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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The Danger of Reporting in Real Time

Caroline Kennedy and Gov. David Paterson

By Clark Hoyt
New York Times Public Editor

Last Wednesday, The [New York] Times lifted the curtain on the origins of a nasty political attack against Caroline Kennedy, who had sought appointment to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat and then withdrew for unexplained “personal reasons.”

The newspaper said that Gov. David Paterson’s administration had “released confidential information about Ms. Kennedy and misled reporters about its significance as part of an orchestrated effort to discredit her after she withdrew.” The Times’s Danny Hakim and Nicholas Confessore reported that on the day after Kennedy’s decision, the governor’s top communications strategist, Judith Smith, directed at least two people to call reporters and tell them that Paterson was dismayed by Kennedy’s public auditioning for the Senate, that he never intended to appoint her and that she pulled out because of tax and nanny issues. ...

The article was a smart, useful revelation about New York hardball politics and the credibility of the state’s accidental governor. But it should have gone further. It should have examined The Times’s own role in the story — posting the orchestrated leak on its Web site and allowing “a person close to Gov. David A. Paterson” to make nasty comments about Kennedy anonymously.The episode highlights a great fear in newsrooms, including The Times’s: that the Internet, with its emphasis on minute-to-minute competition, is undermining the values of the print culture. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

What If Newspapers Didn't Exist?

Now is the time for newspapers to do something proactive; time for them to demonstrate what life would be like without them.

It's time for every daily newspaper in the United States, in cooperation with the Associated Press, to shut down their free Web sites for one week.

Yes. Shut it down. Blank screen. Nothing. [Click for MORE]

• The petition is available online at this link.

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Dark Days for Journalists

Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor

Employees of The Monitor looking through a prototype of a weekly newsmagazine that will supplement the Web site.

The paperless newspaper now a reality

The original opening of the TV show "Lou Grant" began with a bird in a tree, the tree chopped down, the wood turned to paper, paper delivered to a publishing plant. Newspapers came off the presses, were delivered, read and then used to line a bird's cage.

That was 31 years ago. If it seemed quaintly inefficient then, it still is, only more so—last night's stories put in your hands this morning at great effort and expense, then disposed of shortly thereafter.

So the Christian Science Monitor's announcement Tuesday that it is largely abandoning print for the Internet in April—giving up daily press runs in favor of a beefed-up Web site, complemented by daily e-mail editions and a weekly print magazine—is intriguing. [Click for MORE]

• Mourning Old Media’s Decline
• Now you see it, now you don't
• Gannett, Time Plan Massive Cuts
• LA Times lays off 10% of its editorial staff
• The Star-Ledger of Newark Plans 40% Cut

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The Monitor Ends Daily Print Edition

After a century of continuous publication, The Christian Science Monitor will abandon its weekday print edition and appear online only, its publisher announced Tuesday. The cost-cutting measure makes The Monitor the first national newspaper to essentially give up on print.

The paper is currently published Monday through Friday, and will move to online only in April, although it will also introduce a Sunday magazine. John Yemma, The Monitor’s editor, said that moving to the Web only will mean it can keep its eight foreign bureaus open while still lowering costs. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content

Uh-oh, Where Did Those Newspaper Web Ads Go?

File this under "It can always get worse." Amid the constant stream of circulation declines, vanishing ads and staff reductions that have afflicted print newspapers, some major publishers are seeing online-revenue declines for the first time.

Tribune Co., Lee Enterprises and E.W. Scripps all reported declines in web advertising during the most recent quarter, a worrying development in an industry that has been able to count on the uninterrupted growth of its websites during a period in which it has been able to count on little else. [Click for MORE] Sphere: Related Content