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Reflections of a Newsosaur

  • The daunting reality facing newspapers

    Number of comments: 0
    If chief executives get the big bucks for their ability to put the best face on bad situations, then newspaper bosses really earned their pay this week at the annual UBS media conference in New York. With straight faces, the chiefs of McClatchy Co., the New York Times Co. and [...]
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    Posted: December 09, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Thin ranks of top women editors get thinner

    Number of comments: 5
    The upcoming exit of two of the longest-serving female editors-in-chief in the country will leave only two women leading newsrooms among the 25 largest newspapers. The already thin ranks of top women editors will be depleted at year’s end by the departure of Sandra Rowe at the Portland Oregonian (the [...]
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    Posted: December 08, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • The pioneers who paved way for non-profit news

    Number of comments: 7
    The excitement over the growing number of emerging non-profit news operations overlooks the achievements – and lessons to be learned from – the non-profit news ventures that have paved the way for them. In this guest perspective, Steve Katz, the interim chief executive of Mother Jones, talks about some of [...]
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    Posted: December 07, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Ad guys in newsroom may not be so bad

    Number of comments: 25
    I got the same queasy feeling every red-blooded journalist had when I read that the Dallas Morning News seems to be putting advertising-department overseers deeper into the newsroom that any major paper has done before. But maybe – just maybe – this isn’t such a bad idea. Instead of the [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2009, 9:01am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • A master’s secrets for funding non-profit news

    Number of comments: 3
    Second of two parts. The first part is here. Unlike the founders of most non-profit news sites who concentrate on the journalism they yearn to provide, David S. Bennahum knows his chief task is to build a solid financial foundation for his non-profit Center for Independent Media. While his emphasis [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • The man who may supersize non-profit news

    Number of comments: 9
    First of two parts. Part two is here. David S. Bennahum may be able to do for non-profit journalism what Ray Kroc did for hamburgers, making him well worth watching as the hunt continues for ways to fill the journalistic void left by the meltdown of the traditional media. A [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Playing whack-a-mole with copyright poachers

    Number of comments: 14
    A new study confirming the widespread unauthorized use of newspaper stories on the web ironically demonstrates the futility of efforts to deter copyright poaching at this very, very, very late date. In a breathless report issued yesterday, the content cops at Attributor, which runs a service scouring the web for [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Journicide: A looming, lost generation of scribes

    Number of comments: 44
    Vanishing employment opportunities and shrinking freelance compensation threaten to wipe out a substantial percentage of the next generation of professional journalists. This journicide, to coin a term, is not merely going to be difficult and disappointing for the affected young people, who mostly will move on to find rewarding careers [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Bing not likely to outbid Google for news

    Number of comments: 10
    In the latest wild idea to save newspapers, the Financial Times is reporting that Microsoft would pay publishers to prevent Google from linking to their stories, so as to drive more traffic to its Bing search site. The idea, which merits high marks for creativity, seems most unlikely to get [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:05pm EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Carnage continued in Q3 newspaper sales

    Number of comments: 7
    Contrary to disingenuous happy talk from industry leaders, the third quarter brought absolutely no relief to the relentless dive in newspaper advertising, as total sales fell $2.5 billion to bring the year-to-date decline to nearly $7.9 billion. With three months to go in the worst year ever for newspapers, the [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Polls apart on charging for content

    Number of comments: 18
    With the issue of charging for online content the hottest topic in publishing circles, polls are popping up everywhere purporting to divine consumer sentiment. But they unfortunately are all over the map. Thus, the surveys are providing neither guidance nor comfort for publishers as they agonize over whether or how [...]
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    Posted: November 18, 2009, 12:29pm EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Health, wealth and sex sell best on web

    Number of comments: 3
    Health, wealth and sex are what sell the best on pay sites on the web, says the author of perhaps the most comprehensive survey to date of interactive revenue strategies. After systematically surveying 550 subscription and membership sites, Anne Holland, who is best know as the founder and former proprietor [...]
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    Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Newspaper epitaph: ‘Who else is doing it?’

    Number of comments: 23
    A year ago, Alan Jacobson, a talented and indefatigably innovative newspaper designer, came up with an idea for a highly targeted, efficient-to-produce and effortlessly viral website that is exactly the sort of thing newspapers need to strengthen their online franchises. After spending many frustrating months trying to interest publishers in [...]
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    Posted: November 10, 2009, 8:30am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Ugly ethnic profiling tarred Ft. Hood coverage

    Number of comments: 19
    The news media succumbed to ugly ethnic and religious profiling in their coverage of the shooting last week at Fort Hood. Shame on them. Media executives ought to closely review their coverage of the Fort Hood massacre to develop sufficient organizational discipline to avoid spreading in the future the sort [...]
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    Posted: November 09, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Chicago news co-op starts on a shoestring

    Number of comments: 15
    While the editors of some notable non-profit news startups pull down hefty six-figure salaries, the founding editor of the Chicago News Cooperative says his pay will be a single digit for the next 12 months: $0. That low, low introductory salary in part is testimony to the dedication of co-op [...]
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    Posted: November 06, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Pay walls never may come at some papers

    Number of comments: 22
    The resolve to charge for most interactive content is dissolving at some newspapers, potentially thwarting the plans of other publishers who still hope to erect pay walls on their sites. Despite determined statements by several publishers earlier this year that they intended to make consumers pay for the valuable content [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2009, 9:00am EST
    by Newsosaur

  • Wild guesses won’t solve journalism crisis

    Number of comments: 25
    The Harvard conference tasked with finding new business models for journalism had the impossible mission yesterday of trying to solve a problem no one had the language to describe, the tools to measure or the skills to fix. In other words, the conference resembled the primitive study of physics before [...]
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    Posted: October 30, 2009, 9:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Harvard hoedown ponder$ making $ in new$

    Number of comments: 5
    Some 50 of the foremost thinkers about journalism have been invited to Harvard University today to ponder no less a problem than this: “How to Make Money in News: New Business Models for the 21st Century.” The event commences at 9 a.m. and is scheduled to adjourn at 2:30 p.m., [...]
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    Posted: October 29, 2009, 5:28am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Newspaper circ stats: Murkier than ever

    Number of comments: 13
    At a time newspapers ought be striving to earn the confidence of their remaining advertisers, they are reporting not just record low circulation numbers but also the murkiest figures ever. The historic 10.6% drop in circulation reported on Monday would have been trouble enough for the ailing newspaper industry. But [...]
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    Posted: October 28, 2009, 9:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Newspapers, the mass-less mass medium

    Number of comments: 16
    The devastating double-digit drop in daily newspaper circulation in the last 12 months leaves little doubt that the classic mass media model will not work for newspapers – or perhaps any other medium, either. Publishers who think their businesses are going to live or die according to the number of [...]
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    Posted: October 27, 2009, 9:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Record plunge: Newspaper circ at pre-WWII low

    Number of comments: 30
    Following an average drop of 10.6% in the last 12 months, daily newspaper circulation has fallen to a pre-World War II low of an estimated 39.1 million, according to an analysis of industry data released today.The first double-digit circulation decline in history means only 12.9% of the U.S. population buys [...]
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    Posted: October 26, 2009, 10:27am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Newsday’s not-so-bold pay gambit

    Number of comments: 11
    At first glance, Newsday appears to be making a bold move by becoming the biggest newspaper to date to start charging for most of its content on the web after giving it away for free for years. But the move isn’t really that brave. The newspaper is hedging its bets [...]
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    Posted: October 22, 2009, 11:03am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • RIP, news embargoes

    Number of comments: 3
    Add news embargoes to the growing jumble of detritus in the hellbox of journalism history. In an age of insta-news, embargoes are so meaningless and unenforceable that they aren’t worth the pixels they are printed on. As a consequence, publicity seekers are on notice that they no longer will be [...]
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    Posted: October 22, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Columbia writes off the MSM. Now what?

    Number of comments: 17
    For all the drama conveyed yesterday by the vote of no confidence in mainstream journalism rendered by one of the nation’s top journalism schools, the 98-page study issued by Columbia University is perhaps most significant for what it doesn’t say. While cataloguing a host of previously discussed potential fixes for [...]
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    Posted: October 20, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Text of Columbia report on MSM breakdown

    Number of comments: 10
    Writing off the capacity of the traditional media to continue ably covering the news, a report commissioned by the journalism school at Columbia University calls upon the feds, foundations and journalism faculties to take up the slack.In the 98-page report commissioned by the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, [...]
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    Posted: October 19, 2009, 11:11am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • The un-sale of the Boston Globe

    Number of comments: 5
    Given the scant hope of attracting a respectable price for the Boston Globe, it’s not surprising that the New York Times Co. pulled the paper off the market. The lingering question is why the company thought it had a shot of pulling off an acceptable deal in the first place.In [...]
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    Posted: October 16, 2009, 11:35am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • AJC wimps out on endorsements

    Number of comments: 30
    The first job of a newspaper is to set the agenda for the community. That most inspiring thought, from Howard M. Ziff, one of my most inspiring journalism professors at the University of Illinois, came to mind when I read that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has decided to stop endorsing candidates [...]
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    Posted: October 13, 2009, 11:06am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • The editors doth protest way too much

    Number of comments: 11
    Editors across the land couldn’t let Newspaper Week pass this week without wantonly violating the primary rule in medicine and marketing: First, do no harm. “Talk of the demise of newspapers is premature,” said the headline on an editorial in the Aiken Standard that was typical of the faux-plucky tone [...]
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    Posted: October 08, 2009, 10:21am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • A double dose of denial in Denver

    Number of comments: 28
    At almost the very moment former publisher John Temple candidly told the Berkeley media-technology conference last week the reasons why the Rocky Mountain News succumbed, the Rocky Mountain Independent was drawing its final breath.The Independent was the second in a series of online news sites established by several Rocky veterans [...]
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    Posted: October 06, 2009, 10:13am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • How to sell news on the web: A checklist

    Number of comments: 17
    Publishers groping with the question of when, whether and how to charge for interactive content often raise the issue of what they could sell, if indeed they ever decided to try. Here’s a quick checklist to see if you are ready:1. You cannot charge for such commoditized content as world, [...]
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    Posted: October 05, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • A qvetch-free journalism conference

    Number of comments: 9
    They said it couldn’t be done. But it was.They said a conference about the future of journalism couldn’t take place without the usual kvetching about the golden, olden days, with publishers grieving shriveled margins and editors caviling about the bloggers challenging their previously unassailable wisdom. But we did it. The [...]
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    Posted: October 02, 2009, 12:38am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Berkeley Media Tech Summit going live

    Number of comments: 0
    The UCBerkeley Media Technology Summit at the Googleplex in Silicon Valley is being live-blogged now in the window below, thanks to participant Chuck Peters, the tech-savvy chief executive of the Gazette Co. in Cedar Rapids, IA. The summit, which will run through mid-day Thursday, is intended to provide more than [...]
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    Posted: September 30, 2009, 9:17am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Size matters in non-profit news

    Number of comments: 10
    Second of two parts. The first part is here. The five-member staff of the Chi-Town Daily News was laid off after Labor Day when its founder could not raise the $300,000 necessary to fund the balance of its annual budget.But Pro Publica, the biggest of the new-breed journalism non-profits, is [...]
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    Posted: September 29, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Non-profit news ventures go big time

    Number of comments: 12
    First of two parts. The second part is here. The founder of the Chi-Town Daily News, a pioneering grassroots journalism project, happened to phone last week shortly before word got out that a wealthy businessman had donated $5 million to launch a major non-profit news venture in San Francisco.“I can’t [...]
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    Posted: September 28, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Only 5% in UK would pay for web news

    Number of comments: 7
    U.S. publishers planning to erect pay walls may want to take note of a new poll that found only 5% of newspaper site readers in the United Kingdom would be willing to pay for interactive content.In a Harris Interactive Poll conducted for PaidContent:UK, researchers found that 74% of respondents simply [...]
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    Posted: September 25, 2009, 1:56pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • S.F. gets biggest-ever local news non-profit

    Number of comments: 9
    A $5 million grant from a single philanthropist will fund the launch in the San Francisco area of the most ambitious project yet to build a non-profit news organization to fill the growing vacuum left by the contraction of the mainstream media.San Francisco businessman Warren Hellman today pledged $5 million [...]
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    Posted: September 24, 2009, 8:33pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • ‘It will take unions to save newspapers’

    Number of comments: 18
    A number of readers disagreed sharply with my suggestion that newspaper unions may be losing their relevance. One of them was Andy Zipser, the editor of The Guild Reporter, the official publication of The Newspaper Guild-CWA. Here’s what he had to say:By Andy ZipserThe Newsosaur, in a lengthy posting Monday, [...]
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    Posted: September 23, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Are newspaper unions becoming irrelevant?

    Number of comments: 27
    Union members at the Sun-Times Media Group never have been more powerful than they are today, but the power they wield is a weapon of mass self-destruction.The unions can continue voting – as they did last week – against the sweeping wage and other contract concessions being demanded by the [...]
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    Posted: September 22, 2009, 1:28am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • The paper that ‘invented’ foreign news

    Number of comments: 5
    In a captivating and inspiring new book, John Maxwell Hamilton, a former foreign correspondent who now is dean of the Manship School of Mass Communications at Louisiana State University, gives a great deal of credit to the Chicago Daily News for pioneering foreign news coverage among American newspapers.Although the Daily [...]
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    Posted: September 17, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Inflated traffic stats cloud pay-wall plans

    Number of comments: 18
    Newspapers trying to assess the financial impact of potential paid-content schemes are starting with a wildly inflated sense of the size of their online audience that could come back to bite them in a big way. In “nearly every market” included in a study of 118 newspapers of every size [...]
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    Posted: September 16, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Ideal pay-wall fee may be less than you think

    Number of comments: 14
    If the willingness of consumers to pay for online news turns on how much it will cost, a bit of early research suggests the ideal price may be less than some pay-wall proponents might hope.In work conducted in the course of his newly completed study for the American Press Institute, [...]
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    Posted: September 15, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • ViewPass update

    Number of comments: 6
    After the New York Times last week dubbed the ViewPass project “dormant,” a number of people have asked what happened to my proposal for an industry-owned solution to do a better job of monetizing newspaper web traffic. Here’s the answer:ViewPass was proposed as a publisher-financed and -owned solution to monetize [...]
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    Posted: September 14, 2009, 11:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Only 51% of pubs think pay walls will fly

    Number of comments: 23
    A bare 51% of the newspaper publishers in the United States believe they can charge successfully for access to their interactive content, according to a survey released today. The other 49% of publishers either fear that pay walls will fail or just aren’t sure.The survey, which was conducted for the [...]
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    Posted: September 14, 2009, 8:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • AP didn’t have to run dying Marine’s photo

    Number of comments: 12
    While I defend the right of the Associated Press to distribute the controversial picture of a mortally wounded Marine in Afghanistan, I can’t support its decision to do so.The controversy came to light over the Labor Day weekend when Defense Secretary Robert Gates begged the AP to honor the request [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Sun-Times can be saved, says CEO

    Number of comments: 4
    The money-losing Sun-Times Media Group can be turned into a modestly profitable business by the end of 2011, says the chief executive who took the company into bankruptcy court and plans to stick around to lead it back into the black.“The days of a newspaper company running 20% to 35% [...]
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    Posted: September 10, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Can latest savior save the Sun-Times?

    Number of comments: 6
    More cuts, more drama and more trauma almost certainly lie ahead for the Sun-Times Media Group now that a civic-minded businessman has stepped forward to buy a company that probably could not otherwise have lasted out the year.In the latest twist in 25 years of always colorful and often dysfunctional [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 9:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Yelp: Don’t leave home without it

    Number of comments: 5
    I just got back from my first fully Yelp-enabled vacation and it was the best ever. As the late, great Karl Malden said in his American Express pitch: Don’t leave home without it.Although tens of millions of savvy Internet consumers know about Yelp, I find that an amazing number of [...]
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    Posted: September 08, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Zell straps on his dancing shoes again

    Number of comments: 3
    Sam Zell may (or may not) be headed for the exit as head of the Tribune Co., where he personally lost $325 million as the result of his recklessly financed acquisition of the company. But it looks like he is going to be all right.The man who proudly characterizes himself [...]
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    Posted: September 04, 2009, 1:36pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Newspaper ads tracking to $10B sales drop

    Number of comments: 13
    In round numbers, total newspaper advertising sales are likely to drop by $10 billion in 2009, which would put them roughly one-third lower than they were in the prior disastrous year.Based on the 29.0% skid in advertising sales in the second quarter of this year that was reported on Friday, [...]
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    Posted: August 31, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • How publishers can make web content pay

    Number of comments: 33
    Third of three parts. Parts one and two. If publishers are blocked for the most part from charging for content in the inherently open and unruly interactive marketplace, then what can they do? Go with the flow.And the flow on the web is to provide consumers with unencumbered access to [...]
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    Posted: August 21, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • What stops publishers from charging for news

    Number of comments: 14
    Second of three parts. Part one is here. Part three is here.Fear, in a word, is the reason why publishers are treading so cautiously when it comes to charging for the valuable interactive content they have been giving away for more than a decade. It is a good, healthy fear, [...]
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    Posted: August 20, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Why aren’t we paying for news?

    Number of comments: 17
    First of three parts. Part two. Part three.With their backs against the wall, 2009 was going to be the year that newspaper publishers finally got together to charge for the interactive content they have been giving away for free for more than a decade.Nearly two-thirds of the way into the [...]
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    Posted: August 19, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • How did newspapers lose Everyblock?

    Number of comments: 28
    How could MSNBC.Com have scooped the newspaper industry by buying Everyblock.Com?If ever there were an application designed to fast-forward newspapers into at least the late 20th Century, then this was it.The fact that the leading hyperlocal website was snatched up by a multimedia partnership operated by NBC and Microsoft shows [...]
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    Posted: August 17, 2009, 12:58pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • How long should dead paper linger on web?

    Number of comments: 14
    There is a special drawer in my house containing a neatly wrapped copy of the final edition of the Chicago Daily News, where I worked until it ceased publication on March 4, 1978.So, I understand the affection and enduring sense of loss felt by a staff that has had a [...]
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    Posted: August 10, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Modest newspaper sales bounce predicted

    Number of comments: 7
    Newspaper advertising sales are likely to bottom out after four straight years of decline in 2009, but they aren’t headed back to where they used to be, according to a new projection from Borrell Associates.In what passes nowadays for an upbeat take on the newspaper industry from an independent observer, [...]
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    Posted: August 07, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Current TV cheers after 140 days of silence

    Number of comments: 4
    After remaining scrupulously silent for the 140 days that two of its journalists were held captive in North Korea, Current TV pulled out all the stops today after receiving word that Laura Ling and Euna Lee were safely on a plane home.The women, who had been arrested at the Chinese [...]
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    Posted: August 05, 2009, 12:22am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Sun-Times sags in Chi-town showdown

    Number of comments: 10
    Like a pair of proud but over-the-hill prizefighters, the Sun-Times and Tribune are slugging it out in a deadly duel to determine who will remain standing as the sole daily in Chicago.Both newspapers are operating under Chapter 11 protection and both have seen far better days in terms of circulation [...]
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    Posted: August 03, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Sun-Times sags in Chi-town showdown

    Like a pair of proud but over-the-hill prizefighters, the Sun-Times and Tribune are slugging it out in a deadly duel to determine who will remain standing as the sole daily in Chicago.Both newspapers are operating under Chapter 11 protection and both have seen far better days in terms of circulation [...]
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    Posted: August 03, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Newspaper rally? Curb your enthusiasm

    Number of comments: 11
    After some notable newspaper publishers this month reported better-than-expected gains in their second-quarter net profits, Wall Street responded by bidding up their battered shares. But let’s not get carried away. The improved earnings reflect one-off events that for the most part cannot be replicated if sagging ad sales fail to [...]
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    Posted: July 30, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Texas Trib, one man’s journalistic mitzvah

    Number of comments: 11
    Looking at the news business from the hard-nosed perspective of a venture capitalist, John Thornton rapidly concluded that “serious journalism is never going to be a good business again.”But that didn’t stop Thornton, a successful partner at the Austin Ventures investment fund, from putting $1 million of his own money [...]
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    Posted: July 24, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Realtors repudiate newspaper ads

    Number of comments: 13
    If the near-term prospects for the housing market are grim, the outlook appears to be even worse for an eventual recovery for real estate advertising in newspapers.That’s the impresion left from a survey released today by the Aim Group, a consulting organization that used to be known as Classified Intelligence. [...]
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    Posted: July 22, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Why there won’t be another Cronkite

    Number of comments: 14
    There never will be another journalist with the stature, authority and power of Walter Cronkite.We were lucky to have him at the CBS anchor desk during the 1960s and 1970s, two of the most turbulent decades in modern history.But the accelerating disintegration of the media assures that no one ever [...]
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    Posted: July 18, 2009, 11:18am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Not Business Week as usual

    Number of comments: 8
    The newsweekly model is so badly frayed that operating BusinessWeek as usual probably won’t be possible for whoever coughs up the putative $1 it will take to acquire the magazine.Assuming a buyer materializes, an extreme makeover will be required to steer BusinessWeek toward profitability at a time when diminishing readership, [...]
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    Posted: July 15, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Papers shouldn’t shy from for-profit events

    Number of comments: 10
    The dicarded plan to sell seats at dinner with the publisher of the Washington Post shouldn’t be taken by newspapers as a reason to avoid hosting profit-making events that deliver journalistic and public-service benefits to their communities.The key in organizing for-profit (and pro bono) events is to keep your commercial [...]
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    Posted: July 13, 2009, 9:57am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Jacko-mania tarnished media credibility

    Number of comments: 24
    The mainstream media may have covered the bejabbers out of the death of Michael Jackson, but they hardly covered themselves in glory.The sudden death of the pop star overshadowed all manner of truly significant national and international news for nearly two weeks. And coverage of his memorial service dominated television [...]
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    Posted: July 08, 2009, 1:29pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Inland issues ‘reworked’ profit study

    Number of comments: 6
    The Inland Press Association today reissued an online summary of a newspaper-profitability study after questions were raised about it.The original summary of the findings was the basis for this Newsosaur post, which stated that Inland found newspapers with circulation greater than 80,000 suffered a 100.1% drop in operating earnings since [...]
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    Posted: July 07, 2009, 7:19pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Hardest hit: Profits slid 100% at big papers

    Number of comments: 15
    UPDATED 4:21 PM - July 7, 2009: The Inland Press Association today reissued the summary of the study on which this post was based. The major change is that 12% is the average profitability of large newspapers in the last five years, not solely in 2008. Although the original post [...]
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    Posted: July 07, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Macy’s halved newspaper spend since ’05

    Number of comments: 11
    Macy’s has cut in half the amount of money it spends on newspaper advertising since 2005, depriving the struggling industry of some $616 million in sorely needed revenues.The drastic plunge has hit particularly hard the metro papers that used to rely on sumptuous and highly profitable schedules from the likes [...]
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    Posted: July 06, 2009, 7:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Enough already with ‘mediums’

    Number of comments: 25
    Hey, fellow armchair copyeditors, do you see anything wrong with this sentence at the Los Angeles Times website?“Two senior Los Angeles Times editors were given new responsibilities today as part of an effort to create a 24-hour newsroom serving multiple mediums.”The blunder, of course, is the inappropriate use of “mediums” [...]
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    Posted: July 03, 2009, 12:12pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Can grassroots journalism do the job?

    Number of comments: 61
    My doubts are growing about whether we can rely on volunteers to produce credible journalism for a sustainable period of time.Although a number of do-it-yourself ventures have embraced modern technology to attempt to fill the void created by the retrenchment of the mainstream media, there is scant evidence to date [...]
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    Posted: June 22, 2009, 3:01am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Now Twittering, if you happen to care

    Number of comments: 16
    There is a new Twitter feed here to alert you to every future post on Newsosaur, if you happen to care.But there is strong evidence that you may not, according to a new Harvard Business School study of 300,542 inviduals. The research found that “most people” only tweet once in [...]
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    Posted: June 10, 2009, 9:17pm EDT

  • Sarah Snyder, spunk you could love

    Number of comments: 7
    “You got spunk,” barked Lou Grant at Mary Richards on the old Mary Tyler Moore show. “I hate spunk.”The quote came to mind today when I read the obit of Sarah Snyder, a much beloved and talented editor at the Boston Globe who died Sunday well before her time at [...]
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    Posted: June 09, 2009, 11:12pm EDT

  • Facing up to life after print for newspapers

    Number of comments: 11
    There are many unsettling parallels between newspapers and General Motors, the iconic American corporation struggling to regain its financial health and vigor as a consumer brand.But there is a major difference between the opportunity that lies ahead for publishers and the continuing challenges facing America’s No. 1 disgraced automaker. Publishers [...]
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    Posted: June 08, 2009, 7:25am EDT

  • Can you still trust me?

    Number of comments: 28
    Now that I have offered newspaper publishers a potential solution to building revenues and improving their strategic position in the interactive age, some commentators have raised the legitimate question of whether this blog can be trusted.Sidestepping the obvious issue of whether anyone should have trusted me in the first place, [...]
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    Posted: June 05, 2009, 9:04am EDT

  • What I recommended to publishers in Chicago

    Number of comments: 39
    Yes, it’s true. As reported today by the Nieman Journalism Lab, I was one of the three people who presented ideas to newspaper publishers at the (formerly) under-the-radar meeting to explore ways to monetize content.In a minute, I will share what I can of what I told the publishers. And [...]
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    Posted: June 04, 2009, 12:42pm EDT

  • Worst quarter for newspapers: Sales dive $2.6B

    Number of comments: 29
    In the worst quarter in modern history for American newspapers, advertising sales fell by an unprecedented 28.3% in the first three months of 2009, plunging sales by more than $2.6 billion from the prior year.Statistics posted without publicity on the website of the Newspaper Association of America show that print [...]
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    Posted: June 01, 2009, 6:01am EDT

  • Could BBC-style ‘news tax’ save U.S. press?

    Number of comments: 23
    Amid growing economic distress at newspapers and magazines, a number of folks have suggested imposing a BBC-style tax on American households to rescue the struggling print media.Could the idea work? Potentially. Would it help? Possibly. Could it really happen? You be the judge.Although the idea of a news tax raises [...]
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    Posted: May 21, 2009, 12:30am EDT

  • No local without us, says start-up web newsman

    Number of comments: 8
    Working for free and doing just about everything at his bootstrap local website, veteran journalist David Boraks has become the sole source of news for his community in Davidson, NC. In this guest post, he describes life at what one of his readers calls the “21st Century replacement for the [...]
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    Posted: May 19, 2009, 11:56pm EDT

  • Car dealer closings will crunch local ad sales

    Number of comments: 16
    The shutdown by Chrysler and General Motors of roughly 10% of the surviving auto dealers in the United States could cost newspapers and local broadcasters millions in annual revenues they can ill afford to lose.The forced closing of a combined 1,889 dealerships ordered last week by Chrysler and GM will [...]
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    Posted: May 17, 2009, 11:00pm EDT

  • Washington papers paid dearly for tax cut

    Number of comments: 11
    Newspapers sacrificed their moral authority and compromised their credibility in exchange for the gift of a token tax break from the governor and legislature in Washington State.While the 40% tax reduction in the state’s main business signed into law on Tuesday sounds impressive, it will save the jobs of perhaps [...]
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    Posted: May 13, 2009, 11:55am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Don’t forget Laura Ling and Euna Lee

    Number of comments: 1
    As we celebrate the liberation of journalist Roxana Saberi from prison in Iran, don’t forget that two other innocent American newswomen are being held on similarly trumped-up charges in North Korea.Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two correspondents for San Francisco-based Current TV, have been detained in North Korea since March [...]
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    Posted: May 11, 2009, 11:52am EDT

  • The best man won Berkeley j-dean search

    Number of comments: 1
    They looked high and low for two years for a new dean for the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley but it turns out the best man was there all the time: Professor Neil Henry.As a member of the adjunct faculty recently recruited by Neil, [...]
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    Posted: May 10, 2009, 11:00pm EDT

  • What would Google do about newspapers?

    Number of comments: 32
    This guest commentary comes from Bill Grueskin, the academic dean of the School of Journalism at Columbia University and former managing editor of WSJ.Com. For an alternative look at Google’s role in the emerging news ecosystem, see this prior post, Don’t Blame Google for Newspaper Woes. By Bill GrueskinMarissa Mayer [...]
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    Posted: May 07, 2009, 10:14pm EDT

  • Why feds can’t – and shouldn’t – rescue press

    Number of comments: 11
    Apart from whatever modest cathartic effect it may have provided participants and observers, the qvetch-in over the fate of the newspaper industry hosted by Sen. John Kerry was pointless.Two days before the opening gavel struck Wednesday at the hearing called by the failed Democratic presidential candidate from Massachusetts, the outcome [...]
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    Posted: May 07, 2009, 7:00am EDT

  • Kindle-ing while newspapers burn

    Number of comments: 23
    Why do newspaper publishers think they can be saved by a clunky, electronic distraction like the double-wide Kindle DX introduced today?Do they really think anyone wants to spend $489 to lug around a clunky 10.4- by 7.2-inch tablet to read a static (that is to say non-interactive) version of the [...]
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    Posted: May 06, 2009, 1:54pm EDT

  • Newsosaur’s Top Ten media blogs

    Number of comments: 5
    Blogs.Com, a guide assembled by humans for humans, asked me to name the 10 blogs I turn to most often for information and inspiration about how technology is changing the media business.It was exceedingly tough boiling the list down to only 10, but here it is, with apologies in advance [...]
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    Posted: May 05, 2009, 8:57pm EDT

  • Why not use research to edit the paper?

    Number of comments: 11
    Despite the recent uproar at the Chicago Tribune over road-testing stories with consumers prior to publication, there is nothing wrong with editors using market research to shape their publications.More of them should do it. And it’s pretty easy, too, as I’ll discuss in a moment.Well-executed research is a valuable tool [...]
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    Posted: May 05, 2009, 9:58am EDT

  • Pulling Boston Globe back from the brink

    Number of comments: 6
    A simple compromise on lifetime job guarantees is the right answer to breaking the impasse between the Boston Globe and its largest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild.The compromise would be for the union to abandon the archaic concept of preserving lifetime jobs for its most senior members – and for [...]
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    Posted: May 04, 2009, 11:04am EDT

  • Finally, someone makes hyperlocal pay

    Number of comments: 12
    Richard M. Anderson, a publisher serving four Maine communities, has found a way to generate as much as a fifth of his ad revenue through hyperlocal websites featuring, among other things, blogs that are sponsored and maintained by local merchants. He tells how he does it in this guest commentary.By [...]
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    Posted: May 01, 2009, 9:01am EDT

  • A tale of two very different journalism start-ups

    Number of comments: 14
    One journalism start-up tries to restore things to the way they were. The other is looking to a different future. Bill Grueskin, academic dean at Columbia University’s Journalism School and a former managing editor of WSJ.Com, compares them in this guest post.By Bill GrueskinYou can learn a lot about where [...]
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    Posted: April 28, 2009, 8:46pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Diving circulation? Raise newspaper prices

    Number of comments: 28
    Instead of fretting about the all-time record dive in newspaper circulation the last six months, publishers should focus as never before on the quality, not the quantity, of their audience.That means, among other things, proving the passion and loyalty of their readers by raising the single-copy and home-delivery prices of [...]
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    Posted: April 27, 2009, 11:24am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Content cops or Keystone Kops?

    Number of comments: 12
    Beleaguered newspaper and magazine publishers may gain a certain amount of emotional satisfaction from mounting elaborate efforts to chase down online content poachers, but the payback may be more psychic than economic.While print publishers are well within their rights to crack down on web publishers who violate their copyrights through [...]
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    Posted: April 23, 2009, 12:47pm EDT

  • Attributor test delivers so-so results

    Number of comments: 1
    Attributor pretty much represents the state of the art these days in tracking down copyright violators. To see how well it works, I took a test drive of the free version it offers to bloggers. The results are fair to middling. Attributor works by gathering all the content on a [...]
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    Posted: April 23, 2009, 12:46pm EDT

  • 3 jailed journalists, 2 very different reactions

    Number of comments: 5
    Three American female journalists are being held on charges of spying in two of the scariest countries in the world but their news organizations couldn’t be treating the matters any more differently.Everyone knows that Roxana Saberi, a contributor to National Public Radio in Iran who has been in custody since [...]
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    Posted: April 20, 2009, 10:30pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • He makes $1 million crowdsourcing sources

    Number of comments: 15
    Peter Shankman, who describes himself as a marathon-running, sky-diving, cat-loving PR guy, says he is grossing nearly $1 million a year by using the web to help reporters find sources for stories.He crowdsources sources with a nifty and thoroughly modern service called Help a Reporter Out, or HARO. It works [...]
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    Posted: April 20, 2009, 1:00am EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Don’t blame Google for newspaper woes

    Number of comments: 30
    Newspaper people are wasting time and wasting their breath in blaming Google for the failure of their products to thrive in the digital universe.They need to look to themselves – not Google, Yahoo or some other third-party savior – to begin strengthening their franchises and building up their businesses on [...]
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    Posted: April 16, 2009, 10:39pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Newspaper web sales lag by every measure

    Number of comments: 23
    By every measure, online advertising sales at newspapers seriously trail the growth of the rest of the interactive market in the United States. And the industry is falling farther and farther behind.The inability of newspapers to capture and retain their fair share of digital advertising likely is one of the [...]
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    Posted: April 13, 2009, 11:00pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Why Strib lets print scoop its website

    Number of comments: 16
    Although most newspapers rush to publish their scoops on the web as rapidly as they can, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has decided to break certain major stories and projects in print and not publish them on its website until a few days have passed. Editor Nancy Barnes tells why she [...]
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    Posted: April 12, 2009, 11:00pm EDT
    by Newsosaur

  • Publishers seek ad block on copyright abusers

    Number of comments: 13
    Alarmed by what they believe to be widespread piracy of their copyrighted material on the web, some publishers want to force companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to stop serving ads at sites carrying unauthorized newspaper content.The movement to target the pocketbooks of content poachers emerged this week at a [...]
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    Posted: April 08, 2009, 11:37pm EDT

  • The last rant: Failing papers ‘bring me joy’

    Number of comments: 67
    The more the problems of the media mount, the more that newspaper-bashing comments are flowing to this blog. As of today, the media bashers can save themselves the trouble, because I will reject them, one and all.Before I turn off the spigot, I want to share the mother of all [...]
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    Posted: April 06, 2009, 11:00pm EDT
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