June 2009 Archives

Before they head for home Wednesday, about three dozen participants at an investigative reporting summit in New York are likely to launch planning for new organization uniting the growing number of nonprofits producing investigative journalism. 

The new network, dubbed for now the "Investigative News Network," would be another significant step in the rise of nonprofit investigative journalism in recent years.  Chuck Lewis, the godfather of so much in investigative journalism,  called the initiative "truly historic."

At a conference outside Tarrytown, N.Y., Lewis laid out a possible scenario Tuesday for how the network might take shape:  Secure a planning grant that would extend for up to a year; establish a new Web site displaying members' work; and begin posting content within 6-12 months.  By the end of the year, he said, the organization would need to be established as a 501(c)3.  Lewis predicted  said the organization would inevitably go international.

What exactly is the gathering of investigative reporting nonprofits, now under way in Tarrytown, N.Y., trying to achieve?

Ostensibly, it's creation of an Investigative News Network -- a coming together of the growing universe of investigative reporting nonprofits.  As Bill Buzenberg, director of the Center for Public Integrity, said at dinner last night, "Imagine what a 50-state network (of investigative nonprofits) might achieve?"

But as the conference swings into gear this morning, it's clear there are many different ideas of what the mission or missions of such a network might be.  In Monday's opener -- a fascinating round of introductions from the 39 people in attendance -- several possibilities were put on the table, most centering around the new-media model of partnerships:

The late 1830s and early '40s were a bad time in Missouri and most everyplace else in the U.S. People were broke and in debt after a boom in land speculation along the routes of new canals and railroads. In the bust that followed—what became known as the Panic of 1837—banks failed or cut off credit. One Missourian, a 36-year-old storekeeper and self-educated lawyer with a sick wife (a malaria epidemic had swept the Midwest) announced on a day in 1843 that he wanted to start over in the Oregon Territory: "I am done with this country," he said. "Winters it's frost and snow to freeze a body; summers the overflow from the Old Muddy drowns half my acres. Taxes take the yield of them that's left. What say, Maw? It's God's country."

While most other magazines are struggling, the Economist Group has once again posted profits during the troubled economic times. The magazine's Web site saw a 29 percent increase in earnings from January 2009 to March 2009.  The publication did not maintain profitability without cutbacks, however. It has laid off about 130 of its employees over the course of the year to cut costs. Read the PaidContent.org post. -- June 22, 2009

Simon Dumenco of Advertising Age chastises the Huffington Post for tabloid journalism and its departure from reporting traditional news. He cited the example of the Huffington Post's decision to publish articles such as “Megan Fox Walks the Red Carpet,” which draw numerous hits. Dumenco writes: "It likes to pretend that it's a respectable voice in the mediasphere, but it shamelessly pumps up its traffic by being just as trashy as, say, Maxim." Meanwhile, bloggers posting stories onto the Web sites get their information from other news organizations such as the BCC and the New York Times while these news organizations bear the costs of reporting. Read the Advertising Age post -- June 22, 2009

The Washington Post is hearing it from subscribers for its online-only posting a two-part article on the murder of Robert Wone. Subscribers argued that this was the kind of news they wanted to read, and online readers had the ability to read this story free of charge. The newspaper defended its decision not to post the article in print to save space for other articles in the newspaper. The author of the article, Paul Duggan, notes that online news posting offers a variety of advantages in comparison to printed news, in that it allows the writer almost limitless space to cover a story. Read the New York Times article. --June 22, 2009

CircLabs is currently developing software known as Circulate that will track its users' viewing habits and deliver news and ads tailored specifically for the user. The software monitors and transmits data back to the news service automatically allowing the news service to send customized news and advertisements. Users will have the choice of either enabling or disabling the tracking feature. CircLabs says it will permit local ad placement and allow companies to charge for news subscriptions. Read the PaidContent.org article. --June 22, 2009

The brainchild of Patrick Spain and Michael Wolff, the news aggregation site Newser has successfully raised $2.5 million in startup money. The money comes primarily from individuals, many of whom were involved in Spain's previous endeavors. Currently, Newser has about 2 million monthly visitors and, despite receiving just a fraction of the traffic that Yahoo and Google News get, is close to breaking even. According to its Web site, Newer is unique in that it compiles news from the top 100 news sources and provides readers with more comprehensive summaries of the stories being covered. Read the PaidContent.org. -- June 19, 2009

After his first start-up online news operation failed to gain traction, former newspaperman Adam Klawonn has received a $95,000 Knight grant with an extremely narrow focus: to cover Phoenix's new light-rail system. The Daily Phoenix, as it has been termed, will report on stories such as crime in the areas surrounding train stops. Businesses will also have a chance to be included in twice-daily text messages about their company. Klawonn still needs to secure additional funding for his project. Read the Nieman Journalism Lab post. -- June 19, 2009.

Wikipedia, the online crowd-sourced encyclopedia, is set to launch video on its pages. The site is hoping that more creators of content will make their videos accessible to the public domain. Until then, Wikipedia will feature content from the Internet Archive, which has 200,000 videos, Metavid, which stores congressional speeches, and Wikimedia Commons, which has 4 millions media files. Read the PaidContent.org post. -- June 19, 2009.

The Kindle may or may not be the new newspaper, but Farhad Manjoo at Slate lists some areas that have room for improvement. His biggest point of contention is the way that news on the Kindle is organized -- or isn't. While traditional newspapers, and their Web sites, organize news stories by importance and relevance, the Kindle simply lists headlines under categories, without giving the reader a sense of the type of story they're about to read, its size or its importance. That means that reading the newspaper on a Kindle is much more cumbersome and time-consuming. Read the Slate article. -- June 19, 2009

Reader's Digest has, alongside many other general interest magazines, seen a worrisome decline in both subscribers and advertising revenue. To combat this trend, the monthly publication is turning its attention to more conservative values. As Mary Berner, chief executive of Reader's Digerst, put it: "I love my family, I love my community, I love my church." The publication is hoping that a shift in focus -- away from celebrities and toward the military, for example -- will turn its fortunes around. Read the New York Times article. -- June 19, 2009

The French government is expanding its initiative to revitalize the newspaper industry by giving papers to young people. Originally, the government was to provide a one-year subscription to 18 year olds, but officials have announced that they will now supply 18-24 year olds with a free paper once a week. The project will cost an estimated 5 million euros per year. Additionally, the government has set aside 20 milllion euros to help the press adapt to the digital age. Read the Editors Weblog post. -- June 19, 2009

When Germany's second largest group of newspapers, WAZ, switched from the German Press Agency (DPA) news service to France's Agence France-Presse, it hoped to cut costs. It saved $2.7 million, but the decision has prompted concern from many in Germany. The Agence France-Presse is subsidized by the French government, while the DPA runs independently. The German news services has said that it is time for its government to assist against the unfair competition from subsizied news sources.  Read the Editors Weblog Post -- June 19, 2009

Adam Reilly at the Boston Phoenix asks what will happen to coverage of the Massachusetts statehouse if the Boston Globe were to close. If the Globe were to close, or if new owners shift priorities, it could take the four journalists currently covering the state house with it.  Though there always have been frustrations with getting the media to cover important legislative issues, writes Reilly, today it is even harder to get coverage of anything but a political scandal.  Read the Boston Phoenix article -- June 18, 2009.

The Associated Press is set to lower its fees to newspapers again in the coming year. The news agency hopes to supplement its income by renegotiating agreements with Web sites, including Google,  Yahoo and Microsoft. The AP projects that its revenue will continue to fall next year (last year revenue dropped 5 percent). The AP's chief executive said that gaining new license contracts from Web sites is his top priority. Read the Associated Press article. -- June 18, 2009

Jack Shafer at Slate remains skeptical about Twitter's news value, even after this week's events in Iran. He pinpoints several weaknesses with Twitter: One is the threat of disinformation published by authoritarian governments, perhaps for international consumption or even designed to lead to the capture of local dissidents. Shafer also responds to Andrew Sullivan's point that the tweets tell "more about the mood than hard fact." Shafer notes, "My appetite for mood is easily sated while my appetite for hard fact isn't. Read the Slate article. -- June 18, 2009.

Larry Kramer at the Daily Beast has some advice for how journalists can take advantage of Twitter's sudden boost as a news source. He notes that traditional media are no longer the single source for filtering information. Legacy media need to embrace these new methods of dissemination: "Form matters as much as substance now. News consumers want news on demand and in formats that work for them."  Read the Daily Beast post. -- June 18, 2009

The European Commission has advised Sweden to reform the subsidies it provides to news media. Unless the country lessens the amount of finanical support, Sweden may face a formal state aid inquiry from the EU. The warning comes after complainants charged that current government policies stifle competition. Sweden has three months to respond to the EU proposals that it place a cap on operatings costs and reduce aid ceilings. Read the Guardian article. -- June 18, 2009

Leading journalists, policymakers and political analysts convene to examine the results of the May 19 special election and prospects for California’s future. Discussions will be led by Dan Schnur, director of the USC Unruh Institute of Politics and David Abel, publisher and former chairman of the California Assembly Speaker's Commission on State Local Government Finance Reform.

Planet Money, the NPR podcast and blog, is looking for a way to monetize its popularity. Planet Money's creators hope to create an enduring media brand, and that means considering every option for sustainability. The team is even looking at ways that they might incorporate a for-profit arm to supplement NPR's traditional nonprofit structure.  Read the Daily Finance article. -- June 16, 2009

YouTube has started an experiment that allows its users to decide whether to watch a longer pre-roll clip or several, shorter clips within the video they stream. Additionally, if a user chooses the pre-roll advertisment, he then can decide from two ads which he would prefer to watch. The test is only running for some viewers and is limited to YouTube's longer, premium content, but the trend could produce higher ad buys as well as giving the brands valuable information about the users' choices.  Read the PaidContent.org post -- June 16, 2009

Time Warner has purchased Patch, a collection of local online news site covering six areas of New Jersey, for $10 million. Patch has also announced that it has plans for additional sites in Connecticut. Patch had begun to generate some revenue through advertising, and its advertising rates are perhaps higher than other online ads -- at around $10  per CPM. Read the Nieman Journalism Lab post. -- June 15, 2009.

In July, the Associated Press will begin providing its members with watchdog and investigative journalism from non-profit organizations, a six-month experiment involving four such institutions. If the project is successful, it will likely be expanded to include additional non-profits. The four organizations are the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop and ProPublica. The venture will give the organizations additional avenues for distribution as well as provide newspapers with additional content. Read the Editors Weblog post. -- June 15, 2009

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has announced that it will bestow $15 million in grants to develop new economic models for investigative journalism. The Center for Investigative Reporting, ProPublica and the Sunlight Foundation are among the largest recipients. Eric Newton, vice president for journalism, made the announcement, saying, "We’re awash in information, yet it seems to be getting harder to find good investigative reporting.” Read the Knight Foundation press release. -- June 15, 2009

John Harris, co-founder and editor of Politico, has said that the media organization will become profitable by the end of this year. The site makes money through advertisements in its traditional paper and also through its partnership with regional newspapers who exchange advertising for content. Harris also noted that Politico sends more reporters to cover the White House than any other organization. Read the BeetTV article or watch the video below:

-- June 15, 2009

In a move to provide additional benefits for subscribers, BusinessWeek will offer a special online version of the printed magazine available only to paid users. The change is an attempt to differentiate the online content, spurred by breaking news, from magazine articles, which are more analytical and forward-looking. Nonpaying users of the BusinessWeek Web site will still be able to access all of the content, but in a different design. Read the MediaWeek article. -- June 15, 2009

The Uptake,  which founder Jason Barnett calls Minnesota's "C-SPAN for the common man,"  provides video coverage of Minnesota politics. The site has recently received much publicity, especially because of the state's Senate recount, when MinnPost and other competitors re-streamed The Uptake's video on their sites. Despite the positive coverage, the Web site is seeing its revenue dwindle. During the 2008 election, the site received funding from political organizations like the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, but since then those major funding sources have dried up. Instead, The Uptake relies solely on small donors, and cash on hand is tight. It may get even worse as the contested Senate seat drama is finally resolved. Read the MinnPost article. -- June 10, 2009

Google News is experimenting with including links to Wikipedia among its other news links. For now, Google is only providing those links to a small number of users, but you can see screenshots from blogger Michael Gray, who is one of those guinea pigs. If this experiment turns mainstream, it will catapult  Wikipedia into the world of journalism, and serve as the ultimate example of crowd-sourcing. Read the Nieman Journalism Lab post. -- June 10, 2009. 

With Detroit's newspapers cutting home delivery to three days a week, two brothers are looking to start their own printed publication. Mark and Gary Stern are in negotiations with contractors to begin publishing a newspaper covering Metro Detroit. The fledgling news organization will contract out distribution and printing. They expect to charge 50 cents for the daily paper and $1 on Sundays. Read the Detroit News article. -- June 10, 2009

USA Today will produce an electronic version of its newspaper to send via email to those willing to pay for it. While USA Today's Web site will remain free, the paper will charge slightly less than the printed paper for customers to receive an emailed version. USA Today's executives are considering other ways to increase revenue, like paid mobile applications. The new e-newspaper service will begin Aug. 3. Read the Associated Press story. -- June 10, 2009

The latest iPhone has a variety of updates and new features. Perhaps the most significant for the news industry is that content can now be bought from within iPhone applications, allowing news organizations to charge micropayments or subscriptions for mobile access. Another possibility might have newspapers joining together to create a Hulu-like site for newspapers. Despite these developments, the existing diversity of smart phones might slow the progress of charging for mobile content. Read the Editors Weblog post. -- June 9, 2009

The retired president of Cox, Jay Smith, and the former editor of the Rocky Mountain News discuss their ideas for the newspaper's industry to monetize their content. Smith argues that the newspapers individually lack power, and probably do not produce much that they can charge for. However, he suggests that the AP does have that power. He cites one of countless examples: "How much might, say, the soft drink industry pay for a daily report of EVERY news item of interest printed in every U.S.newspaper?"  Read the Temple Talk post. --June 9, 2009

Josh Catone at Mashable.com looks at the success of NPR and what newspapers can learn from the radio news organization. Catone points to NPR's local coverage (through its member stations), use of social media and "ubiquitous access" as three ways that the station has been able to thrive as the news industry shifts. As he points out, however, NPR is not immune to the suffering economy. Its budget deficit for 2009 is expected to be $8 million. Read the Mashable.com post. -- June 9, 2009

Forbes reports on the increasingly diverse competition among news organizations in San Diego. The Union Tribune remains the city's major newspaper, and its Web site generates over a million unique visitors per month. Yet the Voice of San Diego, the nonprofit Web site devoted to local news, and the 3-month-old start-up, San Diego News Network (SDNN), supplement the newspaper's reporting in the wake of significant layoffs. The two sites also hope that they will be able to siphon some of the traffic away from the Union Tribune in favor of their innovative ventures. Read the Forbes article. -- June 8, 2009

The Internet has empowered users to create content -- from video to news stories. This user control has even begun to impact advertising. Google and Digg both reward advertisements (by higher rankings and/or lower costs) that consumers rate highly, click on, etc. In a similar trend, a German newspaper put out a call to its readers to produce advertisements for the news source. Read the Guardian article. -- June 8, 2009.

Rhode Island's Newport Daily News has implemented a pay wall for its online content, one that benefits subscribers of the printed edition. Home delivery of the newspaper costs $145 a year.  Those that want both home delivery and online access will habe to pay $245, and online-only access will cost a whopping $345 per month. The strategy is clear: print first. It is too soon to tell if the pricing structure will prove effective, though there are some advantages for the publication that may help its success. Read the Nieman Journalism Lab article. -- June 8, 2009.

Michael Kinsley, in a Washington Post op-ed, writes of his experiences as editor of various news organization. His conclusion is that non-profit news is not the best option, based on his experience at Harper's Magazine, where directors were both resistant to change and meddlesome. His ideal is for an organization "to be a flyspeck on the balance sheet of a large company with other things on its mind," though he admits that this arrangement is increasingly rare. Read the Washington Post op-ed. -- June 8, 2009. 

Just two weeks after the Spanish courts ruled that a press-clipping service could not republish articles from other newspapers withour prior permission, the Spanish press is starting up a new lawsuit, this time against online news aggregators. The press is hoping that the courts, which ruled that newspapers have intellectual property rights, will uphold those rights in an online forum as well. Read the Editors Weblog post. -- June 8, 2009.

A new Indiana law adjusts the terms of the publication of government notices in the newspaper. Such notices typically reveal budget figures and other information about how money is being spent. The new law allows newspapers to raise the rates for these ads by 2.75% per year, whereas before this rate increases had to be legislated. The new law, however, eliminates a requirement that salary ordinances and a few other types of information be published. Read the Herald Bulletin article. -- June 8, 2009.

As Tribune Co. restructures under bankcruptcy, a new plan may transfer ownership of the media conglomerate from Sam Zell to the banks and investors that hold $8.6 billion in debt. The plan calls into question whether Zell will continue to head the Tribune's operations, or if the new owners would seek a new leadership team. The proposed debt-for-equity swap is still being negotiated. Read the Chicago Tribune article. -- June 8, 2009.

The fourth annual Beyond Broadcast conference began Wednesday at USC's Annenberg School for Communication with a keynote from Henry Jenkins, the Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts. Thursday, the panels included discussions of ways to monitor new media's impact, public media around the world and social messaging within entertainment. Webcasts are available from the day's panels.  Friday's panels will be streamed live on the Beyond Broadcast Web site. Visit the Beyond Broadcast website. -- June 4, 2009

Newspapers may be constrained in their ability to charge for content by U.S. antitrust law.  Yet two columnists in the Wall Street Journal use the music industry as a template for the possibility that newspapers could work together to charge for content. The model would essentially involve newspapers charging sites for the reproduction of their content, just as songwriters make money from the playing of their songs on the radio or at nightclubs. To be successful, the newspapers would need an intermediary to monitor the online replication of their articles, and thereby legally ensure payment for their content. Read the Wall Street Journal column. -- JUne 4, 2009.

Bill Day writes on PaidContent.org that online advertising needs to be dramatically transformed. Day rejects a pay model, but says that advertisers and publishers must make ads more effective. Among his suggestions: (1) limit the number of ads on the page, (2) target and adapt ads to the user, and (3) make the calls to action more sophisticated. Read the PaidContent.org post. -- June 4, 2009

Tim Windsor at Nieman Journalism Labs discusses how he kept informed about a symposium at the University of Maryland about how journalism would fare if newspapers died. Windsor's conclusion: "Reporting, apparently, still gets down." Despite the absence of any reporting by the Balitmore Sun, he stayed informed through tweets ("missjames: miller is obviously not a believer in future of online. #localnews"), blogs and local community news sites. Read the Nieman Journalism Lab post. -- June 4, 2009.

News Corp has said that it will establish a paid model for its online content, and its new chief digital officer suggests that the company, "is willing to take a lead position to push for change." Jonathan Miller says that News Corp is interested not just in providing additional revenue for itself, but also in developing a model that will help the industry as a whole. One of his ideas is to bundle content -- offering some of News Corp's New York media, or a group of their newspapers, together for a fee. Miller argues that bundling needs to be tested, but could prove profitable for the company. Read the Hollywood Reporter article. -- June 3, 2009

Journalism students at Northwestern University have teamed with their peers in computer science to develop several applications that produce and organize information. One generates sports stories from box score and play-by-play information. Another one is suited for an iPhone, and organizes the news into 5-minute, 10-minute, or 20-minute chunks. And yet another would allow journalists to fact-check their stories in Microsoft Word without switching to an Internet search. The groups will meet with journalists in the industry to discuss their applications next week. Read the Northwestern University article. -- June 3, 2009. 

As an important conceptual step, Advertising Age reports that the New York Times no longer considers its customers to be readers, but users. More pratically, the paper is trying to make its Web site and online content more interactive. The paper has opened up its application programming interfaces to allow outside developers the chance to create news ways of viewing and reacting to the data. One example is the NYTExplorer, which offers an alternative search feature to the current search options on the site. Read the Advertising Age article. -- June 3, 2009

In another hint that a wide variety of online content may soon exist behind a pay wall, Jonathan Miller, News Corp's new chief digital officer, suggested that Hulu.com will likley switch to a subscription model in the near future. Under his vision, which Miller stresses is his personal prediction, the site would begin to charge users to view some of its TV shows and movies. If the move were to prove successful, perhaps it would encourage other sites to establish a pay wall. Read the Daily Finance post. -- June 3, 2009.

Though the Spanish-language media has experience some difficulties due to the economic downturn, these newspapers are faring much better than their English-language counterparts. For one thing, their demographics continue to grow with the continuing immigration of Spanish-speakers. For another, Hispanics continue to suffer from the digital divide, and therefore lack access to the Internet.  Read the Philadelphia Weekly article. -- June 2, 2009.

Steve Brill of Journalism Online has made several agreements with newspapers to charge for their online content. Journalism Online is pushing a “common platform” for news Web sites to charge annual, monthly and per-article fees." Brill argues that by mixing free and paid offerings, newspapers can gain subscription revenue from 5-10% of their users, while preserving a supermajority of their page views and ad revenue.  Read the Nieman Lab post. -- June 2, 2009. 

Gina Chen of Save the Media suggests a new type of newspaper Web site. To work, though, newspapers must recognize two truths: "(1) The mass audience is dead, (2) The product of newspaper Web sites is not news."  The new site would let users choose their activities -- from reading the latest top story to doing a crossword puzzle to reviewing a new video game. Chen calls this idea a hyperinterest page, which like Twitter would gain popularity through word of mouth. Read the Save the Media post. -- June 2, 2009.

Graydon Carter of Vanity Fair has this advice for struggling newspapers: "Get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences." He cites the compelling example of London's Telegraph, which has devoted 120 broadsheet pages to its expose on the expenses of members of Parliament. It led to the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons, not to mention the selling out of the Telegraph issue that broke the story, plus an additional 600,000 copies. Read the Vanity Fair article and view the Telegraph's coverage of MPs' expenses. -- June 2, 2009

The Philadelphia Inquirer Web site may begin charging for its online content by the end of the year. Brian Tierney, the owner of Philly.com, said he would push to get money from Google for their content that appears on the search engine's site. Tierney remains optimistic about the printed newspaper's viability, postulating that the paper would continue to be published for the next 20 years. Read the article from Fox 29. -- June 2, 2009.

Two rival Russian news agencies have joined together to cover and share national news with about 600 regional media outlets. The partnership between RIA Novosti and Interfax is a conscious, yet temporary, effort to support the struggling regional news organizations. Regional outlets will be able to subscribe to the content, including video and photos, for free. Read the Editors Weblog post. -- June 2, 2009.

Hearst Magazines, a company that owns Food Network magazine, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and others, has been performing remarkably well, despite the economic climate. The company has countered conventional wisdom in several ways: by keeping its magazine content only in print, expanding the size of its magazines and raising the price of the printed copy. All of this seems to be paying off for Hearst. Read the New York Times article. - June 1, 2009

Starbucks is to become a naming sponsor of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," the morning news show hosted by Joe Scarborough. New graphics and a voiceover will announce, "Morning Joe, brewed by Starbucks."  Howard Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks, notes the partnership demonstrates that “the rules of engagement in marketing and advertising have changed quite significantly.” Read the New York Times article. -- June 1, 2009.