Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Last Post... here
I've moved on to a new venture. Today I launched DocumentaryTech, which I created and will edit, but will work with in association with a number of people, including Kurt Lancaster of the University of Northern Arizona, David Tames of Mass. College of Art, Brynmore Williams of GlobalPost.com, and others. It won't be opinion, but rather interviews and articles (with video) on people making documentaries and how they do it. Check it out if you can!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
On to a new venture...
In the last year I've generated something like 60,000 words on this blog, and I look at it as a book of short essays, now completed. After a year of posting some general thoughts on new media, I'll be shifting to a new blog that will be sponsored by several organizations, and will focus more directly on the technology and techniques of storytelling. I'm hoping to launch by September 1. For those who might be interested, I'll update here with a post...
Monday, July 6, 2009
Will a libel suit against Alaskan blogger lead to new standards for citizen journalism?
I’m not a political partisan, by any means, but the announcement today by the FBI saying that Sarah Palin is not under investigation for any wrongdoing – a highly unusual announcement – is an interesting aspect of the rise of bloggers and citizen journalists.
After Palin’s surprise announcement that she was stepping down as governor of Alaska, much speculation swirled, although a decade ago that speculation would have swirled within the walls of newsrooms with efforts to substantiate.
But an Alaskan blogger named Shannyn Moore (“Just a Girl from Homer,” is her slogan, a far cry from “All The News That’s Fit To Print”) has gone online claiming Palin was being investigated by the FBI for embezzlement and tax evasion. How the news cycle was affected by one apparent amateur deciding to launch that kind of bomb is an indicator of the troubles that come with the shift from professional media to the era of “news blogging.”
Palin was slammed in the fall as a woman without much of a resume, but the fact remains she had been elected governor by Alaskan voters. But Moore’s “About” section of her blog is an exercise in nontransparency, only mentioning she “got fired from radio” (never mentioning for whom she worked, or what news she ever covered) and that she has a radio show on a local channel (but below that is a reader comment from August 2008 saying, “I miss Shannyn’s show so much. Will she be back on the air anytime in the near future?”).
Ah, but that’s me being too “Old Media,” thinking education, experience or credentials might mean something, or be a springboard to how seriously we might take this person.
And in a nod to New Media, I’d agree that if the facts are incontrovertible, then the source’s nonprofessionalism isn’t a factor: The New York Times hasn’t cornered the market on verifiable facts (although they do seem to have an awful lot of them!).
If the Times ran such an item, the lawsuit would undoubtedly come. But here’s an obscure blogger armed with only what appears to be a weak resume and sketchy experience – and likely little in the way of recoverable assets worthy of a libel suit – whom Palin has said she will go ahead and sue anyway. I'd guess Moore is more than surprised.
Martha R. Gore, writing for Examiner.com, wonders, “If Sarah Palin decides to go ahead with a defamation suit against blogger Shannyn Moore, who wrote that the Governor resigned because she was under criminal investigation, it may give others who have been defamed the courage to go after other bloggers who can be accused of ‘malice’ in creating unfounded rumors about them on the Internet.”
But the measurable damage to Palin, if Moore's accusations prove untrue, is made much stronger by the willingness of more established media to even quote people like Moore (using the now-ubiquitous "reportedly," aka "I have no idea if these statements are true"). From KTUU-TV's website: Moore writes for Huffington Post and has been interviewed by MSNBC and other national media outlets.
"Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully," said Moore. "What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July, speaking her mind? What's wrong with her? The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from people like her." Beyond that fact that the first sentence in that quote is the kind of amateurish nonsequiter even a decent editor would catch, Moore may want to consider a brush-up on her Media Law. Stating that someone is under investigation for wrongdoing by the FBI isn't an "opinion."
The blogging world has always been fast and loose below that first tier; I think what emboldens so many of them is probably embodied in Moore’s situation: Either nobody much pays attention to you and you get to feeling as if you can ignore journalistic quality, legal caution and common sense; or, like her, she will accept the double edge of both being the potential target of a libel suit, being discredited by the FBI, and being famous. It’s something like being on one of those “Real Housewives” shows, where the cost of being on TV never seems to inhibit the rush of being on TV. Just as these reality show people humiliate and shame themselves just to have their faces on the tube and make a few dollars, stopping some bloggers by appealing to professionalism and legality may hold little sway. As much as Moore’s apparently massive journalistic error may be something traditional media would be appalled by, and which journalism educators would use as an object lesson, I’m afraid it’s exactly the kind of fame-whoring payoff that will somehow make more people like herself think this kind of work is in any way acceptable. For Perez Hilton, the cost of his blogging antics was getting his lights punched out by a guy named Will.I.Am. For Moore, it may be a financially crippling lawsuit from Palin and her supporters (remember, as neither an elected official nor a candidate, Palin can legally accept help from anyone on this - I'm doubtful, conversely, that anyone will be lining up to throw money into Moore's defense).
As someone who is not much of a Palin fan, I'm not offended on her behalf. But I am offended if it turns out this was a blogger who had no qualms about making such a serious accusation. And I'm sure a lot of non-Republicans will watch with interest to see if the lawsuit is filed, and if it will be successful. The question of whether this will serve as a cautionary tale that can create a new standard for accuracy in citizen journalism remains to be seen.
After Palin’s surprise announcement that she was stepping down as governor of Alaska, much speculation swirled, although a decade ago that speculation would have swirled within the walls of newsrooms with efforts to substantiate.
But an Alaskan blogger named Shannyn Moore (“Just a Girl from Homer,” is her slogan, a far cry from “All The News That’s Fit To Print”) has gone online claiming Palin was being investigated by the FBI for embezzlement and tax evasion. How the news cycle was affected by one apparent amateur deciding to launch that kind of bomb is an indicator of the troubles that come with the shift from professional media to the era of “news blogging.”
Palin was slammed in the fall as a woman without much of a resume, but the fact remains she had been elected governor by Alaskan voters. But Moore’s “About” section of her blog is an exercise in nontransparency, only mentioning she “got fired from radio” (never mentioning for whom she worked, or what news she ever covered) and that she has a radio show on a local channel (but below that is a reader comment from August 2008 saying, “I miss Shannyn’s show so much. Will she be back on the air anytime in the near future?”).
Ah, but that’s me being too “Old Media,” thinking education, experience or credentials might mean something, or be a springboard to how seriously we might take this person.
And in a nod to New Media, I’d agree that if the facts are incontrovertible, then the source’s nonprofessionalism isn’t a factor: The New York Times hasn’t cornered the market on verifiable facts (although they do seem to have an awful lot of them!).
If the Times ran such an item, the lawsuit would undoubtedly come. But here’s an obscure blogger armed with only what appears to be a weak resume and sketchy experience – and likely little in the way of recoverable assets worthy of a libel suit – whom Palin has said she will go ahead and sue anyway. I'd guess Moore is more than surprised.
Martha R. Gore, writing for Examiner.com, wonders, “If Sarah Palin decides to go ahead with a defamation suit against blogger Shannyn Moore, who wrote that the Governor resigned because she was under criminal investigation, it may give others who have been defamed the courage to go after other bloggers who can be accused of ‘malice’ in creating unfounded rumors about them on the Internet.”
But the measurable damage to Palin, if Moore's accusations prove untrue, is made much stronger by the willingness of more established media to even quote people like Moore (using the now-ubiquitous "reportedly," aka "I have no idea if these statements are true"). From KTUU-TV's website: Moore writes for Huffington Post and has been interviewed by MSNBC and other national media outlets.
"Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully," said Moore. "What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July, speaking her mind? What's wrong with her? The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from people like her." Beyond that fact that the first sentence in that quote is the kind of amateurish nonsequiter even a decent editor would catch, Moore may want to consider a brush-up on her Media Law. Stating that someone is under investigation for wrongdoing by the FBI isn't an "opinion."
The blogging world has always been fast and loose below that first tier; I think what emboldens so many of them is probably embodied in Moore’s situation: Either nobody much pays attention to you and you get to feeling as if you can ignore journalistic quality, legal caution and common sense; or, like her, she will accept the double edge of both being the potential target of a libel suit, being discredited by the FBI, and being famous. It’s something like being on one of those “Real Housewives” shows, where the cost of being on TV never seems to inhibit the rush of being on TV. Just as these reality show people humiliate and shame themselves just to have their faces on the tube and make a few dollars, stopping some bloggers by appealing to professionalism and legality may hold little sway. As much as Moore’s apparently massive journalistic error may be something traditional media would be appalled by, and which journalism educators would use as an object lesson, I’m afraid it’s exactly the kind of fame-whoring payoff that will somehow make more people like herself think this kind of work is in any way acceptable. For Perez Hilton, the cost of his blogging antics was getting his lights punched out by a guy named Will.I.Am. For Moore, it may be a financially crippling lawsuit from Palin and her supporters (remember, as neither an elected official nor a candidate, Palin can legally accept help from anyone on this - I'm doubtful, conversely, that anyone will be lining up to throw money into Moore's defense).
As someone who is not much of a Palin fan, I'm not offended on her behalf. But I am offended if it turns out this was a blogger who had no qualms about making such a serious accusation. And I'm sure a lot of non-Republicans will watch with interest to see if the lawsuit is filed, and if it will be successful. The question of whether this will serve as a cautionary tale that can create a new standard for accuracy in citizen journalism remains to be seen.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Two pieces of writing making points about free content
I'm synthesizing two very interesting pieces of writing today, but of which I presume to be paid work, and which take opposite sides on the debate.
In my soggy New Yorker that came through the mail slot at the height of today’s thunderstorm is a piece by the highly-paid Malcolm Gladwell challenging Chris Anderson’s notion that “information wants to be free in the same way water wants to run down hill… things made of information are losing value.” And the piece is free here.
That’s bad news for an information-based economy; it’s worse for the notion of professional journalism.
By late afternoon, and the skies turning gray, I was sent a link from a friend with a piece in Gawker.com by Hamilton Nolan entitled “Let's Screw Up the Entire Internet to Save Newspapers.” Nolan, who I’m less certain wrote the piece for pay, and certainly not at New Yorker rates, makes the case that ideas such as Judge (and author) Richard Posner’s idea of making linking a copyright infringement, or Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist Connie Schultz’s idea of legislating a 24-hour embargo on content before it can be linked “The idea that it's worth crippling the entire free flow of information on the internet in order to add to the bottom line of newspaper companies is prima facie idiotic,” Nolan writes. And in writing, he makes the point indirectly: His writing, as a commodity, just isn’t close to Gladwell’s; his argumentation is worse. He’s just spinning an angry riff that could not have taken long to write. Gladwell’s prose speaks of deliberation and thought. It's the difference between grilling a hamburger and creating a dish at a Michelin three-star restaurant. Yeah, they're both cooking... but not really...
And as a commodity, good content isn’t cheap to make. If talented people can’t earn a wage on their content, they find other things to do. Amateurs and hobbyists fill that vacuum, and as much as a once-in-a-blue-moon talent rises from that crowd, usually it doesn’t (the latest internet-to-book sensation is the blog Look at This Fucking Hipster, which tells you way too much about the state of the book industry).
Nolan sees the Posner and Schultz ideas as insidious ways to feed corporate interests; I see newspapers (having toiled at several of them) from cubicle level – already-not-well-paid professionals doing good work under tough conditions and worrying about how to support their families.)
Information may want to be free, but work such as Gladwell’s runs uphill. Where Nolan’s piece is just a blast from a laptop, a rainy afternoon considering what a writer like Gladwell has to say is a intellectual experience, which I want more of.
The notion of linking only has validity if there’s something good to link to: Something substantive, meaningful and important (and sometimes just entertaining). Information sought out, hard-won, well rendered. If there isn’t a way of compensating talent for work, then the new “free” journalism comes at a larger cost.
In the end, the "newspaper," (by which I really mean an organization that gathers and reports news, and puts it out in print or online) is still where all the news is. TV, YouTube, personal blogs and other amateurish efforts simply won't replicate the work of professionals.
Addendum: Here's a piece, also from Gawker, about Andrew Sullivan wanting to write for free. But he's being paid. But he'd do it anyway. Weird.
In my soggy New Yorker that came through the mail slot at the height of today’s thunderstorm is a piece by the highly-paid Malcolm Gladwell challenging Chris Anderson’s notion that “information wants to be free in the same way water wants to run down hill… things made of information are losing value.” And the piece is free here.
That’s bad news for an information-based economy; it’s worse for the notion of professional journalism.
By late afternoon, and the skies turning gray, I was sent a link from a friend with a piece in Gawker.com by Hamilton Nolan entitled “Let's Screw Up the Entire Internet to Save Newspapers.” Nolan, who I’m less certain wrote the piece for pay, and certainly not at New Yorker rates, makes the case that ideas such as Judge (and author) Richard Posner’s idea of making linking a copyright infringement, or Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist Connie Schultz’s idea of legislating a 24-hour embargo on content before it can be linked “The idea that it's worth crippling the entire free flow of information on the internet in order to add to the bottom line of newspaper companies is prima facie idiotic,” Nolan writes. And in writing, he makes the point indirectly: His writing, as a commodity, just isn’t close to Gladwell’s; his argumentation is worse. He’s just spinning an angry riff that could not have taken long to write. Gladwell’s prose speaks of deliberation and thought. It's the difference between grilling a hamburger and creating a dish at a Michelin three-star restaurant. Yeah, they're both cooking... but not really...
And as a commodity, good content isn’t cheap to make. If talented people can’t earn a wage on their content, they find other things to do. Amateurs and hobbyists fill that vacuum, and as much as a once-in-a-blue-moon talent rises from that crowd, usually it doesn’t (the latest internet-to-book sensation is the blog Look at This Fucking Hipster, which tells you way too much about the state of the book industry).
Nolan sees the Posner and Schultz ideas as insidious ways to feed corporate interests; I see newspapers (having toiled at several of them) from cubicle level – already-not-well-paid professionals doing good work under tough conditions and worrying about how to support their families.)
Information may want to be free, but work such as Gladwell’s runs uphill. Where Nolan’s piece is just a blast from a laptop, a rainy afternoon considering what a writer like Gladwell has to say is a intellectual experience, which I want more of.
The notion of linking only has validity if there’s something good to link to: Something substantive, meaningful and important (and sometimes just entertaining). Information sought out, hard-won, well rendered. If there isn’t a way of compensating talent for work, then the new “free” journalism comes at a larger cost.
In the end, the "newspaper," (by which I really mean an organization that gathers and reports news, and puts it out in print or online) is still where all the news is. TV, YouTube, personal blogs and other amateurish efforts simply won't replicate the work of professionals.
Addendum: Here's a piece, also from Gawker, about Andrew Sullivan wanting to write for free. But he's being paid. But he'd do it anyway. Weird.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Citizen journalism, from the banal to the uplifting
Two very different examples of citizen journalism emerged over the weekend that work as a good reminder of both how meaningless and how crystallizing citizen-produced journalism can be.
The Sunday New York Times ran a gushing piece "On the party circuit, with clicks as currency," about a spunky young lady from Omaha uses a blog to get herself into the party scene in The Hamptons, using unpaid employees who seem thrilled just to be in the same room with Kelly Klein (ex-wife of Calvin Klein). These citizen journalists get to dress up, cruise around in a Range Rover (even though the site's creator, 26-year-old Rachel Hruska says the site only broke even for the first time last month) and live rent-free in the Hamptons beach house of a "friend" of Ms. Hruska.
It's everything that the worst of citizen journalism has to offer: banality, opportunism and a possible payoff that seems mostly self-serving (getting invited to the right parties with the right people). I think of the line from the Ron Howard movie "The Paper" in which the crusty editor (Robert Duvall) reminds the social-climbing managing editor (Glenn Close) that "the people we cover, we move in their world, but it's their world."
As The Times rolls out nonsense, YouTube has a video that may change the world in some way, the shooting in Iran of a girl identified as 26-year-old Neda Soltan who dies on the street as the camcorder documents it. Stalin once said "One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic." In statistic-driven journalism ("60 killed in car bombing in Baghdad"), it's all from afar; here, Neda is being called "The Face of the Revolution." The response to this video has rattled across the world. The unidentified citizen journalist who recorded this is likely not particularly skilled or experienced as a journalist, but the moment carries its own power (and note there is actually more than one video of Neda's death, as there are four versions of another iconic photo, the man in Tiananmen Square blocking a row of tanks - the other video I saw actually has the person's finger on the lens). And the citizen journalist was on the streets in the midst of the event, not holing up in a borrowed summer house and the cabin of a Range Rover, looking for the next party. And Time Magazine, sticking stubbornly to that stodgy old-media model of actually confirming facts, noted Sunday in its cutline that Neda was "allegedly" shot - exactly the kind of sober cautiousness that citizen journalists often ridicule. (If this event turns out to be staged, that will be another cautionary tale about the efficacy of citizen journalism...)
But the indication is that this was a real event, caught in all its rawness. So, as the bad kind of self-referential, me-me-me citizen journalism gives journalism a bad (or at least diminished) rep, one video clip shot handheld and uploaded to the mostly idiotic YouTube has a chance to help determine history.
The Sunday New York Times ran a gushing piece "On the party circuit, with clicks as currency," about a spunky young lady from Omaha uses a blog to get herself into the party scene in The Hamptons, using unpaid employees who seem thrilled just to be in the same room with Kelly Klein (ex-wife of Calvin Klein). These citizen journalists get to dress up, cruise around in a Range Rover (even though the site's creator, 26-year-old Rachel Hruska says the site only broke even for the first time last month) and live rent-free in the Hamptons beach house of a "friend" of Ms. Hruska.
It's everything that the worst of citizen journalism has to offer: banality, opportunism and a possible payoff that seems mostly self-serving (getting invited to the right parties with the right people). I think of the line from the Ron Howard movie "The Paper" in which the crusty editor (Robert Duvall) reminds the social-climbing managing editor (Glenn Close) that "the people we cover, we move in their world, but it's their world."
As The Times rolls out nonsense, YouTube has a video that may change the world in some way, the shooting in Iran of a girl identified as 26-year-old Neda Soltan who dies on the street as the camcorder documents it. Stalin once said "One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic." In statistic-driven journalism ("60 killed in car bombing in Baghdad"), it's all from afar; here, Neda is being called "The Face of the Revolution." The response to this video has rattled across the world. The unidentified citizen journalist who recorded this is likely not particularly skilled or experienced as a journalist, but the moment carries its own power (and note there is actually more than one video of Neda's death, as there are four versions of another iconic photo, the man in Tiananmen Square blocking a row of tanks - the other video I saw actually has the person's finger on the lens). And the citizen journalist was on the streets in the midst of the event, not holing up in a borrowed summer house and the cabin of a Range Rover, looking for the next party. And Time Magazine, sticking stubbornly to that stodgy old-media model of actually confirming facts, noted Sunday in its cutline that Neda was "allegedly" shot - exactly the kind of sober cautiousness that citizen journalists often ridicule. (If this event turns out to be staged, that will be another cautionary tale about the efficacy of citizen journalism...)
But the indication is that this was a real event, caught in all its rawness. So, as the bad kind of self-referential, me-me-me citizen journalism gives journalism a bad (or at least diminished) rep, one video clip shot handheld and uploaded to the mostly idiotic YouTube has a chance to help determine history.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Should J-schools teach entrepreneurship?
It's the time of year where I'm sitting writing letters of recommendation and looking over the resumes newly graduated students have asked me to review. And one irony of teaching college journalism these days is that for all the attention given to how newspapers and local TV are "dying," and passe, most of the students I know are applying for jobs at... newspapers and affiliate TV.
The reason is fairly simple: Because despite the talk of the new models, newspapers and affiliate TV are the largest companies in a given region producing journalism, and are the places where a new hire can at least potentially have a salary, benefits and two weeks of vacation. These old-media organizations already have established audiences. Beyond that, the new J-grads can potentially enter a work environment that is somewhat delineated, with clearer responsibilities and some notion of mentorship. Many of these grads have at least rudimentary new-media skills, but they're trying to sell those skills to the old media (and one thing that's much clearer is that rudimentary skills in shooting and editing video, or coding in HTML, or doing slide shows, are skills every twentysomething journalism grad has to have - that's no longer a clear edge).
What none of them appear to be doing is viewing themselves as free agents who will have to build individual journalistic brands, become experts in some topic or area, figure out how to amass audience, then figure out how to monetize the audience's attention. They don't appear to be moving into the new-media model of self-creation.
But that is largely what being in new media involves. It requires these small operators to carry the dual roles of journalist and business person. It requires much work before a dollar is ever turned and many dead ends.
The question of journalism curriculum is evolving as quickly as the business itself. If successful journalism will require its practitioners to determine their own business models, should business courses, particularly in entrepreneurship, be an essential part of journalism curriculum?
Some of that would involve identifying the basics of the market and its needs: What kind of journalism does my community lack or need, and how do my skills potentially enable that?
Part of it is marketing: If I correctly perceive audience, how do I quantify that and make it available to advertisers? Or how do I write a grant that proves that nonproft funding will truly serve a public need?
Then you’re on to accounting: What outlay can I make for the equipment necessary to do this job (for even basic work, can I afford the $5,000 to $10,000 for good equipment? Will my $150 Flip camera and laptop be capable of producing the quality work I need to do to look professional?) What salary should I be paying myself? When does the time come to bring on employees? Can I afford the $450 a month for individual health coverage?
That last question leads to management: Do I have any ability to manage employees? Do I want to? Can I provide them with guidance and development? Should I then create a corporation or foundation?
And once you’re done with all that, the biggest question of all: Are my skills and talents sufficiently developed that I can do all this without the ongoing mentorship large media companies have traditionally provided?
I don’t know how much journalism students would enjoy taking business courses, but some exposure to entrepreneurship at least sensitizes them to the changing media world. It makes them aware that if they’re quick to dismiss established old media, or more likely can't crack them for a job, then they will need to be conceiving and executing news ideas, models and breakthroughs.
For those students just out of school and applying to old media, the prospects are not encouraging. Especially with the economy down and ad revenue depressed, few papers and affiliates are doing much hiring of entry level (our program's top graduate from 2008 told me he applied for a job so low-paying he wondered if he could afford it, even living with his parents; no need to worry, since the job went to a 12-year veteran journalist who was relocating from California to New Hampshire for the job).
So with little or no preparation in how to start or run a small business, many of these better and more motivated grads will become "accidental entrepreneurs," starting their own news organizations and probably holding other McJobs to fund their journalistic passions. As the model changes, the curriculum at the schools they attended might have to as well.
Further thinking on paid content
I've written a piece that's posted on today's Nieman Journalism Lab site about the Newport Daily News and its decision to charge for online content.
Because the Lab site draws people who are interested and committed to the new online model of journalism, the comments have been a little chippy, if not plain nasty. The notion that the News will surely fail at its mission seems part of it; an anger about what they're doing in Newport is part of it as well.
But, when you look at the plight of small-town papers across the country, it's a fact they have to do something, even if with limited staffs and resources.
But going down to Newport and chatting with the folks at the News, as I did last week, left me with an impression not of resistance or naivete to new models but rather a simple pragmatisim about how you run a business right now. To wit:
1) Online isn't making small newspapers any money. The News will charge $345 a year for online only. That is clearly a good bit of money to charge, and the News may realize little revenue from it. If they don't, is it a failure? After all, newspapers aren't making any money giving away content. Television from its earliest days gave away content, but it was the ad dynamic that made it work. Advertisers clearly don't believe their ads are effective on online newspapers. But in a town like Newport and many towns across the country, small businesses still advertise in the newspaper because they don't have the equipment or employees to maintain their own websites. So if the News makes very little money on its new online plan, it's really no substantive loss.
And remember that while big newspapers like the Boston Globe or New York Times are building audience that has no geographical limit, and might attract large-scale advertisers, small papers like the News are unlikely to draw much audience beyond Newport County - having print circulation of 12,000 in a county of an estimated 35,000 households, which is a pretty good penetration rate these days.
2) Online isn't working as a promotional or selling tool for the print product, but so far is funded by the print business it threatens to drive into extinction. It's such a parent-child relationship. Old Dad hands the teenager the car keys and cash so the teenager can go out with like-minded, parentally funded teenagers and bemoan what a out-of-touch loser Dad is. If having a really great online product brought value and revenue to your print product, that's a good reason to have a site. But the News clearly has come to believe a free-online site is simply creating a cheaper competitor for its own moneymaking products. It doesn't work in any other line of business, does it? If a restaurant gives away free food out front but makes you pay only if you come in and sit down, people won't come in and sit down. Ten years ago, most newspaper websites were seen as promotional vehicles for the print product. Now, most organizations seem to be holding on and hoping the advertisers show up (Later this week I'm covering the Advertising 2.0 conference in New York. Of the many speakers and panels, none addresses news websites as part of the new configuration).
3) If the paid-content model doesn't draw customers but the newspaper holds steady with circulation, that may be a win. For people who mostly get news online, it can be a shock to pick up a paper and open it. There's still a lot of advertising, or at least far more than online. Magazines still feature glossy page after glossy page. There is money being made, although less. And factor in some part of the public, such as myself, who more often reads the news online simply because of the convenience of having it right there on my screen. If the newspaper I read most suddenly stopped making it that easy for me, I might buy the print version more -often: Maybe just Sunday, maybe a few days a week. It depends on what I think I'm missing. For a smaller newspaper that sells local stuff and very little national/world, it's an interesting risk. If small newspapers simply stopped putting out their news free on websites, what would happen? If unpaid bloggers could fill the vacuum, a newspaper would want to do a little self-examination.
4) Newspaper people have families and bills - why wouldn't they stay where the profits are? Why wouldn't they do what they can to keep profits steadier? Look at the Time Magazine piece this week on what happens if journalism fails, and it is just another confirmation that nobody has the alternative yet. For, say, college professors sitting at a safe distance, this can all seem very easy. Try wondering if you can pay your child's tuition. If the "business" model of universities failed, some people might stay on to teach for free, but a lot would go looking for work that paid the rent.
5) No one who loves journalism should be so gleeful about the business problems of the papers. One of the great things about my travels for the Nieman Journalism Lab is to meet so many people who are both forward-thinking about online but appreciate the fact that newspapers have value, or are at least vessels of something with that value. The old polarity of New-Media screamers railing to get online its due respect is outmoded. We get it, the horseless carriage is here to stay! The real question is, how do you keep talented, serious journalists in positions in which they can afford to do top-notch work? I suspect if the online model comes along, the people at the News will gladly retire their presses, but for now they are doing what they clearly feel they have to do (a favorite movie line from Barcelona in which Fred the Navy officer tells cousin Ted that on a ship "We work in all four dimensions, and if we screw up, it can get very wet...")
Unpaid journalism is, in essence, a hobby. Some hobbysists are very passionate and skilled. But the ethos of the professional in large part comes with the notion that their work and talent has a hard value. Even the most "successful" online news sites have few employees, low salaries, transient staffs and the inability to fund long sustained examinations of difficult topics. Talking Points Memo's Polk Award for the retired-generals story was encouraging, but for a very long time top newspapers have invested in such enterprise constantly. One of the reasons web journalism stays so embedded in celebrities and entertainment is because those people are dying for attention; such stories can be gotten fairly easily from the publicists and managers paid to get them in the news. Try digging through the corruption of state governments filled with people who devote themselves to obscuring, lying and hiding their antics and really think about whether unpaid journalists can keep on keeping on only on principle.
6) Maybe the right model just isn't here yet. Don't forget that today's teenagers see email as tragically unhip. Facebook now has its own official deathwatch. Texting, Twittering and such devices as the the Kindle and other electronic readers may be places it can all go. At the lab, Zach and Josh's series on the New York Times R&D people show that just as you're getting settled into this way of doing, somebody's already come up with the next way.
Because the Lab site draws people who are interested and committed to the new online model of journalism, the comments have been a little chippy, if not plain nasty. The notion that the News will surely fail at its mission seems part of it; an anger about what they're doing in Newport is part of it as well.
But, when you look at the plight of small-town papers across the country, it's a fact they have to do something, even if with limited staffs and resources.
But going down to Newport and chatting with the folks at the News, as I did last week, left me with an impression not of resistance or naivete to new models but rather a simple pragmatisim about how you run a business right now. To wit:
1) Online isn't making small newspapers any money. The News will charge $345 a year for online only. That is clearly a good bit of money to charge, and the News may realize little revenue from it. If they don't, is it a failure? After all, newspapers aren't making any money giving away content. Television from its earliest days gave away content, but it was the ad dynamic that made it work. Advertisers clearly don't believe their ads are effective on online newspapers. But in a town like Newport and many towns across the country, small businesses still advertise in the newspaper because they don't have the equipment or employees to maintain their own websites. So if the News makes very little money on its new online plan, it's really no substantive loss.
And remember that while big newspapers like the Boston Globe or New York Times are building audience that has no geographical limit, and might attract large-scale advertisers, small papers like the News are unlikely to draw much audience beyond Newport County - having print circulation of 12,000 in a county of an estimated 35,000 households, which is a pretty good penetration rate these days.
2) Online isn't working as a promotional or selling tool for the print product, but so far is funded by the print business it threatens to drive into extinction. It's such a parent-child relationship. Old Dad hands the teenager the car keys and cash so the teenager can go out with like-minded, parentally funded teenagers and bemoan what a out-of-touch loser Dad is. If having a really great online product brought value and revenue to your print product, that's a good reason to have a site. But the News clearly has come to believe a free-online site is simply creating a cheaper competitor for its own moneymaking products. It doesn't work in any other line of business, does it? If a restaurant gives away free food out front but makes you pay only if you come in and sit down, people won't come in and sit down. Ten years ago, most newspaper websites were seen as promotional vehicles for the print product. Now, most organizations seem to be holding on and hoping the advertisers show up (Later this week I'm covering the Advertising 2.0 conference in New York. Of the many speakers and panels, none addresses news websites as part of the new configuration).
3) If the paid-content model doesn't draw customers but the newspaper holds steady with circulation, that may be a win. For people who mostly get news online, it can be a shock to pick up a paper and open it. There's still a lot of advertising, or at least far more than online. Magazines still feature glossy page after glossy page. There is money being made, although less. And factor in some part of the public, such as myself, who more often reads the news online simply because of the convenience of having it right there on my screen. If the newspaper I read most suddenly stopped making it that easy for me, I might buy the print version more -often: Maybe just Sunday, maybe a few days a week. It depends on what I think I'm missing. For a smaller newspaper that sells local stuff and very little national/world, it's an interesting risk. If small newspapers simply stopped putting out their news free on websites, what would happen? If unpaid bloggers could fill the vacuum, a newspaper would want to do a little self-examination.
4) Newspaper people have families and bills - why wouldn't they stay where the profits are? Why wouldn't they do what they can to keep profits steadier? Look at the Time Magazine piece this week on what happens if journalism fails, and it is just another confirmation that nobody has the alternative yet. For, say, college professors sitting at a safe distance, this can all seem very easy. Try wondering if you can pay your child's tuition. If the "business" model of universities failed, some people might stay on to teach for free, but a lot would go looking for work that paid the rent.
5) No one who loves journalism should be so gleeful about the business problems of the papers. One of the great things about my travels for the Nieman Journalism Lab is to meet so many people who are both forward-thinking about online but appreciate the fact that newspapers have value, or are at least vessels of something with that value. The old polarity of New-Media screamers railing to get online its due respect is outmoded. We get it, the horseless carriage is here to stay! The real question is, how do you keep talented, serious journalists in positions in which they can afford to do top-notch work? I suspect if the online model comes along, the people at the News will gladly retire their presses, but for now they are doing what they clearly feel they have to do (a favorite movie line from Barcelona in which Fred the Navy officer tells cousin Ted that on a ship "We work in all four dimensions, and if we screw up, it can get very wet...")
Unpaid journalism is, in essence, a hobby. Some hobbysists are very passionate and skilled. But the ethos of the professional in large part comes with the notion that their work and talent has a hard value. Even the most "successful" online news sites have few employees, low salaries, transient staffs and the inability to fund long sustained examinations of difficult topics. Talking Points Memo's Polk Award for the retired-generals story was encouraging, but for a very long time top newspapers have invested in such enterprise constantly. One of the reasons web journalism stays so embedded in celebrities and entertainment is because those people are dying for attention; such stories can be gotten fairly easily from the publicists and managers paid to get them in the news. Try digging through the corruption of state governments filled with people who devote themselves to obscuring, lying and hiding their antics and really think about whether unpaid journalists can keep on keeping on only on principle.
6) Maybe the right model just isn't here yet. Don't forget that today's teenagers see email as tragically unhip. Facebook now has its own official deathwatch. Texting, Twittering and such devices as the the Kindle and other electronic readers may be places it can all go. At the lab, Zach and Josh's series on the New York Times R&D people show that just as you're getting settled into this way of doing, somebody's already come up with the next way.
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