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