Michael Becker's Public Library

06 Nov 09

Twitter still making twits of mainstream journalists

Shane Richmond at the Daily Telegraph criticizes other columnists for criticizing Twitter when they clearly know next to nothing about the microblogging site.

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Shane Richmond Daily Telegraph Twitter

It looks as though the columnists are closing ranks. In recent weeks Twitter users have raged against the Mail’s Jan Moir for bigotry and AA Gill for baboon shooting. Any one of them could be next. The Commentariat is under threat.
They’re mistaking Twitter for a publishing platform, which – as I’ve written before – it isn’t. To criticise Twitter for its content (or, I should say, your perception of its content) makes as much sense as criticising the content of the telephone networks or the postal service. Like them, Twitter is a means of communicating. The content communicated has no bearing on its value.
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- It’s now possible for columnists and companies to hear what people are saying about them. That’s unnerving for columnists, not least because their opinions are now frequently challenged by people who know more than they do. Instead of responding like adults – correcting when they’ve made a mistake, engaging when someone raises a sensible point and defending themselves from false accusations – they are whining like children and dismissing technologies that they don’t understand.

03 Nov 09

“12 Things I’ve Learned about Online News”

A list of online journalism tips and advice from Jesse James Garrett, president of Adaptive Path, the company behind Web site redesigns for CNN, PBS and NPR.

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Jesse James Garrett Adaptive Path advice list Online News Association Stephen Goforth Advancing the Story

29 Oct 09

Newspapers Raise Prices to Fight Falling Circulation

Some newspapers are increasing their revenue by raising prices for their papers, even as their circulation numbers shrink.

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Peter Kafka All Things Digital circulation newspaper business models newspapers revenue business prices

27 Oct 09

Downie-Schudson: Who are they writing for?

Steve Outing suggests that the Reconstructing Journalism report is aimed more at nonprofit and foundation readers than at the general public.

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nonprofit foundations Steve Outing reconstructing journalism Columbia Journalism School downieschudson Len Downie Michael Schudson

26 Oct 09

Newspaper Readers Buy Papers for the Content

Ryan Chittum takes a stance against those who argue that news content has no value, that people are really buying ads and not news.

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Ryan Chittum Mark Potts Columbia Journalism Review newspaper business models paywalls journalism business newspapers

21 Oct 09

4 things for media to sell in the world of free

Thoughts from a Swedish journalist about how to make money in the broken news industry.

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Mikael Zackrisson revenue Chris Anderson free

newspapers and magazines must stop seeing themselves as organisations owning information or by themsselves gathering information, information they then distribute to their readers. Instead we must see ourselves as facilitators who identify important areas and trends and which we then, together with our readers, explore.

19 Oct 09

Why Fox News Is Un-American

Fox News' biased reporting is un-American, and respectable journalists should avoid dealing with the network, writes Jacob Weisberg.

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Fox News Newsweek Jacob Weisberg bias ethics journalism

Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for "evidence" that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.
That Rupert Murdoch may tilt the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox's model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to develop a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. In this way, Fox hasn't just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.
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- Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question. Whether we journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations. Respectable journalists—I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs. A boycott would make Ailes too happy, so let's try just ignoring Fox, shall we? And no, I don't want to come on The O'Reilly Factor to discuss it.

In defence of newspapers and serendipity

Matthew Ingram suggests that the aggregation performed by newspapers -- in order to appeal to the widest audience possible -- allows readers to discover things they wouldn't normally find, and that, to him, is a great defense of newspapers' existence.

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Clay Shirky Matthew Ingram aggregation serendipity content context

Maybe I’ve just been trained as a newspaper reader for my whole life, but I like the serendipity of tripping over fascinating articles about things I would never have known even existed were it not for a newspaper.
I realize that there is far more content — from a vast diversity of sources — available on the web than there is in a newspaper. But who will filter and condense and aggregate it for me the way a newspaper does? I still haven’t found something that does the job quite as well. Perhaps someday I will, but until then I will keep reading newspapers.

Walking the walk on transparency

Some notes about a post that the Guardian removed from one of its blogs. An editor stepped over the line in the post, and the site debated whether to explain its removal.

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transparency Matthew Ingram Nieman Journalism Lab trust objectivity

And by removing something without explaining why, I argued that we were effectively breaching our trust with readers, in however small a way. While an editor slamming his own organization might be damaging to our brand, I argued that the trust of our readers was also a key part of our brand, and that we had to do everything we could to maintain it.
Readers deserve to be told what we are doing and why (within reason), even when doing so makes us uncomfortable.

6 Ways to add tweets to your story

Examples of how to put Tweets into a news story.

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Kevin Sablan Twitter journalism Almighty Link

Twitter and Breaking News

Some thoughts on how news organizations are under-utilizing Twitter as a way to build their audiences.

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Mark Potts Recovering Journalist Twitter breaking news dissemination publishing social_media social_networking

Twitter can be maddening in many ways, a cacophony of voices with a lousy signal-to-noise ratio—does anybody really care what somebody else had for breakfast?
But one thing that Twitter excels in is breaking news. Its broadcast, real-time, 140-character headline nature makes it a perfect vehicle for the latest news, whether it's being generated by on-the-spot observers (or participants) and retweeted far and wide, or whether it's being used by news organizations to blast out their latest headlines.

16 Oct 09

Balloon boy incident raises more questions, officials say - CNN.com

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CNN's John Roberts noted the YouTube video is "out there in public."
- No? Really? A YouTube video "out there in public"? Thanks for the in-depth commentary, Mr. Roberts. - on 2009-10-16
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15 Oct 09

Does the Brain Like E-Books? - Room for Debate Blog

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e-books electronic_edition reading New York Times opinion

The most important ongoing change to reading itself in today’s online environment is the cheapening of the word.
But these ideas seem increasingly bizarre in a world where (in any decent-sized gathering of students) you can practically see the text messages buzz around the room and bounce off the walls, each as memorable as a housefly; where the narrowing time between writing for and publishing on the Web is helping to kill the art of editing by crushing it to death. The Internet makes words as cheap and as significant as Cheese Doodles.
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- The tools (as usual) are neutral. It’s up to us to insist that onscreen reading enhance, not replace, traditional book reading

Beats and Tweets: Journalistic Guidelines for the Facebook Era

In the spirit of transparency, NPR posts its social media guidelines for reporters and other staff members.

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NPR social media guideline policies social_networking

First and foremost -- you should do nothing that could undermine your credibility with the public, damage NPR's standing as an impartial source of news or otherwise jeopardize NPR's reputation.
- People don't stop being reporters (or employees of any kind) when they go home for the day. You have to remember that, as a professional, you need to conduct yourself accordingly. - on 2009-10-15
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Anyone with access to the web can get access to your activity on social media sites. And regardless of how careful you are in trying to keep them separate, in your online activity, your professional life and your personal life overlap.
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- don't behave any differently online than you would in any other public setting.
- Additionally, law enforcement officials may be able to obtain by subpoena anything you post or gather on a site without your consent -- or perhaps even your knowledge.
- Journalism should be conducted in the open, regardless of the platform. Just as you would do if you were working offline, you should identify yourself as an NPR journalist when you are working online.
- You should always explain to anyone who provides you information online how you intend to use the information you are gathering.
- Content gathered online is subject to the same attribution rules as other content.
- You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form (including your Facebook page or a personal blog) to express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org.
- Realize that social media communities have their own culture, etiquette and norms, and be respectful of them.
- Social media is a very dynamic ecosystem so don't be surprised if we continue to revise or elaborate on our guidelines at a later date. In the mean time, we welcome your feedback.
  - Important. I'm glad to see that NPR realizes that these guidelines must be flexible. - on 2009-10-15
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Guardian to become 24/7 Web-first newspaper

The Guardian's guidelines for being a Web-first newspaper. These are from 2007.

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guideline Jeff Jarvis Guardian web online-first newsroom Alan Rusbridger

If we don’t update our site continuously readers will go elsewhere.
It means publishing more of our news according to the demands of the web rather than the rhythms and expectations of a newspaper
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- Our production processes must reflect the needs of the web (e.g. the use of web-friendly headlines as well as newspaper headlines, links, tagging, key wording and so on.)

13 Oct 09

Mr. Murdoch Goes to War

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newspapers journalism media

It doesn’t matter much to a fully integrated media conglomerate like News Corporation how its customers choose to access this content, as long as the transaction pays.
One of the first strong messages Journal reporters and editors received from their new owners was that Murdoch wants scoops. He wants his reporters out in front of every competitor on the planet.
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- This means that, at a time when every big newspaper is tinkering with futuristic business models, Murdoch is doing so with both feet planted firmly in the past. His strategy for success in 2008 is to behave as though the year is 1908. So while his competitors retrench, Murdoch is going to war—by challenging The New York Times, in particular, to an old-fashioned newspaper battle. Except this time the stakes aren’t nickels in Times Square, but dominance in America, and the world.

Stephen Foley: Nice try – but you're wrong, Mr Murdoch

Newspapers will be committing collective suicide if they try to put their content behind paywalls without first making that content into something people want to pay for.

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Rupert Murdoch Stephen Foley paywalls newspaper business models

It's desperate stuff. It won't work, and if newspaper executives on both sides
of the Atlantic follow Mr Murdoch's apparent lead, I predict we will witness
the collective suicide of scores of news organisations in the US and
elsewhere.
The Sun and the New York Post get an "astronomical" number
of hits when they have a celebrity scoop, he pleads, but he's talking about
a few stories a week at best, and a scoop is only a scoop for a fraction of
a second on the web.
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- The problem with many papers is not what they charge for what they do. It is
  what they actually do. A vast amount of content duplicates information
  available elsewhere. In any other industry, we would call this overcapacity.
  The reallocation of resources that must come, towards investigative
  journalism and high-value comment and analysis, will be more painful for
  some newspapers than others, and competition is much fiercer in a
  multi-platform world.
- Many newspapers that introduce online fees
  without reforming what they do could end up looking little more than
  high-priced aggregators, a kind of Huffington Post that isn't free.

What The Future Will Look Like For Journalists | paidContent

Jim Spanfeller has a pretty rosy take on why journalists (if not newspapers) will persevere into the uncertain future.

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journalism newspaper crisis Jim Spanfeller scoops

Stories will still develop over time and across many specific installments of reporting. But the idea of a “scoop” having great value is gone. In an internet-enabled world, a scoop lasts for only a very fleeting period of time. The real value is the insight about that scoop.
It will also be important to present raw data well. “Give me your thoughts,” say the readers, but let me see the data as well. Give me a chance to disagree with your theories and commentary. For this to happen, the institution supporting and paying the journalist will have to collect or buy the appropriate data and present it in a way that is both easy to understand and work with.

Strib to hold back some content

Commentary by Doug Fisher about the Minneapolis Star Tribune's decision earlier this year to hold back some content as print exclusives.

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print-exclusive Nancy Barnes Minneapolis Star Tribune Doug Fisher scoops

For instance, if the Strib has that great investigative project fronted Monday morning, chances are drivetime radio is going to rewrite it; the TVs will have it on their morning shows, etc. Blogs will - no, may, since there won't be links -- comment on it. Will this drive traffic to "the paper" or satiate most people's information needs?
Will the AP still honor the request if the local TV rewrites the essence of the story and posts it online?
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- Will the pick up a paper and maybe decide they need a subscription (winning situation, but I think, doubtful), wait to see it later (neutral), or become po'd and learn that they probably can do without it and not come back (losing proposition)?
- So will more of us buy a paper if there is 'paper only' news? I doubt it. How will we know?

Online scoops

This American Journalism Review story from 2006 looks at the evolving nature of scoops and exclusives.

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print-exclusive American Journalism Review Donna Shaw Jonathan Dube Rusty Coats Byron Grandy scoops

It decided to run the exclusive first on its Web site (denverpost.com) on July 13 instead of waiting until the next morning's paper.

It's not so long ago that such a decision would have been deemed heresy. The Post, traditionalists would have exclaimed, had foolishly "scooped itself."
It's also a reminder that the definitions of "scoop" and "exclusive" are evolving in the era of convergence. The Internet makes it much more dicey to hold a news story until your next edition; chances are greater than ever that someone will beat you to it. So investigative, enterprise and project stories have become the primary exclusives to be held for the print version.
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- "My definition of a scoop has changed in the sense of how long you think you have a story exclusively," he says. "If you have a story for an hour, you need to make the most of that hour."
- Felisa Cardona, the reporter who wrote the story. "I think he felt like, 'We're going to have this because of my tip, and nobody else is going to have it except us until tomorrow.'.. But I just feel like everybody knows we got the story first."
- Says Jonathan Dube, a vice president of the Online News Association and publisher of CyberJournalist.net: "In this day and age, it would be foolish for any newspaper company to just think of itself as a 'newspaper' company and not a media company. The notion that a company like the Denver Post could 'scoop' itself is ridiculous and narrow-minded."
- "If we were in a more competitive market, we would certainly put that online" first, Fine says. "I wonder if most people, because they're in one-newspaper markets, are, like we are, still putting 99 percent on the Web but still holding their best scoops, their best enterprise, for the paper," she adds. "It's because we still want the paper to be valuable, because the paper still pays the bills at most of our publications."
- Rusty Coats, general manager of TBO.com, says his marching orders are to place a story on the "first available platform." If a story breaks at, say, 2 p.m., it goes out first on the Web site, then on television at 4:30 p.m. and 5 p.m., and the newspaper gets it the next day.
- "Online breaking stories are very iterative — you print what you know when you know it and then you add to it," Coats says. "The things that make print wonderful are enterprise and analysis and depth."
- But ultimately, he says, journalists need to remember that it's the consumers who are in control, going to whatever news sources will give them the information they want. "I think to try to slow that down is impossible," Grandy says.
- "As journalists, we're kind of a curmudgeonly group," he says. "Some react to change very well... But around the country you'll find a handful of the 'over my dead body' types" when it comes to posting scoops.