Competing with FREE

Just another blog post discussing the issue of how newspapers are between a diamond and a very hard spot. As are many other "content producers." Found it in the wrath of links found inside this blog post on Time's website about "If the Journalism Business Fails, Who Pays for Journalism?"

There's a reason even MediaStorm has started doing commissioned work for the likes of Starbucks and now Global Governance Program.

Information wants to be free, still

Found this link via my All Things Digital RSS feed this morning. It coincided with a discussion taking place on Facebook between some journalists I know and used to work with about the broken business model of the newspaper industry.

They were talking about former Rocky Mountain News ME and CEO John Temple's blog post about all the aspects the industry has been going about in a contradictory sense. Saying all the right things about building for the future but in action just holding on to the past.

Then throw on the grease fire this other post is talking about with the broken advertising model and Jeff Jarvis' thought that advertising isn't even needed anymore by the now penny-pinching advertisers.

There's a lot to read over and digest in these three or four posts, but they can all be boiled down to this: Because the monetary models of enormous margins of yore are broken and the recent history of the industry executives saying one thing while doing the opposite, the newspaper industry is a terminal cancer patient receiving huge doses of chemotherapy.

I hate cancer with a dripping passion, but this is the best way I can think of explaining the situation. Let's hope this thing ends sooner, rather than later. What's next will not come about until the institutions of monopolistic media and control –who are at the will of shareholders and double digit margins– have finally succumbed to their own demise. Then we can start talking about where journalism in the digital media age will go and flourish.

An inside look at the sinking of The Rocky

Long story in the Denver trendy mag 5280. Pretty slow start on the read though...

Brilliance at its best

Here is another great moment in A.P. history. In its quest to become the RIAA of the newspaper industry, the A.P.’s executives and lawyers are beginning to match their counterparts in the music industry for cluelessness.

Dying newspapers and politics

Assessing the consequences of the closing of the Cincinnati Post at the end of 2007, the researchers found that fewer people voted in subsequent elections, fewer candidates ran in opposition to the incumbents and that, as a result, the incumbents had a better chance of being returned to office.

IWantMyRocky to become InDenverTimes

Former Rocky staffers are trying to put together an online news source with paid subscriptions. Should be interesting to see how this all develops. They need to get 50,000 subscribers before the end of April to make it happen.

I will be watching this one with hawk-like eyes to see how it all evolves. I hope they will be producing content that no other media outlet will be –other than some of the great writers and staffers that are bringing their talent to the table– otherwise why pay $60 for an annual online subscription when I can read The Denver Post online for free? Looking at the staff of INDT, I don't see any visual journalists yet either. Hope they rectify that as well.

We shall see. I hope it becomes a precedent, really.

Seattle P-I could be an interesting test

Seems as though one more two-newspaper town will soon see a drastic change in the media landscape. Hearst only offered a select few of present staffers opportunity to work on an online-only version of the historic newspaper. Those offers don't look at that appealing, regardless of the market trends and current national and local economies. You'll have to take a peek and see what you think.

According to Castro, Riddick said Hearst plans to start the site the day after the paper quits publishing, which Hearst has said will occur on a date not yet specified if no buyer has emerged by March 10.

The P-I site has already been evolving towards the notion of a news portal rather than a news source of information for Seattle and King County, by linking to alt-mags and other news outlets in the area. Could be an interesting science project.

Still haven't heard much on the media radar about the experiment in Detroit with the reduced home delivery days. At least those to markets are trying something that spineless Scripps Howard didn't even want to attempt in Denver.

Newsprint is REALLY expensive

"...we're trying to say is that as a technology for delivering the news, newsprint isn't just expensive and inefficient; it's laughably so."

The Kindle retails for $359. A rough estimate for the NYTimes's delivery costs would be $644 million per year. Do the math and selling a Kindle to the 830,000 loyal subscribers would cut delivery costs in HALF.

Life after newspapers

Pretty lengthy article about a non-scientific survey of former newspaper journalists. Lots of things to pick through in there. Some things are tough to take.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' count for all newspaper jobs -- from reporter to delivery truck driver -- shows the payroll shrinking from 336,000 at the start of last year to 313,600 through October, a drop of 22,400 positions. What happens to all of those laid-off and bought-out journalists?

Some folks are certainly struggling to find new work, even more so in the present economy. But there's also the seemingly consensus that most of those that were forced out of the newsroom, they might miss the idea of what it was to be a journalist at a newspaper, but that there is life after newspapers and it can be pretty rewarding.

End Times

A really solid story on the eminent tsunami of newspaper deaths to come, probably sooner than we expect.

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If you’re hearing few howls and seeing little rending of garments over the impending death of institutional, high-quality journalism, it’s because the public at large has been trained to undervalue journalists and journalism. The Internet has done much to encourage lazy news consumption, while virtually eradicating the meaningful distinctions among newspaper brands. The story from Beijing that pops up in my Google alert could have come from anywhere. As news resources are stretched and shared, it can often appear anywhere as well: a Los Angeles Times piece will show up in The Washington Post, or vice versa.

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10 Questions for Journalists in the Information Age and info-overload

Here's some great notions to consider in this overwhelming era of easily accessible information. Having the right information available in functional and engaging access points will be a major component of successful journalism. Too bad most newspapers just shovel all their content into a big bucket on the web and expect readers to "find" what they need to know. Newspapers were barely able to accept the notion that television was a competitor by the time the Internet began to steal even more of their audience. Glacial pace won't work in the instantaneous realm of the Information Age.

Bigger dominoes beginning to fall

This last week was graced with the unpleasant announcement that E.W. Scripps has put the Rocky Mountain News up for sale. The flagship newspaper for the company that has won four Pulitzers in the past eight years.

This, in the midst of a month where more than 500,000 Americans lost jobs. Those are just the ones that filed for unemployment mind you, there could be many more undocumented.

Then two days later reports are that The McClatchy Company is putting a FOR SALE sign on their flagship The Miami Herald.

Denver will most likely become a single newspaper town, as there will probably not be someone crazy enough to buy a property that is losing over $1 million a month in a competitive market and in a declining industry. Sadly, hundreds more will be added to that skyrocketing unemployment statistic, but those additions will be people I know. People I respect. People that care about the Fourth Estate.

Scary thing is I didn't think all these troubles would come this soon. I knew that the first quarter of 2009 was going to be a bloody mess, but before Christmas bells had even begun to ring? The acceleration in the decline of the newspaper business, as well as the economy in general, is speeding up much faster than many thought would be possible. The first quarter of 2009 may just look like the basement of Leatherface's Texas Home.

MTV's Gideon Yago putting the smack down on Journalism

Gideon Yago worked with The IFC Media Project to create a series about journalism and how news sausage is made. Should be interesting. Hopefully it's available online!

Let the bottlenecking begin!!!

So one of the Fox and NBC stations in Philly are going to "pool" the video operations of the two news organizations in an effort to cut costs. Brilliant!! Lessen the scope of journalism even more. The newsrooms will be independent of each other in how they edit or use the footage.

The ever growing notion of doing more with less in journalism.

Mr. Wallace added, “We see no downside on this.”

Only that showing the exact same content on two competing stations will dilute your audience even more, thus weakening your advertising base further. Nope, not a single downside. Nor the jobs that can now be eliminated to reduce costs.

And the fat cats in the corporate offices wonder why their market share is only shrinking ever more rapidly. How about producing unique content that no other news org has? If you are the only one with it, where are the viewers going to have to look for it? I guess on your competition's 10 o'clock newscast.

The dominoes are starting to fall

Once the campaign advertising dollars stop flowing in by the truck-load, the majority coming from the Obama media machine, the advertising dollars will dry up like the lakes east of Los Angeles have.

Let's face it, we're in the midst of a recession. Advertising dollars are the first to go from budgets. Advertising is the rocket fuel for newspapers in print, whereas the ad dollars from the online version resemble the concoction of two-stroke motor oil and unleaded gasoline. You don't see NASA using two-stroke to get the space shuttle into orbit do you?

That recession is going to prevent many from spending too many ad dollars for the holidays, let alone some general advertising. Newspapers are beginning to topple before the election has even come to a close. The first quarter of 2009 is going to look like a scene out of the movie "Saw."

The question becomes: Do we cut off integral parts of the paper in an effort to free it for possible growth online? But if the recent digestion of data is any clue, cutting all the aspects of each newspaper might not work.

The first few dominoes have started to fall, how far will they go?

Media Needs a Makeover

Rob Haggart reinforces the notion that content is king. Media outlets need to stop chasing those "every once in a while" readers/viewers and capitalize on the readers/viewers that are consuming.

How many times has it been said....

The Krauts are doing pretty well

It's looking more and more that if you want to work for a newspaper, you might look at going international. Asia's papers are exploding. Europe's papers are gaining more and more traction. South America still gets its info from lady grays.

The last line of this post is striking.

J-students shouldn't be too worried

… nearly the same percentage of graduates in 2007 found full-time jobs within six to eight months of graduation as in the previous year, and salaries remained the same.

The stagnant salaries isn't much to rave about, but the notion that graduates are still getting jobs is a good sign. Might be a bad sign for those entrenched old-skool journos though. Having multiple skills is the key to getting a job.

Parting Thoughts

The Columbia Journalism Review has set up a place for those that have left or pushed out the door of journalism to reflect. After reading Jim Spencer's piece, I'm looking forward to reading a few more in hopes of finding some solace. Solace in knowing that once I walk out the door of a newspaper in several weeks I'm not alone in feeling like I'm walking away from one of the most important and passionate aspects of my career.

Pew's stinky report

"Another diminishing skill set, interestingly, is photographers," the report says. "Overall, 31% of newspapers say they have cut back on photographers in the last three years, vs. 12% that had made net increases. At the biggest papers, this trend is more pronounced, with the majority reporting cutbacks on photographers (52%) and just 6% saying they had made net additions."

The underwhelming conclusion of the report is that as papers cut staff so goes the content. BRILLIANT!! Great idea, make a less desirable product for an already shrinking audience. That'll make all those greedy investors happy. I'm sure of it.

Ok, time to go get a tow truck to remove the tongue from my cheek.