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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.
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.
Mr. Murdoch Goes to War
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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.
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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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Are you thinking, or "quorum sensing?"
Daniel Conover compares the way newspaper managers and staffers think to the way groups of bacteria will communicate via quorum sensing. In other words, it's only after enough individuals in your environment sense the same stimulus that the group will act -- all at once.
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We practice journalism today in the transitional period between an old equilibrium that has ended and a new equilibrium that has yet to take shape. The outcome cannot yet be reliably predicted, and the notion that the best, most productive ideas will naturally rise to the top is far from proven.
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Many executives are just sitting around, receiving signals from their environment, waiting for the signal that a "quorum" has coalesced around a new direction.
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Your News Content Is Worth Zero to Digital Consumers
News publishers expecting to make money from their digital readers will need to figure out how to offer something tangible -- and mobile represents big-time opportunity, especially for phone applications.
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News publishers expecting to make money from their digital readers will need to figure out how to offer something tangible -- and mobile represents big-time opportunity, especially for phone applications.
Statistical evidence: many newspaper execs not seeing reality
Steve Outing presents us with graphical evidence that newspaper execs and readers aren't on the same page when it comes to newspapers' free Web sites.
Eleven Things I’d Do If I Ran a News Organization
Dan Gilmore presents us with some things he'd do if he ran the news, very progressive, community-involved ideas.
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We’d make it clear that we’re not looking for free labor — and will work to create a system that rewards contributors beyond a pat on the back — but want above all to promote a multi-directional flow of news and information in which the audience plays a vital role.
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Every print article would have an accompanying box called “Things We Don’t Know” — a list of questions our journalists couldn’t answer in their reporting. TV and radio stories would mention the key unknowns. Whatever the medium, the organization’s website would include an invitation to the audience to help fill in the holes, which exist in every story.
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The price of information online
Daniel Axelrod suggests that newspapers drastically cut their print product and use the savings to hire more reporters.
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So, media companies should cease printing paper editions or publish their print versions far less often, and they should channel all the overhead they save into adding reporters. Then, newly potent, rejuvenated newsgathering operations could focus on the kind of hyper-local coverage, investigative reporting and watchdog journalism for which advertisers and readers would actually pay.
The trouble is newspapers still believe they offer something so special that people will always want to pay for them. But, in reality, much of reason the reason many people bought papers to begin with was they were monopolies. Yet, newspapers can still prove they have value by entertaining people with arts coverage and offering them the stories they crave on local sports, schools, taxes, politicians and other community issues. -
So, media companies should cease printing paper editions or publish their print versions far less often, and they should channel all the overhead they save into adding reporters. Then, newly potent, rejuvenated newsgathering operations could focus on the kind of hyper-local coverage, investigative reporting and watchdog journalism for which advertisers and readers would actually pay.
New rule: Cover what you do best. Link to the rest
A 2007 post from Jeff Jarvis in which he gives us the popular catchphrase "Cover what you do best. Link to the rest."
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Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.
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In the rearchitecture of news, what needs to happen is that people are driven to the best coverage, not the 87th version of the same coverage.
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The Future Of News Is Scarcity
Venture capitalist Nic Brisbourne says news organizations must find ways to make money off the scarcer things about their coverage and let the free news be free.
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The great tragedy of the newspaper industry in the late 20th Century was that, in the pursuit of profit, quality journalism became a dying art. Budgets were reduced, journalists were asked to write more stories per day and were given less time to check facts. At the same time, editors were instructed to avoid stories that might create controversy and the expense of lawsuits. The result was more and more bland articles recycled from paper to paper, more politically motivated editing and the collapse of public trust in the newspaper industry.
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the industry is possibly more exposed than any other to the trend towards $0 pricing for online content.
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12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive
Those who think there is one silver bullet to fix the newspaper business are mistaken. Newspapers have almost always had multiple streams of revenue to support themselves and the future will likely not be any different.
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Newspapers are often still treating their websites as an afterthought because their advertising revenue is largely still coming from print. At the same time, the shift to getting more revenue from websites won’t happen until the websites are the first priority.
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Reporters need to focus on primarily gathering information and how to present that information in multiple formats: websites, mobile platforms, social networks and finally print.
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Some Thoughts on “Real” Reporting
Stan Schroeder at Mashable opines that blogs are here to stay, that they do "real" reporting, that "real" reporting is hard to define and that newspapers need to get with it or die trying.
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What’s wrong here is the naive notion that news is only stuff like Michael Jackson’s death, a UN summit, a car accident; in short, stuff that requires a reporter to do the good old fashion reporting, which includes going there, taking a picture, calling people and asking for statements, etc.
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This is why blogs are popular, not because they’re rehashing news from big media publications, writing their opinions without contributing with facts. They’re popular because somewhere there’s a guy who took great interest in figuring out which airplane seats are the best to be seated in and he started a blog writing about it, and you cannot find this information in any major newspaper.
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The Nichepaper Manifesto
Umair Haque at HarvardBusiness.org offers a few tips for nichepapers. Mostly sound Web advice that mainstream papers could follow too.
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Nichepapers aren't a new product, service, or business model. They are a new institution. They're a living example of the institutional innovation that is the key to 21st century business. They're not the same old newspaper, sold a different way. They are 21st century newspapers, built on new rules, that are letting radical innovators reinvent what "news" is.
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They're not the same old newspaper, sold a different way. They are 21st century newspapers, built on new rules, that are letting radical innovators reinvent what "news" is.
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Xark!: The newspaper suicide pact
Dan Conover from Xark offers a long tirade, noting that the journalism crisis is really a crisis for the business owners who have run their companies into the ground, ignoring the way online content works.
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On the surface, paid content is the reasonable idea that people should have to pay for the professionally produced content they consume. Its core, however, is a post-rational demand that consumers abandon their habits of the past decade in favor of new behaviors intended to restore media companies to the profitability ordained to them by God Almighty.
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Quality journalism is expensive, and to the extent that it provides a public good, we will find ways to fund it. But top-heavy, poorly run, arrogant-to-the-bitter-end media companies? This is their crisis, not our crisis, and it certainly isn't about journalism.
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Editorial - Newspapers’ future
A Financial Times editorial on the newspaper industry's current crisis.
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The profitability of papers in the late 20th century, when they had a monopoly of classified advertising, was an anomaly. Before that, newspaper barons owned them more to wield power than nurture democracy, while the 18th-century press was as partisan and rambunctious as any bunch of bloggers.
Transcript of "Old and New Media Go to Washington"
A transcript of NPR's "Old and New Media Go to Washington" program from May 8, which deals with the hearings on Capitol Hill to "save" newspapers.
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Senator Cardin assured the committee that his plan was not a bailout, just a little boost for the industry. But it came with a few strings attached. Under this bill, news organizations would no longer be able to endorse political candidates.
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In other words, the bill has as good a chance of passage as the newspaper industry has of becoming a hot place to invest your money.
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Newspaper Video - from dead trees to moving pictures
A Ning social network for Newspaper Video, created by Chuck Fadely.
Three ideas to make newspaper pay walls work
Dave Lee gives some suggestions for how to make the seemingly inevitable paywalls work for newspaper Web sites.
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Add Sticky Note
Hey hey! It’s Free Column Friday! Or something. Let’s not just lie-down and say “right then, everything is 2op, off you go”. Let’s be inventive. Let’s have Alan Rusbridger’s five picks of the day for 50p. Let’s have five Jeremy Clarkson columns for the price of four. Let’s have a loyalty bonus: You’ve read Charlie Brooker for the past 5 weeks? Hey, guess what, Charlie loves you — here’s a sixth article for free. Hell, here’s an EXCLUSIVE article for free. Why not?
Put your online price right up there with your offline price. Advertise content with the online price tag attached. Make it seem like a bargain. Make the reader think “Hey, you know what, 20p isn’t bad. I put 20p in a charity box the other day, and thought nothing of it”.
- Why not do this? We should treat newspaper articles online like any other purchase; namely, we should offer deals like Lee says. Editor's picks. Bargains. It would open up a whole new world for promoting certain content. - on 2009-05-10
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Newspaper publishers need to get round the table and launch their own PayPal. It’s the only way it can work. I should be able to use the same account for every single newspaper on the planet. Or, at the very least, in the UK. But really, the planet. A PayPal for newspapers would be a revolution. It means I can keep track of what I’m reading, and spending, and not have to worry about signing in to 30 different sites.
Brainstorm: More Newspapers Going Down
Mark Bauerlein at the Chronicle of Higher Education writes that colleges should consider making newspapers (the papers themselves, I think) a part of the curriculum -- call it a social engagement lesson.
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If we believe that the newspaper is a fundamental institution of civic engagement and a healthy democracy, colleges should envision the resurrection of newspaper reading as an element of their civic mission. Many colleges and universities have created civic engagement units of their own, and perhaps they should consider a subscription initiative for all entering students.
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