Activist reporting and more ...

More on the downturn in the fortunes of the newspaper industry and what, if anything, can be done to reverse it.

Newsrooms must get active to survive the economic meltdown
By Robert Niles

The financial trouble throughout the industry is leading many to consider a future without newspapers. Or, at least, without newspapers as we now know them. LA Observed's T.J. Sullivan asked: "Ever wonder what the world would have been like if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein hadn't uncovered Watergate? I fear we'll learn the answer in the next couple decades."

With all due respect to T.J., I fear that we already know the answer. Because we've been living in that world for the past 10 years already, a time when traditional journalists failed to uncover emerging scandals and to warn the public about abuses of power at the highest levels of government and industry. MORE

When A Newspaper Stops Publishing In Print, What Happens To The Print Advertising Dollars?
by Scott Karp

With all the debate over the future of newspapers, here’s a question I haven’t heard anybody ask (much less answer): If a metropolitan newspaper suddenly ceased to publish, leaving the city with no newspaper, what would happen to all of that newspaper’s ad dollars? MORE

French publishers vs Google: ‘You are becoming our worst enemy’
December 16th, 2008
Posted by Laura Oliver

The headline quote comes from a round-up up by Eric Scherer of a meeting involving French newspaper and magazine publishers and Google. The meeting suggests some heavy anti-Google feeling on the publishers’ part. MORE

The Fundamental Problem of Newspapers on the Internet
Robert Ivan December 08, 2008

I introduce you to the fundamental problem of newspapers on the internet: The Krugman Paradox - named by me after watching PetMeds.com (PETS) ads appear next to Paul Krugman for three days after it was announced he won a Nobel Prize.

I couldn't believe there wasn't a better way to monetize his presence on NYTimes.com (NYT). Further investigation revealed that the Krugman problem was not unique.

Here goes. MORE

Glimmers of hope for journalists in a grim world of redundancies
Andrew Keen

In the holiday spirit, two glimmers of new media hope for print journalists depressed by the drip-drip of redundancies, cuts and falling readership. MORE

Microsoft exec on solutions to cuts in newspapers

An interesting read - it is a strong attack on Google, but does raise some good points on how the media industry can save itself from oblivion:

Microsoft exec maps out online strategy for media
Interesting speech on the online future of media by the Chief Counsel for Intellectual Property Strategy at Microsoft on a day when the Associated Press became the latest US media organization to announce job cuts.

Thomas C. Rubin: UK Association of Online Publishers
Prepared Remarks by Thomas C. Rubin, Chief Counsel for Intellectual Property Strategy, Microsoft Corp.
“The Change We Need”
UK Association of Online Publishers
London, England
Nov. 20, 2008

TOM RUBIN: Thank you for that kind introduction, and thank you for inviting me to speak at this important conference focused on creating vibrant business models for publishers online.
It was a sad day last month when we read that after 100 years the Christian Science Monitor will cease print publication next April. The Monitor is an esteemed newspaper with particularly distinguished international coverage. It was the first American newspaper to get a reporter behind the lines with the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan in 1979. And during its long history, it has nurtured generations of young foreign correspondents, including Jill Carroll, who you may remember was held hostage in Iraq. MORE

Replacing professional filters with social ones

Gleaned this from the AFP Mediawatch blog - it's an article in The New York Times analysing the way in which American youths are processing information. Seems forward emails, blogs, facebook groups etc are the way to go to share information. I believe the term is "viral", though strangely enough, the reporter here doesn't use the term ...

March 27, 2008
Finding Political News Online, the Young Pass It On
By BRIAN STELTER

Senator Barack Obama’s videotaped response to President Bush’s final State of the Union address — almost five minutes of Mr. Obama’s talking directly to the camera — elicited little attention from newspaper and television reporters in January.

But on the medium it was made for, the Internet, the video caught fire. Quickly after it was posted on YouTube, it appeared on the video-sharing site’s most popular list and Google’s most blogged list. It has been viewed more than 1.3 million times, been linked by more than 500 blogs and distributed widely on social networking sites like Facebook.

It is not news that young politically minded viewers are turning to alternative sources like YouTube, Facebook and late-night comedy shows like The Daily Show. But that is only the beginning of how they process information.

According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one. READ MORE

Coverage of world news on US media

Saw this video on the "From the Frontline" blog. Worth a watch. What I wonder after watching it is - if there is interest in international news coverage, as the video suggests, why aren't the news networks covering it? Is it that it's just become too expensive and it's better to use the wire agencies? Is it because news organisations have been bought up by other companies who think foreign coverage is a luxury not worth having? What are the sources of the problems??