Failed Daily Pilot Bid Leads Veterans to Start News Site

Two California news veterans have launched an Internet news site after being unable to buy The Daily Pilot from its bankrupt parent company, Chicago-based Tribune Co.

Tom Johnson, the former publisher of the Daily Pilot, and Bill Lobdell, the paper’s former editor, started the Newport-Mesa Daily Voice site last week after failing to raise the $500,000 to $1 million needed to buy the struggling newspaper.

“We believed we had a chance at buying the Daily Pilot out of bankruptcy court, and so everything was sort of set,” Lobdell said. “But we couldn’t raise what was needed.”

Tribune, which owns the Daily Pilot through the Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy protection in December seeking relief from $12 billion in debt that largely stems from taking the company private in 2007. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Entrepreneurs--The New Journalists

From LAbizObserved:

Kara Swisher from All Things Digital drops in on Sharon Waxman of The Wrap, and they talk about how both their news sites might become models for a new kind of journalism. Swisher gives us a little tour of Waxman's home in Santa Monica, where The Wrap is produced. Newsroom looks a little tight, but cozy. Lead investor of the entertainment site is Maveron, which is the investment vehicle for Starbucks head Howard Schultz.

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Knight Commission Invites Public Input on Community Information Needs

What information do Americans need to accomplish the personal goals and to be effective citizens in our democracy? How are they getting their news and information? And what would they do to improve the quality of news and information available to them?

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy (www.knightcomm.org) has been conducting the first major study in the digital age to identify the information needs of communities in a democracy, assess how and whether those needs are being met, and recommend steps to improve the fulfillment of those needs.

Now the Commission, in partnership with PBS Engage, is seeking public input from citizens across the nation from Tuesday April 21 – Friday May 8, 2009 at www.pbs.org/publicinput. The site offers an interactive experience and includes a preliminary draft of the introduction to the Commission’s report, survey questions for the public to answer, highlight videos from some of the public forums and meetings held by the Commission, blogs about the Commission’s work, and a forum for citizens to express their thoughts and opinions.

During the public input period, Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Products & User Experience, and Co-Chair of the Commission, will answer citizens’ questions about the Commission’s work via Google Moderator, which enables participants to both submit and vote on questions they think should be answered

The Commission’s upcoming final report will include recommendations for achieving the news and information environment that democratic communities need in order to thrive. The Commission launched in June 2008 with an aggressive agenda to assess the information needs of citizens from a variety of different types of communities in order to make concrete recommendations to public policy makers about improving local information flow. The free flow of news and information in communities is essential to effective democracy. With the digital age transforming media worldwide, reducing traditional journalism in a number of communities, the Commission is focused on how Americans will get the news and information they need to make informed decisions for themselves and for their communities.

Over the past year the Commission held seven public forums and meetings in communities across the nation and heard from more than 100 speakers, including community organizers, educators, journalists from old and new media, labor leaders, technology engineers and strategists, entrepreneurs, futurists, public officials, policy analysts, economic consultants and community foundation representatives. The Commission has also received significant input from an informal advisory network of journalists, academics, and people involved in policy and community work.

The Knight Commission, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, operates out of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program in Washington, D.C. It includes seventeen respected representatives of journalism, communities and public policy with diverse perspectives, including Co-Chairs Mayer and Theodore B. Olson, Partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and former U.S. Solicitor General, and ex-officio members Alberto Ibargüen and Walter Isaacson, presidents respectively of Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute. The Commission’s executive director is Peter Shane, a law professor at The Ohio State University, who is advised by a committee of journalists, policymakers and academic experts from a variety of fields. For more information on the Knight Commission, visit www.knightcomm.org.

Peter M. Shane
Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law and
Director, Project on Law and Democratic Development
The Ohio State University
Moritz College of Law
55 West 12th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210

Executive Director, Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy
www.knightcomm.org

Phone: 614-688-3014
FAX: 614-688-8422
URL: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/pshane
E-Mail: shane.29@osu.edu or pshane@andrew.cmu.edu Sphere: Related Content

Journalism Online: Time to Pay for Online News

Is the end of ad-supported "free" online news upon us? A new venture called Journalism Online believes that online news needs to start charging subscription fees, and it wants to be the one-stop subscription site that makes it all possible. Backed by some heavy hitters, the company could reshape the online news ecosystem. [Click for MORE]

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Detroit Papers: First Monday Without New Edition

Missing from the doorsteps and driveways of many Michigan homes Monday morning: newspapers.

In a bold but risky move aimed at ensuring their survival in the digital age, The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press are reducing home delivery to the three days a week most popular with advertisers — Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Slimmed-down newspapers, sold at regular prices, will be available in news racks and convenience stores the other four days.

The Detroit publishers hope to cut costs significantly, without sacrificing newsroom staff, to survive a recession that has exacerbated losses from ads shifting to the Internet. Millions of dollars in advertising have eroded over the past year in a city and state being hammered by foreclosures, high unemployment and the near-collapse of the auto industry. [Click for MORE]

• Detroit’s Daily Papers Are Now Not So Daily

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Can Save-Our-Paper Bake Sales Be Far Behind?

Jonathan Mann of Berkeley, Calif., posts a song daily on Rock Cookie Bottom blog. His week-old Saving Newspapers has been viewed more than 2,600 times, ranking it No. 9 among his 75 videos. Most-viewed: Hey Paul Krugman (A song, A plea), seen more than 144,000 times.

Hat tip / GannettBlog.com Sphere: Related Content

Papers as We Know Them May Cease to Exist ... But What Will Become of the News Itself?

CBS Sunday Morning Sphere: Related Content

HE KILLED HER BECAUSE HE LOVED HER !

By Clay Shirky

Back in 1993, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain began investigating piracy of Dave Barry’s popular column, which was published by the Miami Herald and syndicated widely. In the course of tracking down the sources of unlicensed distribution, they found many things, including the copying of his column to alt.fan.dave_barry on usenet; a 2000-person strong mailing list also reading pirated versions; and a teenager in the Midwest who was doing some of the copying himself, because he loved Barry’s work so much he wanted everybody to be able to read it.

One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I remember Thompson saying something to the effect of “When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.” [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Farewell Print, Hello Electrons

From Poynter Online:

The Christian Science Monitor March 27, 2009, Newseum Image

March 27, 2009: Two messages from Page One of the last daily print edition of The Christian Science Monitor:

The New Monitor

This issue of The Christian Science Monitor represents a significant moment in our 100-year history. As of today, the daily Monitor makes its transition from print to online. Follow us 24/7 at CSMonitor.com and subscribe to our new print weekly. The Monitor move, which was announced last fall, is being watched by other news organizations, many of which are weighing changes of their own.

Editor's Message
John Yemma explains how our new formats -- Web, weekly print, e-mail -- will make Monitor journalism more relevant. Sphere: Related Content

New SeattlePI.com Strategy: 'Experiment a Lot, Fail Fast'

Today the Seattle Post-Intelligencer delivers its final print edition, tomorrow it debuts as an online-only publication. The new SeattlePI.com will try to answer the question raised by its executive producer Michelle Nicolosi: "Is it possible to run an online-only local news site that serves a city's readers well while turning a profit?"Nicolosi says, "Our strategy moving forward is to experiment a lot and fail fast" [Click for MORE]

Seattle Paper Shifts Entirely to the Web

The Post-Intelligencer is the largest American paper to drop its print edition and become an Internet-only entity.

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer to become Web-only newspaper
• Photo gallery: Last publication day at the P-I
• Video: The P-I staff: What we'll remember about the paper
• seattlepi.com to continue
• Video: Publisher's announcement
• Special section: P-I memories
• Letter to readers
• More about the new seattlepi.com
• Connelly: Online-only P-I will be a journalism adventure
• PDF of commemorative P-I page
• Questions and answers for Seattle P-I subscribers
• The PI's globe will keep on spinning
• Hearst Ends 'Post-Intelligencer's 146-Year Run
• Will 'Seattle Times' Follow 'PI' Into the Sunset?
• Hearst Closing Seattle P-I Print Edition, Going Online Only
• P-I's closure offers "cautious relief" for Seattle Times, but no solution
• The last deadline: Seattle's oldest newspaper goes to press for the final time
• P-I reporter: "It hasn't really sunk in yet"
• Political leaders react to P-I closure
• The P-I's globe will keep on spinning
• Pioneers, statehood, fires, wars: It was all in the Seattle P-I
• Voices added character to P-I
• Read historic front pages from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• Gallery | The Seattle P-I through the years
• Statement from Frank Blethen (PDF)
• Ryan Blethen | Preserve local newsgathering
• Archive | Hearst says it's no longer interested in buying Seattle Times

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Seattle Paper Takes First Step to Turn Into Online-Only Publication

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper is advancing plans to turn into an online-only publication, an untested experiment for a big city daily.

Hearst, which owns the P-I, said on Jan. 9 that the company would take 60 days to decide whether to sell the 118,000-circulation paper, convert it into a Web site, or shut it down entirely. People at the P-I say some journalists have been approached in recent days about working for an online-only publication. [Click for MORE]

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Hearst to Begin Charging for Digital News

Hearst Corp. said its newspapers plan to hold back at least some content from their free Web sites, launching the publisher onto the vanguard of print media companies to begin charging for their digital news and information.

A top executive at Hearst, which publishes 16 newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said the company is mulling how much of its online offerings to keep free, while reserving some content exclusively for people who pay. [Click for MORE]

iTunes proves newspapers can and should charge for online access

Newspapers need to band together for a joint online subscription service.

Digital readers would pay a monthly fee -- let's say $10 -- and in return they'd have full access to the likes of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times and any other paper that wants to be part of the consortium (the more the merrier).

I'll leave it to the lawyers as to whether this would require an antitrust exemption from the government. [Click for MORE]

• Newsday plans to charge for online news
• Information wants to be expensive

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Newsday Plans to Charge for Online News

Cablevision Systems Corp plans to charge online readers of its Newsday newspaper, a move that would make it one of the first large U.S. papers to reverse a trend toward free Web readership.

Newsday, which covers the New York suburb of Long Island, was bought by Cablevision in a $650 million deal last May that was widely criticized on Wall Street as a puzzling move into a troubled newspaper market.

Cablevision had to write down Newsday's value by $402 million on Thursday, pushing its fourth-quarter results to a loss, as U.S. print advertising sales and circulation have dropped with more readers seeking free news on the Web. [Click for MORE]

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2 Papers Get State Bailout for Internet Training

Two Minnesota newspapers will receive a share of state grants normally given to retrain workers in manufacturing and other industries in transition.

The Duluth News Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press will work with the University of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communication to help staff adapt to an increasingly Internet-based industry.

Minnesota Job Skills Partnership is awarding $238,000 in state funds, while the newspapers and the university will contribute about $469,000 combined, mostly by devoting staff time to training.

Paul Moe, the state program's director, said newspapers around the country are looking closely at the project as a potential model.

Kathleen Hansen, director of the university's Minnesota Journalism Center, said the grant idea came from the Pioneer Press. She said the application was unusual for a state agency more accustomed to businesses that deal in plastics or crop machinery.

"This is a very different kind of workforce group," she said. [Click for MORE]

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Charlie Rose: Future of Newspapers

Discussion with Walter Isaacson of Time, Mort Zuckerman of the New York Daily News and Robert Thomson of the Wall Street Journal. Sphere: Related Content

Hearst's Seattle Paper: Sell, Shutter or Digitize

John Dickson / P-I

P-I business editor Margaret Santjer, left, works with senior online producer Sarah Rupp as they post a story about the P-I's being put up for sale. In the background, Steven Swartz, president of The Hearst Corp.'s newspaper division, addresses the staff. At right is managing editor David McCumber.

From Associated Press:

Hearst Corp. put Seattle's oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, up for sale Friday, saying that if it can't find a buyer in the next 60 days, the paper will close or continue to exist only on the Internet.

"These options include a move to a digital-only operation with a greatly reduced staff or a complete shutdown of all operations," Hearst, the Post-Intelligencer's parent company, said in a statement. "In no case will Hearst continue to publish the P-I in printed form following the conclusion of this process."

Hearst Newspaper Division President Steve Swartz broke the news in a meeting with newspaper employees.

The statement said Hearst is not considering buying the Seattle Times, the city's other daily paper. Hearst has owned the P-I since 1921, and the paper has had operating losses since 2000, including $14 million last year.

The mood in the newsroom was grim. Some staff members cried, others were angry.

"People are kind of depressed. There's some crying," said Candace Heckman, P-I breaking news editor who has worked at the paper since 2000. She said Mr. Swartz was peppered with many questions by staffers but declined to say more.

"Our journalists continue to do a spectacular job of serving the people of Seattle, which has been our great privilege for the past 88 years," Mr. Swartz said in a written statement. "But our losses have reached an unacceptable level, so with great regret we are seeking a new owner for the P-I.

Chris Grygiel, an assistant city editor, said neither Mr. Swartz nor P-I executives took questions at the meeting. "People are just pretty shocked and amazed."

> After 146 years, the newspaper's days are numbered: 60

> Seattle P-I up for sale; could go online-only

Elsewhere:

> Monitor to trim its staff by 7 percent

> Buffalo News offers new round of employee buyouts

> Dow Jones Freezes Salaries

> Boston Globe will sell space for ads on front page

> Star Tribune heading for bankruptcy after Guild bolts?

> St. Louis Post-Dispatch laying off 39, with 14 in newsroom

> Body Count at Singleton's Los Angeles Newspaper Group

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How Newspapers Tried to Invent the WebBut failed

By Jack Shafer
Slate

A moment of sympathy, please, for newspapers, whose readers and advertisers have been fleeing at a frightening rate.

It would be easy to accuse editors and publishers of being clueless about the coming Internet disruption and to insist that the industry's proper reward for decades of haughty attitude, bad planning, and incompetence is bankruptcy.

But newspapers have really, really tried to wrap their hands around the future and preserve their franchise... [Click for MORE]

> Papers still searching for online answers Sphere: Related Content

Dailies Go Darwin

Reports of newspapers' death are exaggerated — but after the changes coming in 2009, will we still recognize them?

If you're a tree, you're probably feeling pretty good right now. We've long known that the traditional newspaper — a hard-copy compendium of the previous day's events, printed on an obscene amount of wood byproduct — was terminally ill. But two of 2008's big media developments — the Christian Science Monitor's plan to kill its daily print edition outright, and the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press's decision to radically scale back their print operations and refocus online — suggests that the traditional newspaper's death will come sooner than anyone imagined.

But the term "newspaper" has another meaning, too: it's an organization staffed with men and women who report and analyze the news for the public. Newspapers in this sense aren't about to go extinct. [Click for MORE]

> AsianWeek to cease print publication Friday
> Kansan going online-only starting Jan. 10
> Lee Enterprises warned by NYSE it may be delisted
> Village Voice Lays Off Nat Hentoff and 2 Others
> Gannett, Register cuts extend into eastern Iowa Sphere: Related Content

Americans Prefer News From Web to Newspapers

From AFP:

The Internet has surpassed newspapers as the main source for national and international news for Americans, according to a new survey.

Television, however, remains the preferred medium for Americans, according to the survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Seventy percent of the 1,489 people surveyed by Pew said television is their primary source for national and international news.

Forty percent said they get most of their news from the Internet, up from 24 percent in September 2007, and more than the 35 percent who cited newspapers as their main news source.

Only 59 percent of people younger than 30 years old prefer television, Pew said, down from 68 percent in the September 2007 survey.

The latest survey was conducted December 3-7 and released on Tuesday. Pew did not provide the margin of error.

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News You Can Lose

By James Surowiecki,
The New Yorker

The real problem for newspapers ... isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content