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.

What's the new revenue model?

Pretty interesting article talking about the changing landscape of Web start-ups as the ad revenue model is breaking down. How companies will be able to survive making money off of their audiences is of major consequence. Newspapers and magazines were just the start of the breakdown, finding the new way is key.

Strong Photo Story on Pregnancy in Tanzania

Story in the NYTimes about the death rates of mothers and babies in the dire conditions.

Travis Fox doing what he does best

Great Earth Hour Images

Reuters went above and beyond to have shooters get frames of popular places before and after the Earth Hour event last week, then Boston.com put it all together.

Fun images and use of a simple crossfade.

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.

POYi Documentary Project Winners

The Roanoke Times beats out the likes of Los Angeles Times and National Geographic for first place. Lots of other interesting outlets in the honorable mentions.

Will have to come back to this and get a better sense of all these productions. Too much to look at right now, holy crap.

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.

Finally a step in the direction

I get asked all the time what I intend to do when I get done with graduate school at the University of Denver. I really haven't been able to show anyone an example and I struggle to constructively describe the creations in my skull.

Here is one of the few examples I can point someone to when they ask that question again. The Las Vegas Sun has been making some of the most complete and creative multimedia experiential productions that I have seen. Many outlets seem to feel that putting video, text, audio and photo galleries into a page will be effective enough. And while that could be argued, they are all just stand-alone elements in the same coral. Thirst in the Mojave takes all those elements and makes each one act and react from the others.

One of the producers, Zach Wise who is now at the NYTimes, posted on his blog about the production as well. He was the brains behind Soul of Athens as well.

Obama's People

Here's a really interesting multimedia piece done by the NYTimes. As usual right? There's a gallery of the portraits made of the officials that will make up the new administration, but there is also a gallery documenting the creation of the portraits. There's some great photos all around and the premise is pretty fun.

Now if I only had an army the size of the 3rd Regiment to pull something off like this as well.

One in 8 million

Really nice multimedia player from the interactive gurus at the NYTimes that is set to be updated weekly with a short piece on one of the 8 million people in New York. Everyone has a story and an opinion, it should be interesting to see what characters are found.

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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One last hurrah for newspaper competition

An awesome story about how an intern at the Chicago Tribune won a Chicago Sun-Times contest.

Too bad in the decline of competing newspapers we don't get to see great ideas like this anymore. Radio doesn't even do this much anymore considering they are all owned by the same company these days. Too bad, might be one way to increase readership. You know, actually competing on stories that the community wants to know about rather than sharing the same freaking content.  

Seattle P-I Year in Photos

I always love the P-I's YiP. The staffers pick their favorite 10 images and explain the back story to the photos. It's always fun to learn a little more about why or how a photo was made.

Photojournalists get the job done

A NYTimes story about the Mumbai attacks detailing how two working photojournalists had the images and reportage that mattered. Though there were many "citizen journalists" posting photos on Flickr, Twitter and other social networks as the attacks unfolded Sebastian D’souza and Vasant Prabhu have hundreds of images documenting the events and ability to describe some details they witnessed.

Granted these two put themselves in dire situations to make the resulting images, the point is that a citizen journalist is not going to willingly put themselves in danger for the sake of journalism. We could then get into the credibility debate as well, but that would take hours. A working professional has a base of experience and knowledge to work from in tough situations that most citizen journos won't. When you need something done right, best to use a professional.

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.