As a followup to last night's Julie-led discussion of investigative journalism, here are audio posts and blogposts from a recent conference on the future of investigative journalism (from CJR):
CJR Audio: The Future of Investigative Journalism
A discussion on the future of the journalistic watchdog
By The Editors
On March 12 and 13, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism hosted Enlarging the Space for Watchdog Journalism, a conference focused on the state and future of investigative journalism.
Mark Horvitt, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Paul Steiger of ProPublica, and Cheryl Phillips, data enterprise editor of the Seattle Times, shared the stage at the Economic and Commercial Threats panel, speaking about the shrinking resources available to investigative projects.
Later, Ying Chan, founding director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at University of Hong Kong, delivered an overview of China’s best watchdog journalism. The next day, Mark Katches, investigative editor at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer discussed whether crowd-sourcing could bolster investigative projects as resources are cut.
Other panels covered topics like the challenges to investigative reporting in today’s market, innovations on funding models for investigative reporting, and new ways of providing legal protection for investigative journalists. The full audio from the conference is available here. A complete blog of the conference’s proceedings is available at watchdogconference.com.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
What Will Replace Newspapers?
From the WashingtonPost:
What's the Big Idea?
By John Pomfret
Sunday, April 5, 2009
There's a lot of hand-wringing these days about what (if anything) is going to replace newspapers. But for an idea of what we are going through it might be wise to look back into history, way back. The operative time frame, writes web-guru Clay Shirky in a recent essay, is the early 1500s when Johannes Gutenberg's printing press began to change the Western world.
"How did we get from the world before the printing press to the world after it?," Shirky asks. "What was the revolution itself like?"
The answer is "chaotic" with remarkable parallels to what's happening today as the Internet reconfigures our world. "As novelty spread, old institutions seemed exhausted while new ones seemed untrustworthy; as a result, people almost literally didn't know what to think," Shirky writes, citing Elizabeth Eisenstein's book, "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change."
Experiments that seemed inconsequential acquired enormous significance. Consider Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer and publisher, who invented the smaller octavo volume along with italic type, allowing for pocket-sized books, which paved the way for pleasure reading and the publishing industry.
"That is what real revolutions are like," Shirky says. "The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place." Sound familiar? Who knew that when Craigslist's was started in 1996 it would re-write the rules of classified advertising? Or Youtube for music? Or Facebook for social networking?
"We're collectively living through 1500," Shirky says, "when it's easier to see what's broken than what will replace it." Shirky notes that this fall the Internet turns 40. The general public has been using it for less than two decades. And we've only really begun using it on a daily basis for a decade. "We just got here. Even the revolutionaries can't predict what will happen."
Shirky thinks that newspapers as a mechanism for providing information and packaging ads are doomed. What will replace them? "Nothing will work, but everything might," he writes, slipping into California web-speak. So we need experiments and lots of them, each of which will seem as minor as the octavo volumes did in 1501.
Txting Aldus Manutius . . . Txting Aldus Manutius . . .
What's the Big Idea?
By John Pomfret
Sunday, April 5, 2009
There's a lot of hand-wringing these days about what (if anything) is going to replace newspapers. But for an idea of what we are going through it might be wise to look back into history, way back. The operative time frame, writes web-guru Clay Shirky in a recent essay, is the early 1500s when Johannes Gutenberg's printing press began to change the Western world.
"How did we get from the world before the printing press to the world after it?," Shirky asks. "What was the revolution itself like?"
The answer is "chaotic" with remarkable parallels to what's happening today as the Internet reconfigures our world. "As novelty spread, old institutions seemed exhausted while new ones seemed untrustworthy; as a result, people almost literally didn't know what to think," Shirky writes, citing Elizabeth Eisenstein's book, "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change."
Experiments that seemed inconsequential acquired enormous significance. Consider Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer and publisher, who invented the smaller octavo volume along with italic type, allowing for pocket-sized books, which paved the way for pleasure reading and the publishing industry.
"That is what real revolutions are like," Shirky says. "The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place." Sound familiar? Who knew that when Craigslist's was started in 1996 it would re-write the rules of classified advertising? Or Youtube for music? Or Facebook for social networking?
"We're collectively living through 1500," Shirky says, "when it's easier to see what's broken than what will replace it." Shirky notes that this fall the Internet turns 40. The general public has been using it for less than two decades. And we've only really begun using it on a daily basis for a decade. "We just got here. Even the revolutionaries can't predict what will happen."
Shirky thinks that newspapers as a mechanism for providing information and packaging ads are doomed. What will replace them? "Nothing will work, but everything might," he writes, slipping into California web-speak. So we need experiments and lots of them, each of which will seem as minor as the octavo volumes did in 1501.
Txting Aldus Manutius . . . Txting Aldus Manutius . . .
Monday, March 30, 2009
What is your MBTI personality type?
If you know your four-letter personality type based on the Myers-Briggs instrument (MBTI), please bring that information to class tonight.
A short bit of our discussion will revolve around what personality types are best suited to be journalists.
A short bit of our discussion will revolve around what personality types are best suited to be journalists.
Publishing is Not Dead--Let Us Innovate!
From MrMagazine.com:
What Recession? New Magazine Launches Up, Up, Up
March 29, 2009
What do Disney Twenty-Three, Dirt Rag Bicycle Times, and Big Man have in common? They are but three new magazines published in the midst of the worst economic times we’ve seen in our lifetime.
However, when it comes to new magazine launches last month, the numbers beg the question What Recession? 81 new titles appeared for the first time on the nation’s newsstands in February (the best February yet) despite all the problems with the wholesalers and distribution channels.
In one way or another those magazines found their way to the retailers and offered readers options to buy one out of 30 magazines published at least four times a year, one with a twice a year frequency, four annuals and 46 specials or book-a-zines.
When I announced earlier this month my intentions to create the Magazine Innovation Center this coming August, I knew that, despite the prophets of doom and gloom, that there is still a long long life for print both in the magazine and newspaper business and that the end is not near. The host of new magazines being published now are not but a case-in-point that we are not dead, but rather our publishing model is.
Take Disney Twenty-Three magazine (named after the founding of Disney in 1923). The over-sized 64-pages quarterly aimed at the D23: The Official Community for Disney Fans sells for $15.95 and quotes Walt Disney on its back cover saying, “It seems to me that we have a lot of story yet to tell.” Yes indeed.
Another case-in-point is the Purpose Driven Connection magazine published by the Reader’s Digest Association. The quarterly sells for $9.99 and offers readers a 144-page magazine, a DVD and a Six-Session Video-Based Study Guide for Small Groups taught by the Rev. Rick Warren.
The aforementioned magazines are produced with an “outside the box” run-of-the-mill publishing model. Both have “membership” as a base for that publishing model. Remember the “good ol’ days” when National Geographic will not give you a subscription to its flag ship magazine unless someone nominated you for membership in the Society? Innovation does not mean that we have to come up with ideas that have never been tried before. Innovation means to stop, think and find ways to enhance and add to the power of print and its abilities. Innovation means to stop acting in a state of panic.
We have to take time off, to think and to do “publishing” in a different way that we’ve done for years.
Take a look at some of the new launches and spread the word: Print is NOT dead, it is the publishing model that died last September. Let us work on finding a new model. Let us INNOVATE.
What Recession? New Magazine Launches Up, Up, Up
March 29, 2009
What do Disney Twenty-Three, Dirt Rag Bicycle Times, and Big Man have in common? They are but three new magazines published in the midst of the worst economic times we’ve seen in our lifetime.
However, when it comes to new magazine launches last month, the numbers beg the question What Recession? 81 new titles appeared for the first time on the nation’s newsstands in February (the best February yet) despite all the problems with the wholesalers and distribution channels.
In one way or another those magazines found their way to the retailers and offered readers options to buy one out of 30 magazines published at least four times a year, one with a twice a year frequency, four annuals and 46 specials or book-a-zines.
When I announced earlier this month my intentions to create the Magazine Innovation Center this coming August, I knew that, despite the prophets of doom and gloom, that there is still a long long life for print both in the magazine and newspaper business and that the end is not near. The host of new magazines being published now are not but a case-in-point that we are not dead, but rather our publishing model is.
Take Disney Twenty-Three magazine (named after the founding of Disney in 1923). The over-sized 64-pages quarterly aimed at the D23: The Official Community for Disney Fans sells for $15.95 and quotes Walt Disney on its back cover saying, “It seems to me that we have a lot of story yet to tell.” Yes indeed.
Another case-in-point is the Purpose Driven Connection magazine published by the Reader’s Digest Association. The quarterly sells for $9.99 and offers readers a 144-page magazine, a DVD and a Six-Session Video-Based Study Guide for Small Groups taught by the Rev. Rick Warren.
The aforementioned magazines are produced with an “outside the box” run-of-the-mill publishing model. Both have “membership” as a base for that publishing model. Remember the “good ol’ days” when National Geographic will not give you a subscription to its flag ship magazine unless someone nominated you for membership in the Society? Innovation does not mean that we have to come up with ideas that have never been tried before. Innovation means to stop, think and find ways to enhance and add to the power of print and its abilities. Innovation means to stop acting in a state of panic.
We have to take time off, to think and to do “publishing” in a different way that we’ve done for years.
Take a look at some of the new launches and spread the word: Print is NOT dead, it is the publishing model that died last September. Let us work on finding a new model. Let us INNOVATE.
What Will Become of the News?
Here is a thoughtful piece from CBS news. This is an excerpt -- to read the entire article click here.
Stop The Presses!
Newspapers As We Know Them May Cease To Exist ... But What Will Become Of The News Itself?
(CBS) They have been informing us about our world for centuries, but today they are an endangered species. Are newspapers really yesterday's news? Our Cover Story is reported by Jeff Greenfield:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When it comes to news about the news, no news is good news.
The Rocky Mountain News recently wrapped up operations. The Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy protection. The New York Times and Washington Post have announced layoffs.
And the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has been in production for more than 140 years, continues to produce news stories, but beginning this month it's doing so only online with a reduced staff. The Ann Arbor News will follow suit in July.
Are we really facing the demise of the great metropolitan daily?
It was the newspaper that became as powerful a force as any it covered, the kind of power Charles Foster Kane delighted in wielding in "Citizen Kane." It was the newspaper that brought news of crime and corruption to its readers, with an energy - and occasional manic recklessness - captured in the classic "His Girl Friday."
And it was the newspaper whose proudest moments came when it held the powerful to account - even bringing down "All The President's Men."
Hard as it for those of us whose day cannot begin without the newspaper, it is a medium that cannot survive without dramatic change. Indeed, it's not clear if it can survive as we know it at all.
But does that mean an enormous vacuum, an absence of the kind of information a democratic society needs? Or are there new sources emerging to do that work?
Longtime media watcher Michael Wolff said, "It's the end of the newspaper business right now at this point in time."
Why is Wolff predicting the imminent end of the newspaper?
Consider the facts: Just since 2000, daily newspaper circulation has dropped from 55 million to 50 million in the last two years … print ad revenue for papers dropped 28%, more than $11 billion - and that was before the recession really kicked in.
Classified ads, the most profitable of all, have migrated to the Web on sites like Craigslist.com.
And while many newspapers have a home online, readers don't pay a dime to read it.
As for paying for newsprint? Just ask the next generation, like these Columbia School of Journalism students:
"The Internet is something that we constantly have with us," said one woman. "I constantly have my laptop on."
"I read the New York Times and Washington Post online for my national news," said one man.
"Realistically, I prefer the Internet, I do, because things are updated constantly," said another woman.
For newspaper veterans like former Des Moines Register editor Geneva Overholser, now dean of the USC School of Journalism, the potential loss of the newspaper is a clear and present danger to our civic life.
"Newsrooms in newspapers have been the predominant source of original reporting about what's going on in city hall, in classrooms, about Washington, about the international scene," Overholser said. "There'll be a time when we do really need to stand up and say, 'Wait a minute!' … and it's getting pretty close."
By contrast, Wolff is highly optimistic about the future, Just look around, he says:
"It is potentially an incredibly good time," Wolff said. "We have a much bigger audience than we've ever had before. We can do it faster, we can do it better, we can even do it prettier than before."
Wolff is putting his energies behind his ideas - he founded the Web site newser.com. But the site itself illustrates the uncertain nature of the future. Just about everything it offers is not his but content aggregated, as they say, from existing newspapers …¬the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Washington Post.
If these newspapers went away, what would he aggregate?
Sunday, March 29, 2009
A Novel Way to Fund Investigative Journalism
This is an excerpt. To read the entire story, click here.
Popular blog Huffington Post is funding investigative journalism venture
By DAVID BAUDER , Associated Press
NEW YORK - The Huffington Post said Sunday that it will bankroll a group of investigative journalists, directing them at first to look at stories about the nation's economy.
The popular blog is collaborating with The Atlantic Philanthropies and other donors to launch the Huffington Post Investigative Fund with an initial budget of $1.75 million. That should be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories with freelancers, said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.
Work that the journalists produce will be available for any publication or Web site to use at the same time it is posted on The Huffington Post, she said.
The Huffington Post Web site is a collection of opinionated blog entries and breaking news. It has seven staff reporters.
Huffington said she and the donors were concerned that layoffs at newspapers were hurting investigative journalism at a time the nation's institutions need to be watched closely. She hopes to draw from the ranks of laid-off journalists for the venture.
"All of us increasingly have to look at different ways to save investigative journalism," she said.
The Huffington Post venture is reminiscent of ProPublica, a nonprofit independent newsroom funded by The Sandler Foundation and headed by Paul Steiger, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. ProPublica works with a $10 million budget.
Huffington said she hoped to encourage others to fund similar ventures. Foundation spending to support journalists is a promising trend, although the money set aside for such ventures represents far less than what a newspaper would spend to thoroughly cover a community, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Foundation-based journalism will also require organizations to prove that situations are being looked at with a truly open mind, a larger burden than that faced by newspapers, he said.
Popular blog Huffington Post is funding investigative journalism venture
By DAVID BAUDER , Associated Press
NEW YORK - The Huffington Post said Sunday that it will bankroll a group of investigative journalists, directing them at first to look at stories about the nation's economy.
The popular blog is collaborating with The Atlantic Philanthropies and other donors to launch the Huffington Post Investigative Fund with an initial budget of $1.75 million. That should be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories with freelancers, said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.
Work that the journalists produce will be available for any publication or Web site to use at the same time it is posted on The Huffington Post, she said.
The Huffington Post Web site is a collection of opinionated blog entries and breaking news. It has seven staff reporters.
Huffington said she and the donors were concerned that layoffs at newspapers were hurting investigative journalism at a time the nation's institutions need to be watched closely. She hopes to draw from the ranks of laid-off journalists for the venture.
"All of us increasingly have to look at different ways to save investigative journalism," she said.
The Huffington Post venture is reminiscent of ProPublica, a nonprofit independent newsroom funded by The Sandler Foundation and headed by Paul Steiger, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. ProPublica works with a $10 million budget.
Huffington said she hoped to encourage others to fund similar ventures. Foundation spending to support journalists is a promising trend, although the money set aside for such ventures represents far less than what a newspaper would spend to thoroughly cover a community, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Foundation-based journalism will also require organizations to prove that situations are being looked at with a truly open mind, a larger burden than that faced by newspapers, he said.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
CNN Drops to Third Place
This is an excerpt:
CNN in third place in prime time for first time
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - CNN is poised to finish March third in the prime-time weeknight ratings behind Fox News Channel and MSNBC, the first time this has ever happened for the channel that pioneered the cable news genre nearly three decades ago.
CNN says its overall business is healthy and it is not straying from its straight news path. But it is suffering more audience erosion than its rivals since the peak days of the presidential election, further proof that the opinionated prime-time shows on Fox and MSNBC have greater audience loyalty.
CNN's weekday prime-time ratings are relatively flat compared to last year during the primary campaign, up 1 percent from March 2008, according to Nielsen Media Research. Fox's ratings have jumped 30 percent and MSNBC, the new No. 2, is up 24 percent. The biggest growth in cable news is for CNN's partner, HLN, formerly Headline News, which is up 62 percent.
Fox remains on a mountain above its two closest competitors, with its prime-time audience in March more than that of MSNBC and CNN combined. ``The O'Reilly Factor'' has done particularly well, keeping more of its postelection audience than anything else on CNN and MSNBC.
Through Wednesday, Fox was averaging 2.73 million prime-time viewers in March. MSNBC had 1.16 million and CNN had 1.14 million. The March ratings period ends Friday, and it's doubtful CNN will be able to overcome MSNBC.
``The fact that one network may have eked out a slight edge in one small slice of the overall business really doesn't say much of anything,'' Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president, said on Friday. ``It's more clear than ever, given the way that our competitors have positioned themselves, that CNN has positioned itself as the real news network.''
Relying on news, rather than opinion, leaves CNN more susceptible to higher ratings peaks during big stories and lower valleys in routine times. Yet it's hard to consider the present - new president, economic turmoil and two wars - a slow news period.
CNN's ratings news ``is very significant,'' said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief and now a professor at George Washington University. ``This is a big problem.''
More significant is what CNN's ratings problems mean coupled with the daily drumbeat of layoffs in the newspaper industry, he said. With people more interested in hearing things through an ideological prism as a form of entertainment, it diminishes the value of independent voices giving straight news.
``It's getting harder to do real journalism on television,'' Sesno said. ``This is `man the ideological barricades.'''
Fox is ready to start a new venture Monday, ``The Fox Nation,'' which it bills as an online community that believes in ``your right to express your views, your values, your voice.'' Fox representatives would not immediately return a call for comment.
CNN in third place in prime time for first time
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - CNN is poised to finish March third in the prime-time weeknight ratings behind Fox News Channel and MSNBC, the first time this has ever happened for the channel that pioneered the cable news genre nearly three decades ago.
CNN says its overall business is healthy and it is not straying from its straight news path. But it is suffering more audience erosion than its rivals since the peak days of the presidential election, further proof that the opinionated prime-time shows on Fox and MSNBC have greater audience loyalty.
CNN's weekday prime-time ratings are relatively flat compared to last year during the primary campaign, up 1 percent from March 2008, according to Nielsen Media Research. Fox's ratings have jumped 30 percent and MSNBC, the new No. 2, is up 24 percent. The biggest growth in cable news is for CNN's partner, HLN, formerly Headline News, which is up 62 percent.
Fox remains on a mountain above its two closest competitors, with its prime-time audience in March more than that of MSNBC and CNN combined. ``The O'Reilly Factor'' has done particularly well, keeping more of its postelection audience than anything else on CNN and MSNBC.
Through Wednesday, Fox was averaging 2.73 million prime-time viewers in March. MSNBC had 1.16 million and CNN had 1.14 million. The March ratings period ends Friday, and it's doubtful CNN will be able to overcome MSNBC.
``The fact that one network may have eked out a slight edge in one small slice of the overall business really doesn't say much of anything,'' Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president, said on Friday. ``It's more clear than ever, given the way that our competitors have positioned themselves, that CNN has positioned itself as the real news network.''
Relying on news, rather than opinion, leaves CNN more susceptible to higher ratings peaks during big stories and lower valleys in routine times. Yet it's hard to consider the present - new president, economic turmoil and two wars - a slow news period.
CNN's ratings news ``is very significant,'' said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief and now a professor at George Washington University. ``This is a big problem.''
More significant is what CNN's ratings problems mean coupled with the daily drumbeat of layoffs in the newspaper industry, he said. With people more interested in hearing things through an ideological prism as a form of entertainment, it diminishes the value of independent voices giving straight news.
``It's getting harder to do real journalism on television,'' Sesno said. ``This is `man the ideological barricades.'''
Fox is ready to start a new venture Monday, ``The Fox Nation,'' which it bills as an online community that believes in ``your right to express your views, your values, your voice.'' Fox representatives would not immediately return a call for comment.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Four Go Down in Michigan
From MediaBuyer:
Four Michigan Markets Lose Daily Newspapers
Newspapers in four Michigan cities are drastically cutting their publishing schedule. In Flint, Saginaw and Bay City, daily newspapers will be printed just three days a week. The Ann Arbor News is being shuttered in July.
Ann Arbor News parent Booth Newspapers is creating a new company, AnnArbor.com LLC. A new website, AnnArbor.com, will be an online news organization that will also publish a Sunday and Thursday print edition, writes The New York Times. Meanwhile, all 272 employees will lose their jobs, though they will be invited to interview for the remaining jobs, according to the company.
The Flint Journal, the Saginaw News and the Bay City Times will all publish on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays - the days of the week that account for about 80% of advertising revenue. The papers will expand their web offerings through their affiliate, mlive.com.
The papers will lay off about 35% of their employees.
The moves follow The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News’ decisions to end home delivery four days a week. Both are delivering on Thursdays and Fridays, with the Free Press also delivering on Sundays. They are still printing papers the other days of the week, but those single-section editions are just 32 pages and are sold only at newsstands.
No big cities have completely lost representation by daily newspapers, though it seems likely that it is just a matter of time. Denver and Seattle are down to one paper each, following the closure of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer respectively. A recent study by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press indicated that 42% of citizens wouldn’t even miss their local newspaper, were it to cease publication.
Four Michigan Markets Lose Daily Newspapers
Newspapers in four Michigan cities are drastically cutting their publishing schedule. In Flint, Saginaw and Bay City, daily newspapers will be printed just three days a week. The Ann Arbor News is being shuttered in July.
Ann Arbor News parent Booth Newspapers is creating a new company, AnnArbor.com LLC. A new website, AnnArbor.com, will be an online news organization that will also publish a Sunday and Thursday print edition, writes The New York Times. Meanwhile, all 272 employees will lose their jobs, though they will be invited to interview for the remaining jobs, according to the company.
The Flint Journal, the Saginaw News and the Bay City Times will all publish on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays - the days of the week that account for about 80% of advertising revenue. The papers will expand their web offerings through their affiliate, mlive.com.
The papers will lay off about 35% of their employees.
The moves follow The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News’ decisions to end home delivery four days a week. Both are delivering on Thursdays and Fridays, with the Free Press also delivering on Sundays. They are still printing papers the other days of the week, but those single-section editions are just 32 pages and are sold only at newsstands.
No big cities have completely lost representation by daily newspapers, though it seems likely that it is just a matter of time. Denver and Seattle are down to one paper each, following the closure of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer respectively. A recent study by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press indicated that 42% of citizens wouldn’t even miss their local newspaper, were it to cease publication.
WJI Offers Internship Stipends
Journalism Internship Stipends offered by World Journalism Institute
New York, N.Y., March 25, 2009--The World Journalism Institute has announced
that it has received funding for journalism internships in mainstream
newsrooms. Internship stipends will be awarded to select alums of the World
Journalism Institute's Backpack Journalism Course, to be held May 10-29,
2009.
The amount of the stipend can be as much as $2,000/month for up to three
months. Internships can be for newspapers, magazines, radio and television
stations for qualified reporters, editors and designers. The institute has
awarded close to $500,000 in internship stipends since 1999.
WJI alums have interned or worked for media such as the Tacoma News Tribune,
Los Angeles Times, Indianapolis Star, Chattanooga Times-Free Press, New York
Daily News, NBC Nightly News, Newsday, Washington Times, Wall Street
Journal, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
To qualify for the stipend, one must be a graduate of the WJI New York
Journalism Course held at The King's College in Manhattan, May 10-29, 2009.
The institute is accepting applications from college journalists to attend
the course, which will focus on backpack journalism and features instructors
such as Dr. Anthony Bradley (Covenant Theological Seminary), Robert Case
(WJI), Dr. Michael Longinow (Biola University), Russ Pulliam (Indianapolis
Star), Manny Garcia (Miami Herald), Clayton Sizemore (CNN), Kenny Irby
(Poynter Institute), and Mira Lowe (Ebony/Jet).
In addition to the course instruction, the annual WJI luncheon series of
prominent speakers will feature Dr. Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things;
the New York author and director of Socrates in the City, Eric Metaxas;
Warren Cole Smith, Evangelical Press News Service editor; John Ziegler,
broadcaster; Andrea Peyser, author of Celebutards; and Kevin Williamson,
deputy managing editor of National Review.
The World Journalism Institute exists to recruit, equip, place and encourage
Christians in the newsrooms of America. Over six hundred students have
attended the WJI programs since it began in 1999.
For more information:
Kim Collins
Deputy Director
World Journalism Institute
212-659-3609
office@worldji.com
www.worldji.com
New York, N.Y., March 25, 2009--The World Journalism Institute has announced
that it has received funding for journalism internships in mainstream
newsrooms. Internship stipends will be awarded to select alums of the World
Journalism Institute's Backpack Journalism Course, to be held May 10-29,
2009.
The amount of the stipend can be as much as $2,000/month for up to three
months. Internships can be for newspapers, magazines, radio and television
stations for qualified reporters, editors and designers. The institute has
awarded close to $500,000 in internship stipends since 1999.
WJI alums have interned or worked for media such as the Tacoma News Tribune,
Los Angeles Times, Indianapolis Star, Chattanooga Times-Free Press, New York
Daily News, NBC Nightly News, Newsday, Washington Times, Wall Street
Journal, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
To qualify for the stipend, one must be a graduate of the WJI New York
Journalism Course held at The King's College in Manhattan, May 10-29, 2009.
The institute is accepting applications from college journalists to attend
the course, which will focus on backpack journalism and features instructors
such as Dr. Anthony Bradley (Covenant Theological Seminary), Robert Case
(WJI), Dr. Michael Longinow (Biola University), Russ Pulliam (Indianapolis
Star), Manny Garcia (Miami Herald), Clayton Sizemore (CNN), Kenny Irby
(Poynter Institute), and Mira Lowe (Ebony/Jet).
In addition to the course instruction, the annual WJI luncheon series of
prominent speakers will feature Dr. Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things;
the New York author and director of Socrates in the City, Eric Metaxas;
Warren Cole Smith, Evangelical Press News Service editor; John Ziegler,
broadcaster; Andrea Peyser, author of Celebutards; and Kevin Williamson,
deputy managing editor of National Review.
The World Journalism Institute exists to recruit, equip, place and encourage
Christians in the newsrooms of America. Over six hundred students have
attended the WJI programs since it began in 1999.
For more information:
Kim Collins
Deputy Director
World Journalism Institute
212-659-3609
office@worldji.com
www.worldji.com
Rick Warren Magazine Makes Debut
'Purpose Driven' magazine debuts
By Erin Roach
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (BP)--Rick Warren has joined with Reader's Digest Association to produce a quarterly magazine called "Purpose Driven Connection," which is intended to reach people who aren't connected to churches.
"PDC magazine is all about transformation, not merely information. That's what sets this magazine apart from many others. It is the purpose behind every word," said Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of The Purpose Driven Life.
The premier issue, which debuted in January, has exceeded expectations in sales, Larry Ross, a spokesman for Warren, told Baptist Press.
"Rick Warren is a big visionary, and this is one of the most ambitious projects he has ever undertaken," Ross said, noting that Warren serves as editor in chief of the project. "... Gallup and Barna have both done studies that show that 19 percent of the U.S. population, about 59 million people, has read The Purpose Driven Life.
"This has created a whole population of people out there who have started out on a spiritual journey but aren't really connected with a church to go deeper in the Christian life," Ross said.
Reader's Digest Association publishes 92 affinity magazines worldwide, including 50 editions of Reader's Digest.
"According to our Reader's Digest colleagues, they've termed this 'category-busting, genre-breaking,'" Ross said of PDC.
"People are looking to connect with the church and with God but also for tools to find spiritual solutions to the problems they face," Ross said. "So connecting and equipping are the two dimensions of this project."
One feature of the magazine is a link that directs people to the purposedriven.com website for discussion. People then have an opportunity to provide input or share their own story related to the material they've just read in the magazine, Ross said. Also, because the magazine is quarterly, the website provides additional news and feature articles between printings.
Purpose Driven Connection also offers a perspective on the news that is overlooked by the mainstream media, Ross said. For example, Warren was in Cambodia two years ago when he heard about a former Khmer Rouge leader who was responsible for the deaths of 17,000 people at a prison he managed.
A pastor in the region who was part of Warren's network of half a million pastors trained in the Purpose Driven paradigm shared the Gospel with the man, and he accepted Christ, went to seminary and became a pastor himself. When Warren told Reader's Digest about the man's testimony, RDA sent personnel to Cambodia to cover the story for the magazine.
"The story was driven by Rick but carried out by Reader's Digest," Ross said. "In the last several weeks this story has been covered almost daily in the international press including The New York Times. They've been carrying the story where he's now on trial by the international court for his crimes.
"In the secular press there's been no reference to this fellow's dramatic conversion," Ross added. "He's the only one of all the [Khmer Rouge] people that has confessed his crimes. All of that is laid out in the Purpose Driven Connection."
Also, the project is backed by two Reader's Digest staffers who have experience with major publications. Alyce Alston, who is overseeing the project from the RDA side, helped launch "O, The Oprah Magazine," and Frank Lalli, who is editorial director for PDC, was responsible for the launch of "Every Day with Rachael Ray," which was the largest magazine launch in history, Ross said.
"So they've got the A-team on this," Ross said.
For the premier issue, Reader's Digest printed 400,000 copies of Purpose Driven Connection, and they plan to increase the number to half a million for subsequent issues, Ross said.
"We've heard reports that it sold out at some of the Wal-Marts the first days and weeks it was available," he said. "So it's been very well received in the first few weeks, far exceeding expectations."
--30--
Erin Roach is a staff writer for Baptist Press.
By Erin Roach
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (BP)--Rick Warren has joined with Reader's Digest Association to produce a quarterly magazine called "Purpose Driven Connection," which is intended to reach people who aren't connected to churches.
"PDC magazine is all about transformation, not merely information. That's what sets this magazine apart from many others. It is the purpose behind every word," said Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of The Purpose Driven Life.
The premier issue, which debuted in January, has exceeded expectations in sales, Larry Ross, a spokesman for Warren, told Baptist Press.
"Rick Warren is a big visionary, and this is one of the most ambitious projects he has ever undertaken," Ross said, noting that Warren serves as editor in chief of the project. "... Gallup and Barna have both done studies that show that 19 percent of the U.S. population, about 59 million people, has read The Purpose Driven Life.
"This has created a whole population of people out there who have started out on a spiritual journey but aren't really connected with a church to go deeper in the Christian life," Ross said.
Reader's Digest Association publishes 92 affinity magazines worldwide, including 50 editions of Reader's Digest.
"According to our Reader's Digest colleagues, they've termed this 'category-busting, genre-breaking,'" Ross said of PDC.
"People are looking to connect with the church and with God but also for tools to find spiritual solutions to the problems they face," Ross said. "So connecting and equipping are the two dimensions of this project."
One feature of the magazine is a link that directs people to the purposedriven.com website for discussion. People then have an opportunity to provide input or share their own story related to the material they've just read in the magazine, Ross said. Also, because the magazine is quarterly, the website provides additional news and feature articles between printings.
Purpose Driven Connection also offers a perspective on the news that is overlooked by the mainstream media, Ross said. For example, Warren was in Cambodia two years ago when he heard about a former Khmer Rouge leader who was responsible for the deaths of 17,000 people at a prison he managed.
A pastor in the region who was part of Warren's network of half a million pastors trained in the Purpose Driven paradigm shared the Gospel with the man, and he accepted Christ, went to seminary and became a pastor himself. When Warren told Reader's Digest about the man's testimony, RDA sent personnel to Cambodia to cover the story for the magazine.
"The story was driven by Rick but carried out by Reader's Digest," Ross said. "In the last several weeks this story has been covered almost daily in the international press including The New York Times. They've been carrying the story where he's now on trial by the international court for his crimes.
"In the secular press there's been no reference to this fellow's dramatic conversion," Ross added. "He's the only one of all the [Khmer Rouge] people that has confessed his crimes. All of that is laid out in the Purpose Driven Connection."
Also, the project is backed by two Reader's Digest staffers who have experience with major publications. Alyce Alston, who is overseeing the project from the RDA side, helped launch "O, The Oprah Magazine," and Frank Lalli, who is editorial director for PDC, was responsible for the launch of "Every Day with Rachael Ray," which was the largest magazine launch in history, Ross said.
"So they've got the A-team on this," Ross said.
For the premier issue, Reader's Digest printed 400,000 copies of Purpose Driven Connection, and they plan to increase the number to half a million for subsequent issues, Ross said.
"We've heard reports that it sold out at some of the Wal-Marts the first days and weeks it was available," he said. "So it's been very well received in the first few weeks, far exceeding expectations."
--30--
Erin Roach is a staff writer for Baptist Press.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
CNN's Ed Henry Gives Inside Look at Questioning
Here's a really fascinating firsthand account by a reporter on his questioning of the president last night:
Ed Henry, CNN's senior White House correspondent, got a tough answer from President Obama when he asked Tuesday night why Obama waited days to express outrage on the AIG bonuses. "Because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak," Obama said. Here's Henry's take on what happened.
The most amazing part of the exchange to me is that I didn't go into the East Room intending to ask President Obama about AIG.
After frantic preparation for the prime-time newser with several colleagues, especially lead CNN White House producer Tim McCaughan, I had several provocative questions in my pocket.
But none of them had much to do with the financial crisis because I assumed several of my colleagues would exhaust the topic of AIG before my turn came up.
At the first presser in February, I was about the 10th reporter the president called on. The economy had been chewed over so I went with a "sidebar" question about whether Obama, given his push for transparency, would overturn the policy at Dover Air Force Base preventing media coverage of coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was a surprise line of inquiry. The president made news by saying the policy was under review -- and a few weeks later he overturned it.
I was heading into this event with the same strategy: make news on something unexpected (I won't tell you which topics I was working on cause it would ruin the surprise for a future presser or interview with the president).
But on Tuesday night, as I sat in the front row nervously reviewing my hypothetical questions written out in longhand (decidedly old school), I kept thinking back to a conversation I had with Wolf Blitzer Saturday night at the Gridiron dinner.
When you press a second time, you may be surprised with the second answer. And then rather than call on me 10th, the president called on me at about sixth.
Still early, so nobody had asked AIG yet. Plus my "sidebar" question now seemed off-point so early in a newser focused on the economic pain in the nation.
The pressure was on now because the president had called on me. Someone handed me a microphone, millions were watching, and it's scary to think about changing topic in a split second because you might get flustered and screw up.
But it's fun to gamble and like any good quarterback (though I was never athletic enough to actually play the position), I decided to call an audible.
So I went hard on the AIG question, and took Wolf's advice and followed on a couple of colleagues who got pushback from the president when they asked about how his budget numbers do not seem to add up.
The president, like any good politician, decided to pick and choose what to answer. So he swatted away the budget question and ignored the AIG stuff.
So I waited patiently and then decided to pounce with a sharp follow-up. From just a few feet away, I could see in his body language that the normally calm and cool president was perturbed.
But it's in moments like that we sometimes find out what's really on a president's mind. In this case, he's not happy about the scrutiny on AIG. So he did slap me down a bit.
Anderson Cooper said later half-jokingly that yours truly was "nursing his wounds."
Even more comical to the reaction to me was the flood of e-mail I got from Democratic and Republican sources.
Invariably, my Democratic friends tweaked along the lines of "how'd you like the smackdown" because they were pleased the president pushed back.
But my Republican friends hailed me by saying essentially, "Thanks for doing your job -- he never answered the question."
So the exchange was a great political Rorschach: Each party saw their own talking points in the reflection of the back-and-forth.
What do I think? I've got no hard feelings toward the president and I assume he feels the same, but I can't worry about that. I was doing my job -- and he was doing his.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Ann Arbor Paper to Close
Thanks to Andrew for sending this along. This is an excerpt. Read the entire article by clicking here.
The Ann Arbor News will close in July after publishing as the city's daily newspaper since 1835, publisher Laurel Champion announced today.
Heavy losses in revenue drove the decision. Champion said the current "business model is not sustainable." Advertising revenue slumped more than 20 percent in January compared to the same month last year.
"This isn't about abandoning local journalism, it's about serving it up in a very different way," Champion told employees, as she visibly fought back tears.
A new Web-based media company called AnnArbor.com LLC will be launched later this year. In addition to publishing continuously online, AnnArbor.com will publish a print edition twice a week.
Champion, who will be executive vice president of AnnArbor.com, told News employees they can apply for positions with the new company, although job losses are inevitable. A total of 272 people work for the newspaper at both its main downtown Ann Arbor office and its Pittsfield Township printing plant. The newspaper has a daily circulation of nearly 45,000.
"We have an extremely talented staff at The Ann Arbor News, and they have done a tremendous job through very difficult times," Champion said in a letter to readers. "There is nothing they did or didn't do that would have sustained our seven-day print business model."
The Ann Arbor News will close in July after publishing as the city's daily newspaper since 1835, publisher Laurel Champion announced today.
Heavy losses in revenue drove the decision. Champion said the current "business model is not sustainable." Advertising revenue slumped more than 20 percent in January compared to the same month last year.
"This isn't about abandoning local journalism, it's about serving it up in a very different way," Champion told employees, as she visibly fought back tears.
A new Web-based media company called AnnArbor.com LLC will be launched later this year. In addition to publishing continuously online, AnnArbor.com will publish a print edition twice a week.
Champion, who will be executive vice president of AnnArbor.com, told News employees they can apply for positions with the new company, although job losses are inevitable. A total of 272 people work for the newspaper at both its main downtown Ann Arbor office and its Pittsfield Township printing plant. The newspaper has a daily circulation of nearly 45,000.
"We have an extremely talented staff at The Ann Arbor News, and they have done a tremendous job through very difficult times," Champion said in a letter to readers. "There is nothing they did or didn't do that would have sustained our seven-day print business model."
Monday, March 23, 2009
Newspapers Fold as Economy Sours
Newspapers fold as readers defect and economy sours
By Stephanie Chen
(CNN) -- The Rocky Mountain News, gone. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, gone.
The Seattle PI.com website will be run out of the same iconic headquarters in downtown Seattle.
The chain that owns the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune is in bankruptcy. Other papers, large and small, are teetering on the brink.
On Monday, the Ann Arbor (Michigan) News announced that it will publish its last edition in July. Taking its place will be a Web site called AnnArbor.com.
Three other Michigan newspapers announced Monday they are reducing their publications to three days a week. The Flint Journal, The Saginaw News and The Bay City Times will publish print editions on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, according to the mlive.com Web site, as research shows those are the highest readership days for newspapers.
And the Charlotte Observer announced Monday it will cut its staff by 14.6 percent and reduce the pay of most of the employees it keeps.
The situation now looks grim for The Tucson Citizen. In the past 25 years, circulation at Arizona's oldest newspaper has dwindled from 65,000 to 17,000. The Gannett Co. paper could fold if a buyer can't be found.
At least 120 newspapers in the U.S. have shut down since January 2008, according to Paper Cuts, a Web site tracking the newspaper industry. More than 21,000 jobs at 67 newspapers have vaporized in that time, according to the site.
Article Correction
In an earlier version of this story, The Miami Herald was incorrectly
included among newspapers that have declared bankruptcy. More bad news could be coming this week as newspapers struggle to meet challenges posed by changing reader habits, a shifting advertising market, an anemic economy, and the newspaper industry's own early strategic errors.
Amid the decline comes concern over who, if anyone, can assume newspapers' traditional role as a watchdog. For more than 200 years, that role has been an integral part of American democracy.
"I know it sounds somewhat cliché, but when you have competition with [the Arizona] Star, it makes both entities better," said Jennifer Boice, an editor who has devoted more than 25 years of her life to the Tucson Citizen.
Competition naturally breeds better journalism is the credo of many newspaper veterans. And better journalism means an engaged and informed public.
"The winner is the community," Boice said. "They get better information quicker and more of it."
Despite arguments like Boice's, newspapers are losing their relevance in the lives of a majority of Americans, particularly younger readers.
Many industry analysts agree many more papers will soon become extinct. Most two-newspaper towns will likely disappear, perhaps by the end of 2009, some experts say.
Among the next newspapers to go, experts say, are major metropolitan dailies relying on an expensive business model that requires costly newsprint consumption and gas-guzzling deliveries.
The quirky San Francisco Chronicle is reported to be circling the drain. If it were to close, San Francisco would be the first big U.S. city without a major daily paper.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Boston Globe are bleeding about $1 million a week, according to a media report issued by the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism. Experts say more big-city papers are expected to follow the example of Gannett's Detroit Free Press, which started cutting back on print edition delivery in December.
The challenges facing newspapers long predate the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Daily subscriptions per household began a steady decline in the 1920s, yet the newspaper industry adapted and thrived despite competition from radio and television.
But easily accessible, high-speed Internet connections and smart phones have dramatically shifted the way people get their news. Ironically, news is still in strong demand. It's abundant, accessible and usually free on the Web.
The outlook is so grim that the American Society of Newspaper Editors, a membership organization for daily newspaper editors, canceled its annual convention in April after deciding that "the challenges editors face at their newspapers demand their full attention."
To understand the financial crises plaguing the industry, one need look no further than the Tucson Citizen's parent company, Gannett, which reduced its work force by 10 percent only to see advertising and profits continue to plummet.
Things are no better at competitor McClatchy Co. The company eliminated 1,600 jobs companywide last week. McClatchy stock is trading for less than $1 a share compared with $70 a share five years ago.
The industry's advertising revenue in 2008 was $38 billion, a staggering 23 percent drop from $49.5 billion the year before. Print media companies are failing to achieve market expectations each quarter, scaring away investors, venture capitalists and potential buyers in droves.
Still, a few deals have been struck. This week, a private equity firm in California purchased the San Diego Union-Tribune -- where advertising revenue has fallen 40 percent since 2006 -- for an undisclosed price.
"We think that the revenues from newspaper companies have been insufficient to cover their cost," explained Mike Simonton, an analyst at Fitch Ratings, who issued a negative outlook on the industry. "At that point they will need to tap into external financing to continue operations, and we believe external financing will be prohibitively expensive or not even available at all."
Job cuts are keeping many newspapers on life support.
Paul Gillin, a social media consultant, said such losses are to be expected for an industry that has failed to adapt to the influx of online publishing tools and social networking sites.
"Information has become democratized today," said Gillin, who has predicted print newspapers will disappear by 2015. "You get a lot of advice from your friends, blogs and multiple media sources. Who reads just one newspaper?"
Some of the biggest threats to newspaper profits have come from Web sites like Craigslist and Monster.com, online advertising venues that are chipping away at newspapers' classified ad sections.
Newspaper classified ad expenditures tumbled nearly 17 percent in 2007, according to the Newspaper Association of America. The recession is affecting auto dealerships, real estate companies and other local businesses, accelerating the advertising downturn.
Many newspaper experts expect national publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post and The New York Times to survive. They say the largest papers could even benefit from industry woes and grab market share because of their wide penetration.
In the meantime, these papers are facing a harsh economy. At The Washington Post, owned by Washington Post Co., earnings plunged 77 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. The newspaper was saved by the parent company's Kaplan educational division, which raked in more than half the company's revenue that year.
The future offers the industry little comfort, with studies showing newspapers have lost a generation of young readers. A Pew Research Center report this month found only one-third of Americans polled say they would "miss" the newspaper a lot if it were no longer around.
ECPA Book/Author Show Lays an Egg
Missed Connection: Christian Book Expo Attracts Few Customers
by Marcia Z. Nelson -- Publishers Weekly, 3/23/2009 7:50:00 AM
Stacks of unsold books and glum publishers stood for three days inside the cavernous Dallas Convention Center this past weekend at the Christian Book Expo, a first-of-its-kind event designed to connect publishers and authors directly with readers in the evangelical Christian market. Only problem was there were few readers to connect with, despite the show’s location in Dallas, the buckle of the Bible Belt and a top market for Christian publishers. The show, sponsored by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, attracted 1,500 consumer attendees; it had hoped for 15,000-20,000.
Off the record, exhibitor publishers rolled their eyes heavenward, but spoke with circumspection on the record. “Every new experience has a few nicks and bruises, but things can be worked out,” said Greg Petree, v-p of marketing at Howard Books. A few were more blunt. “We can’t afford these kinds of risks,” said Dennis R. Hillman, publisher at Kregel Publications. “In a year like this the last thing we want to do is something that has no payoff.”
Conceived before the current economic downturn and more than two years in planning, the event combined three days of panels and programming to provide both a conference experience and a product. ECPA president Mark Kuyper said the goal of the event was to drive awareness of Christian authors – 238 were featured – and their message. The sponsoring ECPA had a minimal marketing budget that Kuyper said its board had approved. Instead, the marketing strategy relied on relationship building through early meetings with influential religious leaders in heavily churched Dallas. That was intended to mobilize regional networks. ECPA planners expected that participating publishers would also alert their own customers. “We’re going to be following up with them to find out what they did or didn’t do,” Kuyper said.
The show might, or might not, go on. “If we end up doing this again, it would be a smaller show,” Kuyper said. “We’ll be smarter next year,” said Michael S. Hyatt, president and CEO of Thomas Nelson and chair of the ECPA’s executive committee.
Before that decision is made, publishers will have shelved their returns and added up their expenses. “InterVarsity Press will be looking for a more concrete, specific marketing plan for the event – with some strings attached – before we would consider setting aside money to participate,” said associate publisher Jeff Crosby. “Viewed in total, the event was a major disappointment.”
by Marcia Z. Nelson -- Publishers Weekly, 3/23/2009 7:50:00 AM
Stacks of unsold books and glum publishers stood for three days inside the cavernous Dallas Convention Center this past weekend at the Christian Book Expo, a first-of-its-kind event designed to connect publishers and authors directly with readers in the evangelical Christian market. Only problem was there were few readers to connect with, despite the show’s location in Dallas, the buckle of the Bible Belt and a top market for Christian publishers. The show, sponsored by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, attracted 1,500 consumer attendees; it had hoped for 15,000-20,000.
Off the record, exhibitor publishers rolled their eyes heavenward, but spoke with circumspection on the record. “Every new experience has a few nicks and bruises, but things can be worked out,” said Greg Petree, v-p of marketing at Howard Books. A few were more blunt. “We can’t afford these kinds of risks,” said Dennis R. Hillman, publisher at Kregel Publications. “In a year like this the last thing we want to do is something that has no payoff.”
Conceived before the current economic downturn and more than two years in planning, the event combined three days of panels and programming to provide both a conference experience and a product. ECPA president Mark Kuyper said the goal of the event was to drive awareness of Christian authors – 238 were featured – and their message. The sponsoring ECPA had a minimal marketing budget that Kuyper said its board had approved. Instead, the marketing strategy relied on relationship building through early meetings with influential religious leaders in heavily churched Dallas. That was intended to mobilize regional networks. ECPA planners expected that participating publishers would also alert their own customers. “We’re going to be following up with them to find out what they did or didn’t do,” Kuyper said.
The show might, or might not, go on. “If we end up doing this again, it would be a smaller show,” Kuyper said. “We’ll be smarter next year,” said Michael S. Hyatt, president and CEO of Thomas Nelson and chair of the ECPA’s executive committee.
Before that decision is made, publishers will have shelved their returns and added up their expenses. “InterVarsity Press will be looking for a more concrete, specific marketing plan for the event – with some strings attached – before we would consider setting aside money to participate,” said associate publisher Jeff Crosby. “Viewed in total, the event was a major disappointment.”
Newspapers Look to Digital
From DM News:
Newspapers look to digital as print faces challenges
Dianna Dilworth, Lauren Bell
After struggling with a loss of ad dollars in print, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I) ran its final print edition last week. The 146-year old paper will remain alive as a Web-only publication, making advertising for the publication exclusively digital.
The P-I is not alone. Newspapers and magazines across the country are looking to build digital revenue sources as less money is being spent in print advertising.
“I think digital publishing's absolutely the trend,” said Robert Grimshaw, publisher and managing director of FT.com, the Web site for the Financial Times. “Everything ultimately follows the consumer, and everybody is going online, so publishers have to comfortable with operating in a different environment.”
“Yes, there are closures and bankruptcies, but newspapers are not going away. Like all industries, the product life cycle changes and right now things are changing and going more digital,” added Mike Petrak, VP of sales for MediaNews Group, a group that publishes 54 newspapers nationwide including The Oakland Tribune and The Denver Post.
In fact, digital news audiences are growing. According to the Magazine Publishers of America, the number of unique visitors to consumer magazine Web sites for the first quarter of 2008 averaged around 70.7 million unique users per month, a new record. In fact, online readership is rising at twice the rate of the general Internet audience.
Larger markets, in particular, are seeing digital publishing take off, but the challenge is converting that digital audience to revenue, notes Jerry Lyles, SVP of publisher relations for Publishing Group of America (PGA). Currently, online ads are valued far below print ads, and publishers are struggling to make their old, ad-supported revenue models work online.
“Advertisers understand that that is the direction that everything is headed,” Lyles said. “The challenge comes more from the newspaper side, and trying to monetize the online version in a way that's similar to how they are able to monetize print. The papers have to get the correct pricing for those ads, the proper staffs to actually go out and sell them, and the last thing they want is to have their current print sales team selling digital.”
As the digital format continues to grow and gain audience, Lyles expects advertisers to become more accepting of paying similar rates for digital as for print ads.
“Online offers an enormous number of options not available in print and allows advertisers to pick put a very fine segment of the audience and target them precisely,” Grimshaw added. “It's an amazing benefit, and of course there's an awful lot of tracking technology that allows you to get great insight into the value of the money you've spent. As advertisers start to understand what it can do for them, online advertising is an attractive proposition.”
Until online ad revenues catch up with online publishing, there are plenty of other ways to make money on a digital platform — without having to relearn the entire business.
“Conceptually, digital is not that dramatically different than print,” explained Sean O'Neal, chief revenue officer, Datran Media. “A publisher's Web site functions like a newsstand and an e-mail newsletter functions like a subscription, where the content is being pushed by the publisher. There is a lot of opportunity to monetize this e-mail content, which is highly targeted.”
For MediaNews Group, which works with Datran Media's e-mail and inbox ad inventory services, it is about focusing on the content and knowing who its target audience is in each marketplace. After doing this, they can push targeted content to a specific audience via e-mail and mobile.
“We are a content distribution company, and e-mail helps us to provide great service and maximize the relationship [while helping us] monetize the content,” added Petrak.
MediaNews Group has been using digital to focus on its niche audiences such as lifestyle groups and specific communities. It is segmenting e-mails to reach special interests groups and, by adding more niche newsletters, it adds more ad inventory targeted to a specific audience. For example, Denver has many pet owners and dog lovers, so it has created a newsletter that targets this audience.
“In print, inserts drove a lot of subscriptions. In digital, people can get the same benefits from insert media by signing up for these lifestyle oriented newsletters that give them offers,” said Petrak.
New York magazine also is working with Datran and using e-mail to help monetize its publication online. It also has found success in e-mail newsletters with editorial content and advertising e-mails that send consumers offers from their advertisers. In fact, 10% of NY Magazine's digital revenue comes from e-mail. For the lifestyle magazine, it is all about building out its offerings in various channels.
“Like every media business, 2009 has been a tough year, but it doesn't change our belief that print is still a viable medium,” said Michael Silberman, general manager, NYMag.com. “And at the same time, digital is important. We have built a real digital media business, as opposed to just having a Web presence.”
The Financial Times, too, has built a robust digital media business. Some of this business comes from online offerings, but, unlike many of its peers, the paper also charges a substantial fee for online subscriptions.
“I think papers need to look at subscriptions,” said Grimshaw. “It's very tough to make money just from advertising, not least because it's highly cyclical but also because the Internet is so intensely competitive. There's not much to differentiate one publisher's ad proposition from another, and that's part of the reason why ad networks have been so successful.”
The publishing world is not broken into print v. online, but, rather, into a multiplatform world. Publishers should be prepared to serve content on mobile phones and e-readers as well. The Financial Times, for example, is developing an e-reader with Plastic Logic, set for release in early 2010, and it made its newspaper available on the Kindle last year. The paper has also revamped its mobile and is working on an iPhone app.
New York Magazine is also experimenting in mobile and plans to expand that over the next year. Mobile has become a hot topic for newspapers and magazines. Cox Newspapers, CBS News, The Street.com, Boston.com, The Onion and Gawker Media all recently have created mobile WAP sites. Mobile ad network Quattro Wireless is helping to sell inventory for these media properties.
“As many papers focus their efforts on online publishing, mobile is a great way to extend that content and generate more traffic and ad revenue,” said Lars Albright, VP of business development at Quattro Wireless. “We see solid interest from advertisers in the news space as the demographic is often highly attractive to a brand advertiser.”
Albright said that both national papers and smaller more regional papers have been using mobile to help grow their audience.
Newspapers look to digital as print faces challenges
Dianna Dilworth, Lauren Bell
After struggling with a loss of ad dollars in print, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I) ran its final print edition last week. The 146-year old paper will remain alive as a Web-only publication, making advertising for the publication exclusively digital.
The P-I is not alone. Newspapers and magazines across the country are looking to build digital revenue sources as less money is being spent in print advertising.
“I think digital publishing's absolutely the trend,” said Robert Grimshaw, publisher and managing director of FT.com, the Web site for the Financial Times. “Everything ultimately follows the consumer, and everybody is going online, so publishers have to comfortable with operating in a different environment.”
“Yes, there are closures and bankruptcies, but newspapers are not going away. Like all industries, the product life cycle changes and right now things are changing and going more digital,” added Mike Petrak, VP of sales for MediaNews Group, a group that publishes 54 newspapers nationwide including The Oakland Tribune and The Denver Post.
In fact, digital news audiences are growing. According to the Magazine Publishers of America, the number of unique visitors to consumer magazine Web sites for the first quarter of 2008 averaged around 70.7 million unique users per month, a new record. In fact, online readership is rising at twice the rate of the general Internet audience.
Larger markets, in particular, are seeing digital publishing take off, but the challenge is converting that digital audience to revenue, notes Jerry Lyles, SVP of publisher relations for Publishing Group of America (PGA). Currently, online ads are valued far below print ads, and publishers are struggling to make their old, ad-supported revenue models work online.
“Advertisers understand that that is the direction that everything is headed,” Lyles said. “The challenge comes more from the newspaper side, and trying to monetize the online version in a way that's similar to how they are able to monetize print. The papers have to get the correct pricing for those ads, the proper staffs to actually go out and sell them, and the last thing they want is to have their current print sales team selling digital.”
As the digital format continues to grow and gain audience, Lyles expects advertisers to become more accepting of paying similar rates for digital as for print ads.
“Online offers an enormous number of options not available in print and allows advertisers to pick put a very fine segment of the audience and target them precisely,” Grimshaw added. “It's an amazing benefit, and of course there's an awful lot of tracking technology that allows you to get great insight into the value of the money you've spent. As advertisers start to understand what it can do for them, online advertising is an attractive proposition.”
Until online ad revenues catch up with online publishing, there are plenty of other ways to make money on a digital platform — without having to relearn the entire business.
“Conceptually, digital is not that dramatically different than print,” explained Sean O'Neal, chief revenue officer, Datran Media. “A publisher's Web site functions like a newsstand and an e-mail newsletter functions like a subscription, where the content is being pushed by the publisher. There is a lot of opportunity to monetize this e-mail content, which is highly targeted.”
For MediaNews Group, which works with Datran Media's e-mail and inbox ad inventory services, it is about focusing on the content and knowing who its target audience is in each marketplace. After doing this, they can push targeted content to a specific audience via e-mail and mobile.
“We are a content distribution company, and e-mail helps us to provide great service and maximize the relationship [while helping us] monetize the content,” added Petrak.
MediaNews Group has been using digital to focus on its niche audiences such as lifestyle groups and specific communities. It is segmenting e-mails to reach special interests groups and, by adding more niche newsletters, it adds more ad inventory targeted to a specific audience. For example, Denver has many pet owners and dog lovers, so it has created a newsletter that targets this audience.
“In print, inserts drove a lot of subscriptions. In digital, people can get the same benefits from insert media by signing up for these lifestyle oriented newsletters that give them offers,” said Petrak.
New York magazine also is working with Datran and using e-mail to help monetize its publication online. It also has found success in e-mail newsletters with editorial content and advertising e-mails that send consumers offers from their advertisers. In fact, 10% of NY Magazine's digital revenue comes from e-mail. For the lifestyle magazine, it is all about building out its offerings in various channels.
“Like every media business, 2009 has been a tough year, but it doesn't change our belief that print is still a viable medium,” said Michael Silberman, general manager, NYMag.com. “And at the same time, digital is important. We have built a real digital media business, as opposed to just having a Web presence.”
The Financial Times, too, has built a robust digital media business. Some of this business comes from online offerings, but, unlike many of its peers, the paper also charges a substantial fee for online subscriptions.
“I think papers need to look at subscriptions,” said Grimshaw. “It's very tough to make money just from advertising, not least because it's highly cyclical but also because the Internet is so intensely competitive. There's not much to differentiate one publisher's ad proposition from another, and that's part of the reason why ad networks have been so successful.”
The publishing world is not broken into print v. online, but, rather, into a multiplatform world. Publishers should be prepared to serve content on mobile phones and e-readers as well. The Financial Times, for example, is developing an e-reader with Plastic Logic, set for release in early 2010, and it made its newspaper available on the Kindle last year. The paper has also revamped its mobile and is working on an iPhone app.
New York Magazine is also experimenting in mobile and plans to expand that over the next year. Mobile has become a hot topic for newspapers and magazines. Cox Newspapers, CBS News, The Street.com, Boston.com, The Onion and Gawker Media all recently have created mobile WAP sites. Mobile ad network Quattro Wireless is helping to sell inventory for these media properties.
“As many papers focus their efforts on online publishing, mobile is a great way to extend that content and generate more traffic and ad revenue,” said Lars Albright, VP of business development at Quattro Wireless. “We see solid interest from advertisers in the news space as the demographic is often highly attractive to a brand advertiser.”
Albright said that both national papers and smaller more regional papers have been using mobile to help grow their audience.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Fox Radio News Reporter Tells of Faith
Fox Radio News Reporter Tells of Faith, New Book
Adrienne S. Gaines News - Featured News
March 20, 2009 -- Fox Radio News reporter Todd Starnes (pictured) is an unabashed Christian who takes his faith to work. But he says being a born-again journalist isn't about lacing every news story with a gospel message.
"I believe that I become a legitimate presenter of the gospel by doing the very best job I can do as a journalist—by asking tough questions, asking fair questions, being kind to people," Starnes told Charisma today during a stop in Orlando, Fla.
"We [journalists] are basically conveyors of the truth, and we [Christians] know the standard for truth, which is located in Scripture. So I have that standard of truth that I use and I apply when I'm out covering a story whether it be [President] Barack Obama or covering this fiasco that's going on in Wall Street."
During the 2008 presidential election, Starnes traveled with Obama, covering his campaign. "Here it was, a moment in American history, where men and women could set aside whatever prejudices they may have based on race, and they were able to select the person they felt was most qualified," he said. "Whether you agreed with [his] politics or not, that was a historic moment in this nation's history."
He said he found Obama to be pleasant and kind. During a campaign event in Boulder, Colo., Starnes said he was struck by the way Obama interacted with his family. "[Obama's] youngest daughter, Sasha, came barreling up and leaped up and grabbed on to her dad and gave him a big hug," Starnes recalled. "Those are the moments when you realize this is a person. It's not just a candidate; this is a human being."
In St. Louis, when Obama spoke before his largest crowd to date-some 100,000 people-Starnes said Obama surprised most of the reporters with his opening words. "He had these prepared remarks, which we all had copies of," Starnes said.
"And the first thing he does, he looks out at just a striking bright blue day and he says: ‘This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.' And everybody's scrambling around looking in the speech and saying, ‘Where in the world is that? That's not in the speech.'"
Starnes later became known as "the guy with the Bible" because of the bulky copy of Scriptures he had purchased in a rush when his own Bible went missing. "I actually left the Bible on board the plane at the end of the campaign, and I marked some passages of Scripture so perhaps someone who might find that Bible could perhaps see the plan of salvation," he said.
He says his Christian faith influences his reporting, but it's not the trait that makes him a good journalist. "I think being a follower of Christ makes me a more unique reporter," he said. "I wouldn't say a better reporter, but it certainly makes me a more unique reporter because I'm looking at people's personalities, their character traits, to kind of find out what makes them tick."
Lately, Starnes has found himself on the opposite end of the microphone, doing interviews about his new book, They Popped My Hood and Found Gravy on the Dipstick, which released from Pathway Press on March 3.
The book is a memoir of sorts, telling how Starnes underwent open-heart surgery in 2005 to replaced a failing aortic valve, lost 150 pounds and dealt with the death of both his parents—all within a span of three years. Laced with humor, the collection of essays is drawn from an audio journal he kept during his surgery and recovery. In 2006, the broadcasts won the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award and the Associated Press Mark Twain Award for storytelling.
Starnes said he wants readers to laugh "and know that some average Joe can make it through an obstacle and difficulty in life."
It's a message that takes on new relevance in the midst of a historic economic recession that has cost thousands of jobs. "We are going to go through difficult times in our lives," he said. "But the message I have in this book is, I've discovered that God's grace is sufficient to get us through those difficult times. Not only can He get us through those times, and He will sustain us, but we're going to be able to look back and we're going to be able to laugh and smile and understand why we had to go through what we had to go through."
He points to his favorite verse, Habakkuk 3:19, which was written during a time in history when crops were failing and people didn't have enough to eat. "Something really bad was happening, and yet the prophet Habakkuk was able to say that even still I will rejoice," Starnes said. "The sovereign Lord is my strength He makes my feet like the feet of the deer. And He enables me to go into the high places.
"Just like that deer is able to leap over all the stuff that would cause him to stumble, God will do the same thing for us, and He will lift us up over all that stuff that Satan means for us to stumble on, and He will take us to a high place. That doesn't mean we're always going to stay at that high place, but He's going to take us there. ... That's where God has taken me, and I'm eternally grateful for it."
Starnes says he's in great health today. He ran in the New York City Marathon in 2007, and expects to participate in three others this year. In 2010, he plans to compete in the Iron Man competition in Hawaii.
He said he wants to live life to the fullest. Waiting in a hospital room prepped for surgery and unsure what the outcome would be, Starnes said he decided that he wasn't finished living. "And I wasn't finished doing nearly all the things I wanted to do," he said. "And I hope [readers] don't have to reach the point that I was at to understand that you go out there and you need to live your life."
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Cook, Harvest House Announce Layoffs
Leading publishers report layoffs
Thursday, 19 March 2009 13:50
Two more publishers have announced layoffs in the light of the economic downturn.
David C. Cook let go 29 people in a late February move impacting its U.S. operations in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Elgin, Ill. The company's Canadian Distribution unit and the Kingsway music subsidiary in the United Kingdom were not affected.
Cook's CEO Cris Doornbos told Christian Retailing that although the company was ending its fiscal year June 1 with revenues ahead of last year, it was "positioning for the future and investments that were required for the future."
Harvest House Publishers, which declined to disclose numbers of employees affected by layoffs in late January, also made internal changes.
"Like many other publishers in our industry, we have had to conduct a small reduction in our workforce to proactively deal with the economic downturn," said Harvest House President Bob Hawkins Jr. "It was a decision that will enable Harvest House to continue to be very healthy for the years to come, even if the economy does not turn around right away."
Thursday, 19 March 2009 13:50
Two more publishers have announced layoffs in the light of the economic downturn.
David C. Cook let go 29 people in a late February move impacting its U.S. operations in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Elgin, Ill. The company's Canadian Distribution unit and the Kingsway music subsidiary in the United Kingdom were not affected.
Cook's CEO Cris Doornbos told Christian Retailing that although the company was ending its fiscal year June 1 with revenues ahead of last year, it was "positioning for the future and investments that were required for the future."
Harvest House Publishers, which declined to disclose numbers of employees affected by layoffs in late January, also made internal changes.
"Like many other publishers in our industry, we have had to conduct a small reduction in our workforce to proactively deal with the economic downturn," said Harvest House President Bob Hawkins Jr. "It was a decision that will enable Harvest House to continue to be very healthy for the years to come, even if the economy does not turn around right away."
Newspapers Can't be Saved, but the News Can (NYT)
Here is a very stimulating piece (excerpt) from the NY Times, which refers to a much larger piece on the future of news. To read the entire article, click here.
Why Newspapers Can’t Be Saved, but the News Can
By Eric Etheridge
The Rocky Mountain News is dead. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will publish its last issue Tuesday. The Detroit Free Press has cut home delivery to three days a week. The Star Tribune in Minneapolis and the Inquirer and Daily News in Philadelphia have all declared bankruptcy.
According to Clay Shirky, this is what a revolution looks like.
The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. . . . Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.
And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.
There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.
Shirky, a well-known Internet observer and analyst, has been writing for some time about the future of newspapers, or rather the lack of one (”2009 is going to be a bloodbath,” he told the Guardian in January).
On Friday night he dropped his latest description of the existential crisis papers face, a long essay (some 2,700 words) that has been much discussed and linked to all weekend.
Shirky notes that newspapers were not blind to the coming of the Internet and he briefly reviews a number of the experiments they have tried to find success online (described in greater detail by Jack Shafer in Slate back in January). But all the experiments have pretty much one thing in common:
The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ’90s is that they were, at base, all the same plan: “Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!” The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes . . . was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift.
Now that newspapers are staring to drop dead, the survivors are rapidly shuffling through these ideas again, desperate to stop the bleeding, “demanding to know ‘If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?’”
Shirky’s answer: “Nothing.”
Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.
With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.
Shirky, like many Internet enthusiasts, is future-positive. For him, it’s time to get on with the revolution. Forget about saving newspapers. Instead, experiment with new ways of doing journalism in the digital era.
Why Newspapers Can’t Be Saved, but the News Can
By Eric Etheridge
The Rocky Mountain News is dead. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will publish its last issue Tuesday. The Detroit Free Press has cut home delivery to three days a week. The Star Tribune in Minneapolis and the Inquirer and Daily News in Philadelphia have all declared bankruptcy.
According to Clay Shirky, this is what a revolution looks like.
The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. . . . Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.
And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.
There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.
Shirky, a well-known Internet observer and analyst, has been writing for some time about the future of newspapers, or rather the lack of one (”2009 is going to be a bloodbath,” he told the Guardian in January).
On Friday night he dropped his latest description of the existential crisis papers face, a long essay (some 2,700 words) that has been much discussed and linked to all weekend.
Shirky notes that newspapers were not blind to the coming of the Internet and he briefly reviews a number of the experiments they have tried to find success online (described in greater detail by Jack Shafer in Slate back in January). But all the experiments have pretty much one thing in common:
The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ’90s is that they were, at base, all the same plan: “Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!” The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes . . . was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift.
Now that newspapers are staring to drop dead, the survivors are rapidly shuffling through these ideas again, desperate to stop the bleeding, “demanding to know ‘If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?’”
Shirky’s answer: “Nothing.”
Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.
With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.
Shirky, like many Internet enthusiasts, is future-positive. For him, it’s time to get on with the revolution. Forget about saving newspapers. Instead, experiment with new ways of doing journalism in the digital era.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Time to Experiment With Made-to-Order Magazine
Made-to-order magazine lets readers choose
By RYAN NAKASHIMA
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Time Inc. is experimenting with a customized magazine that combines reader-selected sections from eight publications as it tries to mimic in printed form the personalized news feeds that have become popular on the Internet.
Called ``mine,'' the five-issue, 10-week experiment also aligns readers with the branding message that its sole advertising partner, Toyota Motor Corp., has for its new Lexus 2010 RX sport utility vehicle: It's as customizable as the magazine carrying its ads.
The magazine is free, but the print edition is limited to the first 31,000 respondents, while an online version is available for another 200,000.
Sign-ups are available immediately at http://www.timeinc.com/mine, with the first issue to be shipped in the mail in early April, and then once every two weeks. Online subscribers will get digital editions that look just like the printed version, but in a special format that allows virtual page turns with clicks. A promotional push for the magazine kicks off Friday.
Readers can select five titles from eight published by subsidiaries of Time Warner Inc. and American Express Co.: Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, In Style, Golf, and Travel + Leisure.
Editors will pre-select the stories that make it into every biweekly issue, and readers won't have the option of changing the picks from issue to issue.
By RYAN NAKASHIMA
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Time Inc. is experimenting with a customized magazine that combines reader-selected sections from eight publications as it tries to mimic in printed form the personalized news feeds that have become popular on the Internet.
Called ``mine,'' the five-issue, 10-week experiment also aligns readers with the branding message that its sole advertising partner, Toyota Motor Corp., has for its new Lexus 2010 RX sport utility vehicle: It's as customizable as the magazine carrying its ads.
The magazine is free, but the print edition is limited to the first 31,000 respondents, while an online version is available for another 200,000.
Sign-ups are available immediately at http://www.timeinc.com/mine, with the first issue to be shipped in the mail in early April, and then once every two weeks. Online subscribers will get digital editions that look just like the printed version, but in a special format that allows virtual page turns with clicks. A promotional push for the magazine kicks off Friday.
Readers can select five titles from eight published by subsidiaries of Time Warner Inc. and American Express Co.: Time, Sports Illustrated, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Money, In Style, Golf, and Travel + Leisure.
Editors will pre-select the stories that make it into every biweekly issue, and readers won't have the option of changing the picks from issue to issue.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
WJI Announces Series Speakers
Press Release Press Release
Dr. J. Bottum of First Things Highlights WJI May Luncheon Series
New York, N.Y., March 17, 2009-Dr. Joseph Bottum, successor to Fr. Richard
John Neuhaus as editor of First Things, will lead off the annual May
luncheon series at the World Journalism Institute on Tuesday, May 12. The
luncheon series is part of WJI's annual multi-week journalism course for
college Christian journalists held at The King's College in Manhattan.
Following Dr. Bottum on May 14, the New York author and director of Socrates
in the City, Eric Metaxas, will discuss his forthcoming book on Dietrich
Bonheoffer. On Saturday, May 16, former Los Angeles radio talk show host
John Ziegler will discuss his documentary Media Malpractice: How Obama Got
Elected and Palin Was Targeted.
On Monday, May 18, Warren Cole Smith, editor and publisher of the Evangelical Press News Service, will speak on his latest book, A Lover's Quarrel with the Evangelical Church. Then Andrea Peyser, columnist for the New York Post will discuss her latest book, Celebutards, on Wednesday, May 20. On Friday, May 22, Kevin Williamson, deputy managing editor of National Review, will discuss the role and responsibility of publishing an opinion magazine.
The series is open to the public, space permitting, and compliments of the
institute. For reservations, contact Kim Collins, Deputy Director of the
World Journalism Institute.
The institute is also accepting applications from college journalists to
attend the course, which will focus on backpack journalism and instruction
from top journalists.
The World Journalism Institute exists to recruit, equip, place and encourage
Christians in the newsrooms of America. Over six hundred students have
attended the WJI programs since it began in 1999. Such prominent writers and
journalists as Gay Talese, Hendrik Hertzberg, Nicholas Kristof, Victor
Navasky, James Fallows, Richard John Neuhaus, Rich Lowry, Juan Williams and
Fred Barnes have all participated in the lecture series.
For more information contact:
Kim Collins
World Journalism Institute
350 Fifth Avenue, #1500
New York, NY 10118
800-760-7870
kcollins@worldji.com
Dr. J. Bottum of First Things Highlights WJI May Luncheon Series
New York, N.Y., March 17, 2009-Dr. Joseph Bottum, successor to Fr. Richard
John Neuhaus as editor of First Things, will lead off the annual May
luncheon series at the World Journalism Institute on Tuesday, May 12. The
luncheon series is part of WJI's annual multi-week journalism course for
college Christian journalists held at The King's College in Manhattan.
Following Dr. Bottum on May 14, the New York author and director of Socrates
in the City, Eric Metaxas, will discuss his forthcoming book on Dietrich
Bonheoffer. On Saturday, May 16, former Los Angeles radio talk show host
John Ziegler will discuss his documentary Media Malpractice: How Obama Got
Elected and Palin Was Targeted.
On Monday, May 18, Warren Cole Smith, editor and publisher of the Evangelical Press News Service, will speak on his latest book, A Lover's Quarrel with the Evangelical Church. Then Andrea Peyser, columnist for the New York Post will discuss her latest book, Celebutards, on Wednesday, May 20. On Friday, May 22, Kevin Williamson, deputy managing editor of National Review, will discuss the role and responsibility of publishing an opinion magazine.
The series is open to the public, space permitting, and compliments of the
institute. For reservations, contact Kim Collins, Deputy Director of the
World Journalism Institute.
The institute is also accepting applications from college journalists to
attend the course, which will focus on backpack journalism and instruction
from top journalists.
The World Journalism Institute exists to recruit, equip, place and encourage
Christians in the newsrooms of America. Over six hundred students have
attended the WJI programs since it began in 1999. Such prominent writers and
journalists as Gay Talese, Hendrik Hertzberg, Nicholas Kristof, Victor
Navasky, James Fallows, Richard John Neuhaus, Rich Lowry, Juan Williams and
Fred Barnes have all participated in the lecture series.
For more information contact:
Kim Collins
World Journalism Institute
350 Fifth Avenue, #1500
New York, NY 10118
800-760-7870
kcollins@worldji.com
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Changing Face of High School Journalism
Here is a very interesting AP article on the changing face of high school journalism. This is an excerpt--to read the entire article, click here.
High school journos take all-platform plunge
By MARGARET STAFFORD
Associated Press Writer
LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. (AP) -- Josiah Jones is the editor-in-chief of an award-winning magazine, guiding a staff of 90 that also produces podcasts and a Web site.
It's heady stuff for an 18-year-old senior at Lee's Summit High School near Kansas City, Mo. After he graduates, Jones plans to pursue a journalism career, completely undeterred by the forces buffeting the profession. Newspapers are cutting back or closing and thousands of reporters have lost their jobs.
Media advocates worry that those factors - budget problems, advertising declines and the migration to Internet-based news delivery - are reaching into high school, leaving print publications especially vulnerable.
For now, the printed word remains a top focus of most high school journalism departments, but the move to add online components is growing, said Diana Mitsu Klos, senior project director for the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The ASNE hosts 2,626 student news sites on its online site. The site, which began in 2002, was connected to 150 student media sites by mid-2003, 400 at the end of 2006 and 735 in December 2007.
"There's no doubt that's the trend for youth journalism, to both post and consume online," Mitsu Klos said. "This is obviously the next and necessary step for them, to make the information available where (students') social networks are."
Others contend that high school journalism will thrive by finding ways to merge traditional print with Web-based publications. Jones is one of the optimists, but he's curious to see how journalism will be delivered when he graduates from college.
"I'm fascinated by what's happening multimedia-wise," Jones said. "It's going to open doors as far as what we can do as journalists. We'll continue to even out all our options between Internet-based publications, print journalism and everything in between."
High schools are embracing online publications because they allow more immediacy, innovations such as podcasts or videos and don't require a district to buy increasingly expensive newsprint and ink or sell advertising to support small press runs.
Patrick Stoddardt, the 16-year-old Web site editor at Lee's Summit High School's journalism lab, said the school is trying to "go where its audience is" by using social networking sites to draw readers.
But many students still prefer the printed publication.
High school journos take all-platform plunge
By MARGARET STAFFORD
Associated Press Writer
LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. (AP) -- Josiah Jones is the editor-in-chief of an award-winning magazine, guiding a staff of 90 that also produces podcasts and a Web site.
It's heady stuff for an 18-year-old senior at Lee's Summit High School near Kansas City, Mo. After he graduates, Jones plans to pursue a journalism career, completely undeterred by the forces buffeting the profession. Newspapers are cutting back or closing and thousands of reporters have lost their jobs.
Media advocates worry that those factors - budget problems, advertising declines and the migration to Internet-based news delivery - are reaching into high school, leaving print publications especially vulnerable.
For now, the printed word remains a top focus of most high school journalism departments, but the move to add online components is growing, said Diana Mitsu Klos, senior project director for the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The ASNE hosts 2,626 student news sites on its online site. The site, which began in 2002, was connected to 150 student media sites by mid-2003, 400 at the end of 2006 and 735 in December 2007.
"There's no doubt that's the trend for youth journalism, to both post and consume online," Mitsu Klos said. "This is obviously the next and necessary step for them, to make the information available where (students') social networks are."
Others contend that high school journalism will thrive by finding ways to merge traditional print with Web-based publications. Jones is one of the optimists, but he's curious to see how journalism will be delivered when he graduates from college.
"I'm fascinated by what's happening multimedia-wise," Jones said. "It's going to open doors as far as what we can do as journalists. We'll continue to even out all our options between Internet-based publications, print journalism and everything in between."
High schools are embracing online publications because they allow more immediacy, innovations such as podcasts or videos and don't require a district to buy increasingly expensive newsprint and ink or sell advertising to support small press runs.
Patrick Stoddardt, the 16-year-old Web site editor at Lee's Summit High School's journalism lab, said the school is trying to "go where its audience is" by using social networking sites to draw readers.
But many students still prefer the printed publication.
Seattle Newspaper Goes Down
Excerpted from the Washington Post. To read the entire article, click here.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper goes Web-only
By PHUONG LE
The Associated Press
Monday, March 16, 2009; 2:13 PM
SEATTLE -- The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has chronicled the news of the city since logs slid down its steep streets to the harbor and miners caroused in its bars before heading north to Alaska's gold fields, will print its final edition Tuesday.
Hearst Corp., which owns the 146-year-old P-I, said Monday that it failed to find a buyer for the newspaper, which it put up for a 60-day sale in January after years of losing money. Now the P-I will shift entirely to the Web.
"Tonight will be the final run, so let's do it right," publisher Roger Oglesby told the newsroom.
Hearst's decision to abandon the print product in favor of an Internet-only version is the first for a large American newspaper, raising questions about whether the company can make money in a medium where others have come up short.
David Lonay, 80, a subscriber since 1950, said he'll miss a morning ritual that can't be replaced by a Web-only version.
"The first thing I do every day is get the P-I and read it," Lonay said. "I really feel like an old friend is dying."
Hearst's move to end the print edition leaves the P-I's larger rival, The Seattle Times, as the only mainstream daily in the city.
"It's a really sad day for Seattle," said P-I reporter Angela Galloway. "The P-I has its strengths and weaknesses but it always strove for a noble cause, which was to give voice to those without power and scrutiny of those with power."
Seattle follows Denver in becoming losing a daily newspaper this year. The Rocky Mountain News closed after its owner, E.W. Scripps Co., couldn't find a buyer. In Arizona, Gannett Co.'s Tucson Citizen is set to close Saturday, leaving one newspaper in that city.
And last month Hearst said it would close or sell the San Francisco Chronicle if the newspaper couldn't slash expenses in coming weeks.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper goes Web-only
By PHUONG LE
The Associated Press
Monday, March 16, 2009; 2:13 PM
SEATTLE -- The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has chronicled the news of the city since logs slid down its steep streets to the harbor and miners caroused in its bars before heading north to Alaska's gold fields, will print its final edition Tuesday.
Hearst Corp., which owns the 146-year-old P-I, said Monday that it failed to find a buyer for the newspaper, which it put up for a 60-day sale in January after years of losing money. Now the P-I will shift entirely to the Web.
"Tonight will be the final run, so let's do it right," publisher Roger Oglesby told the newsroom.
Hearst's decision to abandon the print product in favor of an Internet-only version is the first for a large American newspaper, raising questions about whether the company can make money in a medium where others have come up short.
David Lonay, 80, a subscriber since 1950, said he'll miss a morning ritual that can't be replaced by a Web-only version.
"The first thing I do every day is get the P-I and read it," Lonay said. "I really feel like an old friend is dying."
Hearst's move to end the print edition leaves the P-I's larger rival, The Seattle Times, as the only mainstream daily in the city.
"It's a really sad day for Seattle," said P-I reporter Angela Galloway. "The P-I has its strengths and weaknesses but it always strove for a noble cause, which was to give voice to those without power and scrutiny of those with power."
Seattle follows Denver in becoming losing a daily newspaper this year. The Rocky Mountain News closed after its owner, E.W. Scripps Co., couldn't find a buyer. In Arizona, Gannett Co.'s Tucson Citizen is set to close Saturday, leaving one newspaper in that city.
And last month Hearst said it would close or sell the San Francisco Chronicle if the newspaper couldn't slash expenses in coming weeks.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Paid Ads on the Front Cover??
Hmmm....is this a good thing? Or not?
Creeping Onto the Front Covers of Magazines, Paid Ads
The April issue of Scholastic Parent & Child, scheduled to come out on Monday, will carry an ad on the front cover for the first time in the 16-year history of the magazine. The ad, for a company called Smilebox, will appear in the lower right corner of the cover and carry the label “advertisement” in small type.
The ad, a change in the magazine’s policy, came after discussions between the business and editorial sides of the magazine, owned by Scholastic Inc., as well as conversations about the concept with readers.
“There was a lot of thought put into it,” said Nick Friedman, the editor in chief of Scholastic Parent & Child. “We knew it was envelope-pushing.”
The results were deemed positive enough to go ahead with the cover ad for April and to sell cover ads for subsequent issues. The next one, planned for May, is being bought by the Juicy Juice line of beverages sold by Nestlé, one of the world’s largest advertisers.
To read the rest of the article, click here.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Rosa's Story -- Required Reading
This story is required reading for Monday, April 13, when Deb Sprong will be with us to discuss literary journalism. This is just an excerpt--the full story is posted on the portal. Please download it and read it--several times--before that night. We likely will also have a discussion guide to accompany it.
Rosa Lee’s Story: The Series
By Leon Dash
The Washington Post
Sept. 18-25, 1994
To read entire series, go to
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/rosalee/epilogue.htm
Part Two
Stealing Became a Way of Life
Rosa Lee Cunningham guided her 10-year-old grandson through the narrow aisles of the Oxon Hill thrift shop, past the crowded racks of secondhand pants and shirts, stopping finally at the row of children's jackets and winter coats.
The boy picked out a mock flight jacket, with a big number on the back and a price tag stapled to the collar.
"If you want it," Rosa Lee said, "then you're going to have to help me get it."
"Okay, grandmama," the boy said nervously. "But do it in a way that I won't get caught."
Like a skilled teacher instructing a new student, the 54-year-old Rosa Lee told the boy what to do. "Pretend you're trying it on. Don't look up! Don't look around! Don't laugh like it's some kind of joke! Just put it on. Let Grandma see how you look."
The boy slipped off his old coat and put on the new one. It was too big. Rosa Lee whispered, "Now put the other one back on, over it." She pushed down the new jacket's collar so that it was hidden.
"What do I do now?" the boy asked.
"Just walk on out the door," Rosa Lee said. "It's your coat."
Rosa Lee’s Story: The Series
By Leon Dash
The Washington Post
Sept. 18-25, 1994
To read entire series, go to
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/rosalee/epilogue.htm
Part Two
Stealing Became a Way of Life
Rosa Lee Cunningham guided her 10-year-old grandson through the narrow aisles of the Oxon Hill thrift shop, past the crowded racks of secondhand pants and shirts, stopping finally at the row of children's jackets and winter coats.
The boy picked out a mock flight jacket, with a big number on the back and a price tag stapled to the collar.
"If you want it," Rosa Lee said, "then you're going to have to help me get it."
"Okay, grandmama," the boy said nervously. "But do it in a way that I won't get caught."
Like a skilled teacher instructing a new student, the 54-year-old Rosa Lee told the boy what to do. "Pretend you're trying it on. Don't look up! Don't look around! Don't laugh like it's some kind of joke! Just put it on. Let Grandma see how you look."
The boy slipped off his old coat and put on the new one. It was too big. Rosa Lee whispered, "Now put the other one back on, over it." She pushed down the new jacket's collar so that it was hidden.
"What do I do now?" the boy asked.
"Just walk on out the door," Rosa Lee said. "It's your coat."
Granny Loves Facebook
Granny loves Facebook. And Skype. And her iPod.
New survey and statistics show older women embracing personal technology.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Patti McConnell is pretty much a typical Facebook user. The Calgary, Alberta, resident has been a member of the social-networking site for more than a year. She says she uses Facebook to stay in touch with friends, check out family members' pictures, and play word games such as Scramble and Twist.
Did we mention that McConnell is 61 years old? "I think it is wonderful," the computer-savvy grandmother says, though she admits she is still getting used to having the ability to peer into other people¹s personal lives. Says McConnell: "Sometimes you wonder if you're not being nosy."
Forget the stereotypes about senior women fearing technology. McConnell and peers are eagerly embracing Facebook and other high-tech solutions in a big way: According to Inside Facebook, a website devoted to tracking the social network, the fastest growing group of new U.S. users on Facebook are women 55-to-65 years old. That group, the site says, has grown 175% from September 30 to February 1, while American women overall increased about 43%.
Separately VibrantNation.com, an online site for mature women, recently asked women over the age of 50 to share their technology preferences. Of the 20,000 women who responded to the survey, 63% say they own an iPod or other MP3 player, and 30% of respondents say they use Skype, the voice-over-IP application. Some 28% of the women who responded to the opt-in survey say they use a Flip or other mini camcorder to shoot videos and upload them to the web.
"All of a sudden it seems the world is waking up to what we already know," says Carol Orsborn, a senior strategist for VibrantNation. "Women at midlife and beyond are early adopters [of technology], competitive with their kids, and in many cases, they are beating out their kids."
Stephen Reily, CEO of VibrantNation, says his site's research has found that older women tend to be big users of communications technologies -- services such as Skype and webcams that help them keep in touch with their networks of friends. "They're using technology to enhance the lives they already have, rather than filling the gap with gadgets that are a distraction, the way a teen boy might," says Reily.
The widespread use of tech among older women presents an interesting opportunity to makers and marketers of consumer electronics. Reily cites the example of one senior woman who purchased webcams and Skype services for all of her family members as a way to stay in touch.
Orsborn suggests that gadget-makers would do well to build products and services that appeal to senior women, partly because they are loyal customers but also because their needs aren't that different from the needs of the average consumer. "This is a very discerning and demanding market," she says. "If you hit a homerun with them you're going to hit a homerun with a lot of different markets. They want technology to be easy and intuitive, but that's something everyone wants."
New survey and statistics show older women embracing personal technology.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Patti McConnell is pretty much a typical Facebook user. The Calgary, Alberta, resident has been a member of the social-networking site for more than a year. She says she uses Facebook to stay in touch with friends, check out family members' pictures, and play word games such as Scramble and Twist.
Did we mention that McConnell is 61 years old? "I think it is wonderful," the computer-savvy grandmother says, though she admits she is still getting used to having the ability to peer into other people¹s personal lives. Says McConnell: "Sometimes you wonder if you're not being nosy."
Forget the stereotypes about senior women fearing technology. McConnell and peers are eagerly embracing Facebook and other high-tech solutions in a big way: According to Inside Facebook, a website devoted to tracking the social network, the fastest growing group of new U.S. users on Facebook are women 55-to-65 years old. That group, the site says, has grown 175% from September 30 to February 1, while American women overall increased about 43%.
Separately VibrantNation.com, an online site for mature women, recently asked women over the age of 50 to share their technology preferences. Of the 20,000 women who responded to the survey, 63% say they own an iPod or other MP3 player, and 30% of respondents say they use Skype, the voice-over-IP application. Some 28% of the women who responded to the opt-in survey say they use a Flip or other mini camcorder to shoot videos and upload them to the web.
"All of a sudden it seems the world is waking up to what we already know," says Carol Orsborn, a senior strategist for VibrantNation. "Women at midlife and beyond are early adopters [of technology], competitive with their kids, and in many cases, they are beating out their kids."
Stephen Reily, CEO of VibrantNation, says his site's research has found that older women tend to be big users of communications technologies -- services such as Skype and webcams that help them keep in touch with their networks of friends. "They're using technology to enhance the lives they already have, rather than filling the gap with gadgets that are a distraction, the way a teen boy might," says Reily.
The widespread use of tech among older women presents an interesting opportunity to makers and marketers of consumer electronics. Reily cites the example of one senior woman who purchased webcams and Skype services for all of her family members as a way to stay in touch.
Orsborn suggests that gadget-makers would do well to build products and services that appeal to senior women, partly because they are loyal customers but also because their needs aren't that different from the needs of the average consumer. "This is a very discerning and demanding market," she says. "If you hit a homerun with them you're going to hit a homerun with a lot of different markets. They want technology to be easy and intuitive, but that's something everyone wants."
San Francisco Chronicle May Survive
Deal aimed at keeping San Francisco Chronicle publishing
(CNN) -- San Francisco Chronicle has reached a tentative agreement with its largest union on contract concessions, a key step in keeping the newspaper from being sold or closed, officials announced Monday.
The Chronicle told employees last month that the paper was at risk if it did not stop bleeding millions. Its closing would leave San Francisco as the first U.S. metropolis without a major daily paper.
Members of the California Media Workers Guild, Local 39521, will vote as early as Thursday on the contract changes, the Chronicle reported Monday. Approval by a majority of union members is needed. The union negotiating committee recommended membership approval, the Chronicle reported.
Details of the agreement were not immediately available. But Hearst Corp., which owns the Chronicle, had said earlier that the paper has lost money every year since 2001, including more than $50 million last year.
Staff members at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer received similar news recently, with Hearst ownership saying the paper would be closed or turned into an Internet-only publication.
The struggles at the Chronicle and Post-Intelligencer reflect those of the newspaper industry, as readership and advertising have slumped nationwide.
Similar financial pressures caused the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News to announce in December that they would become the first major metropolitan newspapers in the United States to end daily home delivery. The owners of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News filed for bankruptcy last month because of a huge debt load. And the Denver Rocky Mountain News published its last issue last month after nearly 150 years
A Parable of the EPA Talents
A man going on a journey called his servants together and entrusted his
property to them. He gave one five talents of money, another two talents,
and another one talent.
The man who had received five talents used them to take his staff to the
Evangelical Press Association convention in Indianapolis. There they learned
to understand and meet the needs of their readers, to get more out of
freelance writers and non-journalists, and to implement a new publishing
strategy that increases revenue while reducing expenses.
As a result, their business prospered. The man with two talents did likewise, and his
publication also prospered. But the man who had been given one talent just stuck it in a mayonnaise jar and buried it in his yard.
The master of the servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man
who had been given five talents was able to return 10. "Master," he said,
"We went to the EPA convention and explored new marketing ideas, and we've
prospered." The master said, "Well done, faithful servant."
The man with two talents brought his master four, saying, "The advertising
sales discussion at the EPA convention helped me boost revenue, and the
chance to network with other publishing professionals was eye-opening." And
his master said, "Well done -- come share my happiness."
But the man who had received one talent was able to return only one talent,
and it smelled slightly of mayonnaise. "Master," he said, "I was frightened
by the economic downturn and thought it would be good to dig a hole and hide
until things magically got better on their own, rather than try to improve
my skills, add to my knowledge, or strengthen my publication."
His master replied, "What's wrong with you? Have you not read the e-mails
promoting the EPA convention? Did you not visit the EPA Web site to learn
about the helpful workshops being offered this year?" The master told his
staff, "Take his readers and advertisers and give them to the others.
"For those who do not panic will find opportunities for growth, while those who
are ruled by fear will lose what little they have. And make that worthless
servant stay home in early May, weeping and gnashing his teeth rather than
joining his peers in Indianapolis for the joint convention of the
Evangelical Press Association and the Associated Church Press."
Let he who has ears, hear. And let he who has not yet registered for the
convention, register:
http://www.epassoc.org/index.php/Register2009.html
property to them. He gave one five talents of money, another two talents,
and another one talent.
The man who had received five talents used them to take his staff to the
Evangelical Press Association convention in Indianapolis. There they learned
to understand and meet the needs of their readers, to get more out of
freelance writers and non-journalists, and to implement a new publishing
strategy that increases revenue while reducing expenses.
As a result, their business prospered. The man with two talents did likewise, and his
publication also prospered. But the man who had been given one talent just stuck it in a mayonnaise jar and buried it in his yard.
The master of the servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man
who had been given five talents was able to return 10. "Master," he said,
"We went to the EPA convention and explored new marketing ideas, and we've
prospered." The master said, "Well done, faithful servant."
The man with two talents brought his master four, saying, "The advertising
sales discussion at the EPA convention helped me boost revenue, and the
chance to network with other publishing professionals was eye-opening." And
his master said, "Well done -- come share my happiness."
But the man who had received one talent was able to return only one talent,
and it smelled slightly of mayonnaise. "Master," he said, "I was frightened
by the economic downturn and thought it would be good to dig a hole and hide
until things magically got better on their own, rather than try to improve
my skills, add to my knowledge, or strengthen my publication."
His master replied, "What's wrong with you? Have you not read the e-mails
promoting the EPA convention? Did you not visit the EPA Web site to learn
about the helpful workshops being offered this year?" The master told his
staff, "Take his readers and advertisers and give them to the others.
"For those who do not panic will find opportunities for growth, while those who
are ruled by fear will lose what little they have. And make that worthless
servant stay home in early May, weeping and gnashing his teeth rather than
joining his peers in Indianapolis for the joint convention of the
Evangelical Press Association and the Associated Church Press."
Let he who has ears, hear. And let he who has not yet registered for the
convention, register:
http://www.epassoc.org/index.php/Register2009.html
Monday, March 9, 2009
Chicago Trib Features Warsaw Story
A good example of localizing a story (note citing Chicago-area persons):
From the Chicago Tribune
Indiana town thrives as orthopedic manufacturing capital'
By Tim Jones | Tribune correspondent
8:33 PM EDT, March 8, 2009
WARSAW, Ind. — These days you can't count on people to buy cars, homes and other big-ticket items, not with more than 650,000 workers getting tossed out of their jobs every month.
But you can bet a bundle on this: As long as Baby Boomers keep falling apart, the orthopedic industry, much of it residing in this unpretentious little town in northern Indiana, should keep humming along nicely.
Warsaw, which bills itself as the "orthopedic manufacturing capital of the world," is the happy exception to widening economic misery because about 6,500 busy workers—roughly half the town's population—build replacement hips and knees that, unlike cars and RVs and other items made in this region, are in big demand.
For the remainder of the story, click here.
From the Chicago Tribune
Indiana town thrives as orthopedic manufacturing capital'
By Tim Jones | Tribune correspondent
8:33 PM EDT, March 8, 2009
WARSAW, Ind. — These days you can't count on people to buy cars, homes and other big-ticket items, not with more than 650,000 workers getting tossed out of their jobs every month.
But you can bet a bundle on this: As long as Baby Boomers keep falling apart, the orthopedic industry, much of it residing in this unpretentious little town in northern Indiana, should keep humming along nicely.
Warsaw, which bills itself as the "orthopedic manufacturing capital of the world," is the happy exception to widening economic misery because about 6,500 busy workers—roughly half the town's population—build replacement hips and knees that, unlike cars and RVs and other items made in this region, are in big demand.
For the remainder of the story, click here.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Oh, Those Vexing Gender Pronouns!
On Twitter, is it 'he or she' or 'they' or 'ip'?
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
(CNN) -- Twitter users may value brevity in their messages, but that doesn't mean they don't think about the social implications of language.
Is this [men working] sign sexist? Some say our language should be more inclusive of both genders.
"Can't we English-speakers just agree upon a gender-neutral pronoun?" attorney Paul Easton recently Twittered. "Tired of PC grammar gymnastics."
Easton isn't alone. There have been at least 18 recent tweets about the fact that English has no grammatically correct substitutes for words like "he," "him," and "his" that do not have a gender implied.
Consider the sentence "Everyone loves his mother." The word "his" may be seen as both sexist and inaccurate, but replacing it with "his or her" seems cumbersome, and "their" is grammatically incorrect.
"I find myself spending a lot of time reworking or obsessing over sentences to avoid sexist language, and wonder why we settled on these burdensome conventions rather than popularizing a gender-neutral pronoun," Easton said in an e-mail.
It turns out that an English speaker's mind can't instantly adopt an imposed new gender-neutral system of pronouns, linguists say. A sudden change in the system of pronouns or other auxiliary words in any language is very difficult to achieve.
That's because pronouns are "function words," which connect words and phrases but do not have "content" meanings. While new nouns like "cyberspace" and verbs like "to google" become widespread fairly quickly -- and people often come up with synonyms for "cool" -- it's much more difficult to introduce or change function words. The mind just won't incorporate them.
"The function words form a closed club that resists new members," Harvard University linguist Steven Pinker writes in his book "The Language Instinct."
Proposals for gender-neutral pronouns in English began cropping up in the 19th century -- not for reasons of equality, but for the sake of grammatical correctness, said Dennis Baron, professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. More than 100 such proposals, including "thon" and "ip," have arisen, and none of them has stuck.
It wasn't until the 1970s that the issue became about equality for women, Baron said.
Today, Internet forums such as Twitter are buzzing about why English doesn't have a good substitute for "they," and what could be done about it. Transgender groups have also taken an interest in the topic -- in fact, the Trans@MIT at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a gender-neutral pronoun system in its Allies Toolkit.
If there were a deeply felt need for gender-neutral pronouns, they would arise naturally and become widespread through popular culture rather than through an educational or governmental mandate, Baron said. But, for now, many people continue to write the phrase "him or her." iReport.com: Sneak a peek at a 'Tweetup' gathering of Twitter users
"Does it make our culture less sexist? Probably not. But it's a nice gesture," he said.
Signs of sensitivity
While everyone knows that "men at work" means "people working," studies have shown that gendered words do make a difference in how we perceive things, said Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, assistant professor of linguistics at The Ohio State University.
"If you ask children to draw 'cavemen,' they do draw cave men," she said.
The issue has public policy implications, too. In response to a complaint from a local magazine editor, the public works commissioner for Atlanta, Georgia, replaced 50 "Men Working" signs with signs that said "Workers Ahead" last year and encouraged contractors to use only the gender-neutral signs, said spokeswoman Valerie Bell-Smith. Replacing the signs cost less than $1,000 total, she said.
"There are many women who work in public works, and we want to be respectful and sensitive to the fact that they're out there, too, doing the hard construction work," she said. iReport.com: Share your 'tweeting' tips, tech obsessions
Cindy Scott Day, a writer from Granger, Indiana, who recently Twittered about gender-neutral pronouns, said words like "mailman" and "fireman" have fallen out of use, in favor of "mail carrier" and "firefighter." The "biggest dilemma" is the gender-specific pronoun (he or she) issue, she said.
The words that stay, the words that go
The pronouns "I" and "we" are some of the most ancient words, supporting the idea that function words are very resistant to change. New research from Britain suggests that these words, along with the numbers one, two, three and five, have been fairly consistent for thousands of years.
Researchers used a supercomputer to look at how words have been used throughout the centuries across the Indo-European family, which includes English, the Romance languages, the Slavic languages, and Indian tongues such as Hindi.
An obvious example of the preservation of an ancient word is "two." In Spanish it's "dos," in Slovak it's "dva," in Farsi it's "do" and in Hindi it's "do" -- all of which are strikingly similar ways of denoting the number two.
"We could time travel and have very limited conversation," said Mark Pagel, evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, who led the study. "We really believe that we can probably go back 20,000 years with those really, really old words."
Adjectives and verbs, on the other hand, change much more rapidly. The first one to go extinct will be the adjective "dirty," which will cease to be used to mean "unclean" in 750 years, Pagel said.
Other candidates for extinction are the verbs to "turn," "push," stab," "squeeze," and "throw." "To push" will likely go out of use in 850 years, Pagel said.
That's because these words have a very high rate of change, according to the computer model. Try translating them into other Indo-European languages, and you come up with very different results. For instance, already there are 46 unrelated ways of saying "dirty" in the Indo-European languages, a clear signal that in English it will fall out of use relatively quickly.
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
(CNN) -- Twitter users may value brevity in their messages, but that doesn't mean they don't think about the social implications of language.
Is this [men working] sign sexist? Some say our language should be more inclusive of both genders.
"Can't we English-speakers just agree upon a gender-neutral pronoun?" attorney Paul Easton recently Twittered. "Tired of PC grammar gymnastics."
Easton isn't alone. There have been at least 18 recent tweets about the fact that English has no grammatically correct substitutes for words like "he," "him," and "his" that do not have a gender implied.
Consider the sentence "Everyone loves his mother." The word "his" may be seen as both sexist and inaccurate, but replacing it with "his or her" seems cumbersome, and "their" is grammatically incorrect.
"I find myself spending a lot of time reworking or obsessing over sentences to avoid sexist language, and wonder why we settled on these burdensome conventions rather than popularizing a gender-neutral pronoun," Easton said in an e-mail.
It turns out that an English speaker's mind can't instantly adopt an imposed new gender-neutral system of pronouns, linguists say. A sudden change in the system of pronouns or other auxiliary words in any language is very difficult to achieve.
That's because pronouns are "function words," which connect words and phrases but do not have "content" meanings. While new nouns like "cyberspace" and verbs like "to google" become widespread fairly quickly -- and people often come up with synonyms for "cool" -- it's much more difficult to introduce or change function words. The mind just won't incorporate them.
"The function words form a closed club that resists new members," Harvard University linguist Steven Pinker writes in his book "The Language Instinct."
Proposals for gender-neutral pronouns in English began cropping up in the 19th century -- not for reasons of equality, but for the sake of grammatical correctness, said Dennis Baron, professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. More than 100 such proposals, including "thon" and "ip," have arisen, and none of them has stuck.
It wasn't until the 1970s that the issue became about equality for women, Baron said.
Today, Internet forums such as Twitter are buzzing about why English doesn't have a good substitute for "they," and what could be done about it. Transgender groups have also taken an interest in the topic -- in fact, the Trans@MIT at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a gender-neutral pronoun system in its Allies Toolkit.
If there were a deeply felt need for gender-neutral pronouns, they would arise naturally and become widespread through popular culture rather than through an educational or governmental mandate, Baron said. But, for now, many people continue to write the phrase "him or her." iReport.com: Sneak a peek at a 'Tweetup' gathering of Twitter users
"Does it make our culture less sexist? Probably not. But it's a nice gesture," he said.
Signs of sensitivity
While everyone knows that "men at work" means "people working," studies have shown that gendered words do make a difference in how we perceive things, said Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, assistant professor of linguistics at The Ohio State University.
"If you ask children to draw 'cavemen,' they do draw cave men," she said.
The issue has public policy implications, too. In response to a complaint from a local magazine editor, the public works commissioner for Atlanta, Georgia, replaced 50 "Men Working" signs with signs that said "Workers Ahead" last year and encouraged contractors to use only the gender-neutral signs, said spokeswoman Valerie Bell-Smith. Replacing the signs cost less than $1,000 total, she said.
"There are many women who work in public works, and we want to be respectful and sensitive to the fact that they're out there, too, doing the hard construction work," she said. iReport.com: Share your 'tweeting' tips, tech obsessions
Cindy Scott Day, a writer from Granger, Indiana, who recently Twittered about gender-neutral pronouns, said words like "mailman" and "fireman" have fallen out of use, in favor of "mail carrier" and "firefighter." The "biggest dilemma" is the gender-specific pronoun (he or she) issue, she said.
The words that stay, the words that go
The pronouns "I" and "we" are some of the most ancient words, supporting the idea that function words are very resistant to change. New research from Britain suggests that these words, along with the numbers one, two, three and five, have been fairly consistent for thousands of years.
Researchers used a supercomputer to look at how words have been used throughout the centuries across the Indo-European family, which includes English, the Romance languages, the Slavic languages, and Indian tongues such as Hindi.
An obvious example of the preservation of an ancient word is "two." In Spanish it's "dos," in Slovak it's "dva," in Farsi it's "do" and in Hindi it's "do" -- all of which are strikingly similar ways of denoting the number two.
"We could time travel and have very limited conversation," said Mark Pagel, evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, who led the study. "We really believe that we can probably go back 20,000 years with those really, really old words."
Adjectives and verbs, on the other hand, change much more rapidly. The first one to go extinct will be the adjective "dirty," which will cease to be used to mean "unclean" in 750 years, Pagel said.
Other candidates for extinction are the verbs to "turn," "push," stab," "squeeze," and "throw." "To push" will likely go out of use in 850 years, Pagel said.
That's because these words have a very high rate of change, according to the computer model. Try translating them into other Indo-European languages, and you come up with very different results. For instance, already there are 46 unrelated ways of saying "dirty" in the Indo-European languages, a clear signal that in English it will fall out of use relatively quickly.
Who Really Killed Rocky Mountain News?
Who Really Killed the Rocky Mountain News?
By Bob Diddlebock
"We are just deeply sorry."
That's all E.W. Scripps Co.'s Cincinnati, Ohio–based executives could mumble last week in closing Colorado's oldest company, the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News.
In shuttering an operation sprung in 1859 from a gold-mining camp just blocks from its downtown Denver home, Scripps directly or obliquely blamed everything — the economy, the Internet, demographics — and everybody — Denver Post panjandrum William Dean Singleton, ignorant consumers, bloggers — for the diminished tabloid's demise. They certainly were factors. (See the top 10 financial collapses of 2008.)
But the black hats in this sad Western tale are the suits: the Scripps' newspaper executives whose ineptitude over the past 25 years fumbled away a prime market to a competitor they should have killed off two decades ago.
When MediaNews Group boss Singleton rode into town to buy the scarred and limping Denver Post from Times Mirror Co. for next to nothing in 1987, the Rocky was riding high, thanks to the fevered legacy of former editor Michael Balfe Howard and a band of savvy local marketers.
A wild-and-crazy guy whose grandfather had co-founded Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Howard recruited smart, aggressive talent throughout the 1970s and let it loose to dig up dirt, badger Denver's cowboy-booted establishment and raise journalistic hell. Occasional newsroom gunplay and rampant staff drug use aside, those Hunter Thompson–like efforts paid off: the Rocky topped the Post's circulation in 1980. (Read "How to Save Your Newspaper.")
But Howard's cocaine-fueled rocket fizzled, and the suits in Cincy, tired of his crazed professional and personal ways, bounced him in 1980. Though circulation climbed, eventually hitting 447,000, and advertising continued to grow, Scripps coasted.
Cincinnati got complacent, refusing or declining, for example, to administer a kill shot to the Post, such as buying it before Singleton did, while parading faceless, small-thinking editors through the newsroom and importing ad execs who couldn't or wouldn't think local.
To read the remainder of the story,click here.
Friday, March 6, 2009
What Young People Say About Social Media
From Allen Weiss. Read the original plus comments here.
What the Young People Say About Social Media
Once upon a time I wrote a weekly column for an online technology magazine. When new Internet technologies and web sites emerged, I was tasked with predicting their fate.
Whenever I said something would take long to adopt (like e-books, for example), I got tons of hate email saying a) I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that b) the upcoming generation would look at the technology completely different than we did and readily adopt it. That I didn’t know what I was talking about wasn’t surprising, but what was curious was this faith that once younger people came along, everything would change.
Well, last week I had the chance to talk to two classes of undergrads at a major university about Internet marketing. After explaining search engine optimization, web analytics, paid search, etc the subject turned to social media.
I gave them the typical talk about listening, participating, having a dialog, giving up control, etc, and how social media is a big deal (you know, the standard rap about if you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the internet). Then I showed them the various social networking platforms and asked them which ones they participated in.
Now, just a bit of background here. These are juniors and seniors in a business school. When you look at them, you know these are the kids who aspire to move into the business world very soon.
So, the first class told me that MySpace was considered pretty passé, and they were all on Facebook and almost all on LinkedIn. When I asked about Twitter, however, only 4 (out of 40) in the first class used it.
I immediately posted a tweet about this and heard back from several people. Matt Collier, for example wondered whether many of them had even heard of Twitter (perhaps this was about non-awareness, rather than a disinterest in using this platform).
So, during the second class I asked this question again. It turns out almost everybody had heard of Twitter, but only 1 of 40 was using it. When I asked them why they were so disinterested, they explained they got most of this experience on Facebook and didn’t see the value. Frankly, the general comment was “why would anybody waste their time on this?”
When I showed them what TweekDeck looked like, I got almost pained looks and comments about information overload (this from a generation that has grown up with information overload).
Now, some people think that when relationships and business are important, these people will flock to Twitter. Hmm. Business is important to them right now and they are obsessed with finding jobs and building relationships. So, what does this platform mean for their future?
Other people think this is about being “ahead of the curve”. But whose curve are we talking about…the curve of people who are in business right now, or the younger generation that isn’t living in the land of curves?
As many who heard me talk about this subject know, I have no proverbial dog in this fight. I’m not an evangelist of any platform, just trying to understand what is going on.
But one thing I know is that you can’t have it both ways. If you believe that looking at younger people give you an idea of what will be popular in the future, then you have to seriously consider what this group of future business people are saying about the technologies they feel are valuable to them.
So, what do you think? Well, it turns out if you're over 20 years old, what you and I think isn't relevant here. But look through a really objective lens (no evangelism, please), and what do you see for the generation about to enter the working world?
What the Young People Say About Social Media
Once upon a time I wrote a weekly column for an online technology magazine. When new Internet technologies and web sites emerged, I was tasked with predicting their fate.
Whenever I said something would take long to adopt (like e-books, for example), I got tons of hate email saying a) I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that b) the upcoming generation would look at the technology completely different than we did and readily adopt it. That I didn’t know what I was talking about wasn’t surprising, but what was curious was this faith that once younger people came along, everything would change.
Well, last week I had the chance to talk to two classes of undergrads at a major university about Internet marketing. After explaining search engine optimization, web analytics, paid search, etc the subject turned to social media.
I gave them the typical talk about listening, participating, having a dialog, giving up control, etc, and how social media is a big deal (you know, the standard rap about if you’re not on a social networking site, you’re not on the internet). Then I showed them the various social networking platforms and asked them which ones they participated in.
Now, just a bit of background here. These are juniors and seniors in a business school. When you look at them, you know these are the kids who aspire to move into the business world very soon.
So, the first class told me that MySpace was considered pretty passé, and they were all on Facebook and almost all on LinkedIn. When I asked about Twitter, however, only 4 (out of 40) in the first class used it.
I immediately posted a tweet about this and heard back from several people. Matt Collier, for example wondered whether many of them had even heard of Twitter (perhaps this was about non-awareness, rather than a disinterest in using this platform).
So, during the second class I asked this question again. It turns out almost everybody had heard of Twitter, but only 1 of 40 was using it. When I asked them why they were so disinterested, they explained they got most of this experience on Facebook and didn’t see the value. Frankly, the general comment was “why would anybody waste their time on this?”
When I showed them what TweekDeck looked like, I got almost pained looks and comments about information overload (this from a generation that has grown up with information overload).
Now, some people think that when relationships and business are important, these people will flock to Twitter. Hmm. Business is important to them right now and they are obsessed with finding jobs and building relationships. So, what does this platform mean for their future?
Other people think this is about being “ahead of the curve”. But whose curve are we talking about…the curve of people who are in business right now, or the younger generation that isn’t living in the land of curves?
As many who heard me talk about this subject know, I have no proverbial dog in this fight. I’m not an evangelist of any platform, just trying to understand what is going on.
But one thing I know is that you can’t have it both ways. If you believe that looking at younger people give you an idea of what will be popular in the future, then you have to seriously consider what this group of future business people are saying about the technologies they feel are valuable to them.
So, what do you think? Well, it turns out if you're over 20 years old, what you and I think isn't relevant here. But look through a really objective lens (no evangelism, please), and what do you see for the generation about to enter the working world?
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