With journalism and the newspaper industry deteriorating with every new member that becomes persuaded to end their paper subscription and venture online to the digital interface, my proposal to help end this destruction and aid recovery gains more and more bearing.  

With my proposal, all news outlets should become either online-only news organizations, or must strongly emphasize an online component that highly outweighs a paper edition.  Now, I am referring to newspaper and magazine companies/organizations as I explain my proposal.    

These companies must go online only because the current trend of digital consumerism exemplifies where and how people want to receive their news.  People would much rather go online and read an article where they can also get supporting information via the Internet.  Currently, people can read an article and find other articles or data from other websites almost instantaneously with just a click of a button.  This is extremely hard to compete with, and also a very, very, very big reason why paper editions aren’t successful as this seismic shift of digital consuermism takes a stronger hold.  People are becoming exponentially better at USING the news to make sense of the world around them, and having news outlets go online is the first step to help cater to this new generation.  

Once all these companies have their content online and do away with their paper editions, the restructuring of physical administrative buildings must then ensue.  Since there is no more paper, ink, presses, needed room for labor-intensive work, delivery men and other accessories/equipment, the actual space needed will be downsized appropriately.  In exchange, other newsrooms will be created in other areas that surround many local communities.  

Let me break it down.  So, imagine that we have a newspaper organization, like Long Island’s Newsday, for instance.  Currently, Newsday has one newsroom or administrative building, where the staff come to meet and write stories along with editors and managers, etc.  With my proposal, the current single newsroom will be severely downsized, remaining in Melville, and other smaller, appropriately-sized newsrooms will be built, say in Garden City, Manorville and the Hampton Bays.  The point of building more newsrooms is so that they can represent the surrounding local communities.  The amount of newsrooms for Newsday that I just outlined is just preliminary and is subject to change.  

The focus, thus, of my proposal is to restructure a newspaper organization so that more, hopefully all, of the local communities are represented in the news.  There is so much news that is not included because there is either not enough reporters and/or the range of a newspaper doesn’t exceed a certain distance.  With my proposal, these new newsrooms will be strategically centered around as many local communities as possible to maximize the amount of local communities covered.  

Since there will be less staff due to all the services and labor-intensive work that will be cut, the news organization can hire more reporters/editors.  Additionally, reporters will not be required to come to the newsroom every day.  In fact, they might have to come only once-a-month.  Since news organizations will be online-only now, the reporters can write the stories wherever they please, however deadlines will still be enforced and adhered to with penalties if disobeyed.

So far, jobs will be produced, more individuals will be represented in the news via a hyperlocal structure, and reporters will save money since they aren’t required to go into the office every single day.  

Further, all reporters will be required to be Internet-savvy and must be able to edit/shoot video and tag them to the story to add value.  People don’t just want to read a story these days, they want to actually see a video or slideshow to get a visualization.  This will be possible since all stories will be online.  Also, the stories will essentially have close to no limit as to the length, since the stories will now be on the Internet.  Before, stories were limited to the area of the newspaper/magazine, but now that limitation has been eliminated.

As a final point, marketers and advertisers would benefit greatly from this proposal.  Many of these companies/advertisers will utilize new technologies like Google Latitude, which is an application for Google Maps that allows someone to see another person’s location on the map, to tailor their ads specifically to the user’s preference.  Advertisers/marketers will know the user’s interests from other technologies, like deep-packet inspection, which will allow advertisers/marketers to see what websites the user is viewing and what products/merchandise he or she is interested in and buying.  This will allow for a history of the individual to be taken so that each user will have their own file with the advertiser/marketer, making the ads specifically-tailored to the user.  For instance, let’s say that a user is in New York City and is ambling around to kill some time before a show.  As a news update or other message is sent to the user’s mobile device, the advertising company will automatically send messages or links to recommend a restaurant that is within the economic threshold of the user while also appealing to his or her tastes based on the history that has already been taken.  This history can obviously be modified, because as the user clicks on new sites or buys new things, an updated history is taken of that user and the ads are modified accordingly.

This proposal should do fine as long as news outlets allow it to occur.  Further, we will be receiving a large grant from the James L. Knight Foundation, and it is only a matter of time before this proposal begins to form a shape.  

As a sidenote in regard to this blog, I am very optimistic about the future of journalism, where my proposal along with other proposals, I am sure, are being discussed in newsrooms and corporate meetings all over the nation/world.  The only mistake that can be done is for corporations/news outlets to not listen or see the changes in how people want their news.  They can’t be giving the news to people through force, but they can let people get the news from them through the right incentives and methods.  People want the news more than ever before, so the drive is already there.  Also, people want to get their news from the Internet or their mobile devices (Smartphone, PDA, iPhone, laptop, etc), so the digital consumerism shift is already occuring.  The news is invincible and it can not die.  Even if newspapers and every single print story dies, the news is impossible to kill.  It just won’t happen.  

So, I am leaving this blog with the following.  Journalism, as a rare discipline that protects the powerless and critiques the powerful, is still well respected in all its variations.  With every bad and pessimistic story exhibiting the decline of newspapers nationwide and its circulation, a brighter story is hidden within.  The news can sometimes leave us confused because there is always an alternative view.  The job for journalists going into the field today is to understand that the secular changes occuring today are part of an extraordinary transition that will be spoken of for decades to come.  Do not be deterred and do not lose focus.  Some of the best times for journalism await on the other side of this wall and we’re all going there together.  I am indeed very optimistic about the future of journalism.  Ciao.

According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, it will be “launching a new statewide reporting initiative to produce in-depth multimedia journalism specific to California and to engage the public on issues of critical importance to the state.”

The CIR, “the oldest non-profit investigative reporting organization in the country,” is receiving grant money to get this program started.  ”It will launch with a grant of $1.2 million over three years from The James Irvine Foundation.  The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation also has awarded a grant of $1.2 million for the same time period, primarily for reporting on education, which is in part a challenge grant to encourage other funders to support this new initiative.”

Having a program that will emphasize and target investigative reporting is exactly what the field of journalism needs right now, especially as a national drama plays out with newspapers inching closer and closer to bankruptcy and closure.  

The CIR is also working with California Media Collaborative to allow Californians to utilize this new program in a way that will improve their daily lives.  The CIR “will partner with existing news organizations, journalism schools and other institutions to develop innovative ways to inform and engage Californians on issues that affect them in their communities and in their daily lives.”

The issues that will be targeted and investigated will include “education, the environment, immigration, state governance and public safety.”  This project is of utmost importance to help propell the idea that journalism must survive even in the face of death (referring to the death of newspapers).  

Also, CIR is in discussion with the “James L. Knight Foundation about supporting the project because of Knight’s interest in experimental new investigative reporting models.”

The CIR’s actions should definitely be a model for other organizations to follow, where every state should be at least inquiring about more information regarding the logistics and advantages of such a program.  In my opinion, the advantages would be massive because investigative stories are the most expensive and time-consuming to do.  Investigative reporting, thus, must be conserved because it will most likely be the first to go within a news outelet due to the amount of energy and funds to make it succeed.  Surrogating investigative journalism for other types of “cheaper journalism” is absolutely not the answer, and the CIR’s program is exemplary to the loyalty needed to save journalism.  

To read the full story from the CIR website, click here

As announced by The Daily Beast, “Murdoch’s News Corp. has set up a global team, based in New York, London and Sydney, to create a system for charging for online content in an environment where consumers have come to expect to get it for free.”  

The Wall Street Journal is already employing a program where readers must be subscribed to see the articles in full.  ”The team is said to be ‘looking at hardware’ to deliver the content in a ‘user-friendly way’—a prospect that will surely catch the attention of the developers of Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader.”

If this were to go into effect, it would affect papers like the Sunday Times, The Australian to the Times of London.  This move is indeed a smart one for Murdoch, especially as the New York Post, along with other newspapers nationwide, lose revenue and circulation to the Internet and a growing economic recession.

So many individuals are comfortable with the fact that they can go online and see the same content for free, while corporate managers and other administrators have become blind as to how to fix the problem.  The main solution is charging for this online content to complement this shift toward digital consumerism.  

I believe that Murdoch’s decision was timely and necessary, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see other companies follow suit.  

The article from the Daily Beast can be found here          

 

 

Image by blog.foreignpolicy.com

 

 

According to an article by the washingtonpost.com, the paper suffered losses after the first quarter of 2009 as circulation numbers lowered and expenses were drawn from its education division.

“The company reported a net loss of $19.5 million ($2.04 per share) on first-quarter revenue of $1.05 billion, compared with net income of $39.3 million ($4.08) on revenue of $1.06 billion in the first quarter of 2008.”

This is a common theme in many newspapers around the country, as the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press have cut delivery to the three days a week most popular with advertisers – Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, the Rocky Mountain News has closed, the San Francisco Chronicle is holding by a thread, and the bad news keep coming.

“In recent years, The Post Co. has received most of its revenue and earnings from its Kaplan Inc. education division and its Cable One cable division, and the same was true in the first quarter of this year, as the two units combined to generate 74 percent of company revenue. The newspaper division is now The Post’s third-biggest revenue generator, providing 15 percent of company revenue.”

It is sad to see one of this country’s best newspapers to be going through such trouble, and maybe it’s time for a new business model to seriously be thought out and immediately applied to help the Post and other companies get out of this funk.  The current economic recession is not helping matters either, so I believe that politicians, economists and think tanks should all work together to help reach a viable conclusion.  

Of course this time is an odd one and indeed a transitory period, but people must be practical about everything in order to yield minimal damage and to promptly move forward.

Image by www.nbtalk.com

“Internet users report a large increase in time reading online newspapers, according to the eighth annual Surveying the Digital Future project conducted by USC Annenberg’s Center for the Digital Future.”

This is very good news considering the abundance of negative news that is associated with the field of journalism right now.  

“The project found that 22 percent of users said they stopped their subscription to a printed newspaper or magazine because they could access the same content while online.”  This point should just jump out at management officials and corporate leaders, because it underscores a very, very, VERY important trend in news consumption.  That point is: people want to receive the news they want, when they want it.  And the easiest way to accomplish this is on the Internet.

People don’t have to be limited to the time limits of a show, or restricted to the $5 in their wallet so that they can buy a few newspapers/magazines anymore.  Now, people can surf online and read the same content as they would have before, FOR FREE!!!

Those last two words are unfortunately the reason why newspaper/magazine companies are doing so poorly, because the rise in digital consumerism and its correlated news consumption seem difficult to monetize.  Newspaper/magazine companies MUST charge for their content, however, because otherwise they will definitely cease to exist for much longer.  I believe that there is no reason that content that is displayed online should be free, especially because companies are losing rolls of money because of this fact.  People must realize that nothing in life is free and it’s time to change soon  now.

The fact that many people want to go online and receive their news is a good thing for newspapers. “For the first time in 60 years, newspapers are back in the breaking news business, Center for the Digital Future director and communication professor Jeffrey I. Cole said, “except now their delivery method is electronic and not paper.  Since the beginning of radio, newspapers have not been able to compete with broadcasting for delivery of immediate news.  But in a digital world, newspapers can compete at least as effectively for breaking news delivery with broadcast media.  On the Web, newspapers are live, and they can supplement their coverage with audio, video, and the invaluable resources of their vast archives.  And, they already have talented teams of reporters and editors who can deliver the news.”

In the next few decades, I believe that newspapers on the scale that it is now will be obsolete, and one can rest assured that newspapers will be almost entirely on the digital interface.  This is the only way that newspaper companies, like the New York Times Co., the Washington Post Co. and Hearst Newspapers will be successful in the future.

The article that discusses this from USC Annenberg School of Communication can be found here

According to Internetnews.com, Nielsen Media Research has found that Twitter and all of its users have the characteristics of a fad.  ”By Nielsen’s reckoning, more than 60 percent of Twitter users in a given month don’t return to the site the following month.”

This low retention rate has made some people think twice about joining Twitter, since most were under the impression that this was going to be the new face of social networking.

With just 140 characters, the hype for the use of Twitter might have outmatched its relevance, as most people Tweet during political elections or just to give useless updates.  Twitter can actually be a useful tool, but many people aren’t using it to necessarily lobby or push forward an agenda.  

Even stars like Oprah Winfrey are using Twitter.  ”Less than two weeks after creating her account, Oprah has amassed nearly 700,000 followers. The queen of daytime TV hopped on the Twitter bandwagon April 17, when she had CEO Evan Williams and celebrity Twitter enthusiast Ashton Kutcher on her show.  Kutcher was fresh from his victory over CNN in the race to 1 million Twitter followers.”

So in essence, Twitter has become a rat-race to see who can succumb the most followers and make irrelevant Tweets.  There is great potential, however, but the motivation has to be there.

The story from internetnews.com can be found here

Image from www.guardian.co.uk

In an article by mediabistro.com, “Globe reporters and the Boston Newspaper Guild have teamed with local politicans to host a rally at noon ‘in support of saving the Boston Globe.’

This seems like the Globe’s attempt to save itself from failing, as newspapers all over the nation fall victim to a rise in digital consumerism.  Many newspaper organizations have traditional journalists who are finding themselves out of place in this modernized world.  It is time for the new journalists who have Internet-savvy skills to surrogate the older individuals.  Only then will these newspaper company’s have a chance, and even then the probability is low.  

Online news is the status quo for many news outlets, and subscriptions to online news services are taking a stronger grip.  Take the Wall Street Journal, for example, which has utilized paid subscriptions for quite some time now.  Maybe it’s time for other news outlets to follow suit.  

The article by mediabistro can be found here.                                                                            

       

So deep-packet inspection sounds very intimidating.  Well, conceptually speaking, there is a lot going on.  DPI is a type of computer network packet filtering, where the data portion of packets can be monitored.  Put simply, a network/internet service provider can track a user down to his or her click.  

For some, this seems like an obstruction of one’s privacy.  For others, it is the next step in digitalized marketing.  If a company knows that someone is into surfing, then the next time he or she is checking her email, Reef, Rusty and Dakine advertisements would appear.

Unfortunately, the network/ISP has more power than one would suspect with DPI.  ”Once a network owner can see what you are doing, they have the power to manipulate your online experience. They can sell your personal information to advertisers. They can block content. They can slow things down or speed things up.”

There is also an anti-competetive component to this.  If a company can completely block a competitor’s ads, then a user will be limited to one company’s website and all its affiliated sites.  This, in the eyes of pro-net neutrality individuals, is a type of discrimination that should not be tolerated on the open Internet.  

As mentioned on freepress.net, “At a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott will quote the selling points used by deep packet inspection manufacturers to underscore the chilling, anti-competitive effect this technology can have on an open Internet.”

A live webcast of the hearing will be available here

There are so many unanswered questions about what is going to happen to the newspaper industry in the next couple months or years.  Much of this discussion is stemming from the newspaper organizations that have already failed, such as the Rocky Mountain News.  So many other newspaper organizations are also on the brink of failure, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the prominent New York Times.

A serious question is what are the journalists who are losing their jobs going to do professionally?  Many of these individuals are too old to go back to college and aspire to become something else.  For many of these people, their lives are ending along with the life of the newspaper.  It seems like an unfair treatment for these people who should be, in many different people’s perspectives, treated less harshly due to seniority.  Seniority, however, is almost like a dead fad that went away with the turn of the 21 century.

After reading an article by freepress.net, I became increasingly passionate about the idea of changing policy to get the journalism business out of this funk.  Many people see the end of this epidemic happening with the implementation of new or a myriad of new business models.  There is no easy resolution, but new business models alone will not solve the issue.  Effectively, there is no and never was a silver bullet. 

“Policymakers should seek to join the discussion already happening in the academy, among foundations, and in the media. The answer is certainly not to relax antitrust standards and double-down on the bad decisions of the past. The most likely answer — based on the evidence available today — is that there will be many, many answers. And that’s good news.”

I’m not implying that policy changes should surrogate any emerging bussines models, but the former should at the very least enhance the latter.  As I have said in previous posts, journalists, corporate leaders, policy makers and everyone else with some pull must be pragmatic and act accordingly.  It is this type of attitude that will maximize the smooth transition from the conventional role of journalists to a modern one, and will in effect save the news if not newspapers or other mediums.

“The Sun-Times Media Group cut an undisclosed number of jobs late this week as part of the newspaper company’s effort to trim payroll costs by 15 percent, according to a memo obtained by the Chicago Tribune.”

This decision is a common theme in many newspaper organizations all over the nation, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the Detroit News.  The ultimate causation is the rise in digital consumerism, where the Internet has played a monstrous role in creating this shift in news consumer culture. 

People within news organizations must be pragmatic about this transition, otherwise even more drastic results could incur.  ”I will not mince words or sugarcoat decisions,” Jeremy L. Halbreich, chairman of the board and interim CEO of the Chicago-based media company, said in the memo. “Everyone at [the Sun Times Media Group] is now fully aware that we are in a difficult fight for the future of our company and our newspaper publications are clearly at stake.”

I feel for the individuals who work for decades at a newspaper, only to be laid off because of the gravity of the financial situation the business is in.  Dennis Robaugh, managing editor of the SouthtownStar, “said he felt a sense of relief. ‘It’s been difficult working under these circumstances at a company that had all this hanging over it,’ Robaugh said, in reference to the newspaper chain’s financial difficulties and bankruptcy filing.”  

“‘We did great work, work that I’m really proud of,’ Robaugh said. ‘We put people in jail. We changed laws. We helped people who were in need. They’re still doing that, but it’s tougher now, with all the pressures and anxieties and the smaller staff.’”

In this transitory phase of revamping the field of journalism, careers are being lost, lives are being severely altered, homes are being seized and many other issues.  It can be very solemn and morbid if the details of this phase are mapped out for one to see.  These consequences, however, must occur if the field of journalism is to be saved.  The main objective is to save the news, since a democracy and an enlightened citizenry are dependent upon this entity.  It will be interesting within the next couple years to see how rough the consequences become, and how different the field may or may not become.