
As the newspaper industry has grown weaker and weaker, there has been a steady stream of articles and blog posts blaming Google for some or all of this decline. I’m not going to link to them all, because there are simply too many, and they are easy enough to find. The standard allegation is that the search engine, and other similar engines such as Yahoo and MSN, hijack readers by aggregating content, and then monetize those eyeballs by posting ads near the content. Newspapers get traffic, but Google critics argue that this traffic is essentially worthless — or at least can’t make up for the value that Google has siphoned off.
One of the most recent articles to take this tack appeared in the Guardian and quoted Sly Bailey, the chief executive office of newspaper publisher...
In the past few months, I’ve been taking public transportation a lot - partly because showing up to a business meeting in bicycle gear isn’t a great way to make a good first impression, and partly because the winter was so cold.
Here are two key observations about people who take public transportation:
1. There aren’t a lot of people are reading newspapers. Of the people actually reading newspapers, most of them are reading the free dailies such as Metro.
2. Most people are plugged into iPods, either listening to music or watching videos.
It got me thinking there’s a huge opportunity for newspapers to capitalize on both of these public transportation realities: if newspapers want to encourage more people to become readers - either online or off-line - they should...
After seeing recommendations on Twitter from Clay Shirky and others, I was expecting a tour de force from author and former Harvard Business Review editor Nick Carr, but I confess that I found his post on Google as middleman — and its effect on newspapers — disappointing. Not just because the middleman comparison is one that has been made repeatedly over the past couple of years, and therefore doesn’t really add much to the conversation, but also because I think he is wrong. Or rather, I think that his description has some merit, but the lessons he draws are flawed, and ultimately unhelpful for newspapers (I would have put these thoughts into a comment, but Nick says he has disabled comments because they are too distracting).
Is Google a “middleman made of...
Canadians, and Albertans in particular, might just be what saves the newspaper industry's reputation. Take a look at this: Weekday readership of the Calgary Herald has grown by 10.8 per cent, according to an independent survey released Wednesday. The newspaper has also posted significant gains online and in weekend readership, attracting 6.5 per cent more readers on Saturdays and 17 per cent on Sundays, according to figures released by the Newspaper Audience DataBank(NADbank)2008 readership survey. The study confirms that the Herald remains the dominant media source of news, information and entertainment for Calgarians. The consistent leader in its marketplace, the......
My apologies to regular readers for the scarcity of posts at this blog lately. Being “communities editor” at the Globe is taking up every minute I have and then some. I realize it’s not much, but here’s a recent post I wrote for the Nieman Journalism Lab
As almost everyone is well aware by now, there’s been a never-ending roll call of doom in the newspaper business for some time — papers closing, companies filing for bankruptcy, massive layoffs and so on. Some have chosen to deal with this by clinging to the old “accentuate the positive” approach, but the most optimistic signs by far have been the journalists who are forging ahead (such as the InDenverTimes, an online startup staffed by laid-off Rocky Mountain News reporters and editors) and...
I wrote my post yesterday about the future of newspapers before discovering the Globe & Mail had published a lengthy feature looking at the future newspapers.
A few thoughts:
1. It’s the kind of journalism that newspapers need to do because it offers insight and perspective (aka tell me what it means) about an issue that’s been attracting a lot of news coverage recently.
2. It’s interesting to see newspapers enthusiastically waving the flag about how the industry’s demise would be a blow to society and how politicians behave. That suggests other information platforms won’t have the same influence or impact.
3. It puts the spotlight on the quality of work professional journalists produce, and how much bloggers rely on this content. To me, this is one of...