My colleague told me about this about a week ago -- this blog post by Adrian Holovaty was written in 2006, but it's spot on in terms of describing the fundamental problem that the media industry, specifically print, has in negotiating technology and the internet.
He looks at the way in which the newspaper industry is presenting and sharing news on the internet. What he suggest in simple -- stop having such a story-centric (read: blob of text) view of the world and look at presenting news/information in different ways, say through databases.
Of course that brings up the question, is this journalism? To which he says:
Journalists should have less of a concern of what is and isn't "journalism," and more of a concern for important, focused information that is useful to people's lives and helps them understand the world. A newspaper ought to be that: a fair look at current, important information for a readership.
Ultimately, he says, newspapers should move away from the story-centric CMS (content management system) and start having CMSs that can "slice and dice" information and collect them in databases, which can then be used help to explain trends, and inform readers. Importantly, it's about enriching the readers' access to information, not about replacing stories.
Read more here:
A fundamental way newspaper sites need to change
Written by Adrian Holovaty on September 6, 2006
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
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
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
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Full text of Giles Coren's rant to Times subs
Absolutely hilarious and a must read, though not for the subs at that time I suppose ...
For all the poor subs getting axed out there. You matter!
Chaps,
I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and Ben because I don't know who i am supposed to be pissed off with (i'm assuming owen, but i filed to amanda and ben so it's only fair), and also to Tony, who wasn't here - if he had been I'm guessing it wouldn't have happened.
I don't really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do. Owen, we discussed your turning three of my long sentences into six short ones in a single piece, and how that wasn't going to happen anymore, so I'm really hoping it wasn't you that fucked up my review on saturday.
It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.
I wrote: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."
It appeared as: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."
There is no length issue. This is someone thinking "I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best".
Well, you fucking don't.
This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons.
1) 'Nosh', as I'm sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun formed from a bastardisation of the German 'naschen'. It is a verb, and can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, 'nosh', means simply 'food'. You have decided that this is what i meant and removed the 'a'. I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other noun, 'nosh' means "a session of eating" - in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of 'scoff'. you can go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. the sentence you left me with is shit, and is not what i meant. Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn't mean? I don't know, but you risk doing it every time you change something. And the way you avoid this kind of fuck up is by not changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it's easy. Not. A. Word. Ever.
2) I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, i was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as "sexually-charged". I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word 'gaily' as a gentle nudge. And "looking for a nosh" has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. "looking for nosh" does not have that ambiguity. the joke is gone. I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you've fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph. I mean, fucking christ, don't you read the copy?
3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.
I am sorry if this looks petty (last time i mailed a Times sub about the change of a single word i got in all sorts of trouble) but i care deeply about my work and i hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing. I have been away, you've been subbing joe and hugo and maybe they just file and fuck off and think "hey ho, it's tomorrow's fish and chips" - well, not me. I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that's how it is.
It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. i've got a review to write this morning and i really don't feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i'm going to have another weekend ruined for me.
I've been writing for The Times for 15 years and i have never asked this before - i have never asked it of anyone i have written for - but I must insist, from now on, that i am sent a proof of every review i do, in pdf format, so i can check it for fuck-ups. and i must be sent it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way i can carry on in the job.
And, just out of interest, I'd like whoever made that change to email me and tell me why. Tell me the exact reasoning which led you to remove that word from my copy.
Right,
Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.
All the best
Giles
For all the poor subs getting axed out there. You matter!
Chaps,
I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and Ben because I don't know who i am supposed to be pissed off with (i'm assuming owen, but i filed to amanda and ben so it's only fair), and also to Tony, who wasn't here - if he had been I'm guessing it wouldn't have happened.
I don't really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do. Owen, we discussed your turning three of my long sentences into six short ones in a single piece, and how that wasn't going to happen anymore, so I'm really hoping it wasn't you that fucked up my review on saturday.
It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.
I wrote: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."
It appeared as: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."
There is no length issue. This is someone thinking "I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best".
Well, you fucking don't.
This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons.
1) 'Nosh', as I'm sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun formed from a bastardisation of the German 'naschen'. It is a verb, and can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, 'nosh', means simply 'food'. You have decided that this is what i meant and removed the 'a'. I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other noun, 'nosh' means "a session of eating" - in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of 'scoff'. you can go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. the sentence you left me with is shit, and is not what i meant. Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn't mean? I don't know, but you risk doing it every time you change something. And the way you avoid this kind of fuck up is by not changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it's easy. Not. A. Word. Ever.
2) I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, i was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as "sexually-charged". I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word 'gaily' as a gentle nudge. And "looking for a nosh" has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. "looking for nosh" does not have that ambiguity. the joke is gone. I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you've fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph. I mean, fucking christ, don't you read the copy?
3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.
I am sorry if this looks petty (last time i mailed a Times sub about the change of a single word i got in all sorts of trouble) but i care deeply about my work and i hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing. I have been away, you've been subbing joe and hugo and maybe they just file and fuck off and think "hey ho, it's tomorrow's fish and chips" - well, not me. I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that's how it is.
It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. i've got a review to write this morning and i really don't feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i'm going to have another weekend ruined for me.
I've been writing for The Times for 15 years and i have never asked this before - i have never asked it of anyone i have written for - but I must insist, from now on, that i am sent a proof of every review i do, in pdf format, so i can check it for fuck-ups. and i must be sent it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way i can carry on in the job.
And, just out of interest, I'd like whoever made that change to email me and tell me why. Tell me the exact reasoning which led you to remove that word from my copy.
Right,
Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.
All the best
Giles
Monday, July 21, 2008
'Things are happening at the speed of light'
An uncertain future? What's going to happen next? Is the uncertainty of not knowing if your industry, job, etc is gonna be around good cos it promotes inventiveness, or is it just waaaay too depressing? Like this bit at the end of the article:
Many said, though, that they were uncertain improved editorial content would ensure a bright future — especially since most organizations failed to anticipate the changes that have wracked newsrooms in recent years.
Only 5 percent of the editors surveyed said they were confident they could predict what the newsroom would look like in five years.
"I feel I'm being catapulted into another world, a world I don't really understand," Virginian-Pilot editor Dennis Finley told PEJ. "Things are happening at the speed of light."
Study: shrinking newsrooms hurting papers' quality
NEW YORK (AP) — The many and deepening cuts at newspapers across the country are starting to take a toll on their content, according to a study being released Monday.
The challenge newspapers must meet immediately is to find more revenue on the Internet, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's study, called "The Changing Newsroom: What is Being Gained and What is Being Lost in America's Daily Newspapers."
Newspaper managers need to "find a way to monetize the rapid growth of Web readership before newsroom staff cuts so weaken newspapers that their competitive advantage disappears."
Stories are shorter overall, the study found, and staff coverage tends to focus on local and community news.
"America's newspapers are narrowing their reach and their ambitions and becoming niche reads," the study said.
Even when foreign and national news makes it into the papers, it is being relegated to less prominent pages.
"To make the front page, it has to be a significant development or a story that we can see through Florida eyes," said Sharon Rosenhause, managing editor of the Fort Lauderdale-based South Florida Sun-Sentinel and a longtime newspaper executive.
The reasons for the newsroom cutbacks are well known: Newsprint costs have jumped, and advertising and circulation revenue have quickened their descent this year as advertisers follow readers online. Newspaper Web sites capture only a small fraction of the revenue lost as they sell fewer print ads, which fetch more money. MORE
Many said, though, that they were uncertain improved editorial content would ensure a bright future — especially since most organizations failed to anticipate the changes that have wracked newsrooms in recent years.
Only 5 percent of the editors surveyed said they were confident they could predict what the newsroom would look like in five years.
"I feel I'm being catapulted into another world, a world I don't really understand," Virginian-Pilot editor Dennis Finley told PEJ. "Things are happening at the speed of light."
Study: shrinking newsrooms hurting papers' quality
NEW YORK (AP) — The many and deepening cuts at newspapers across the country are starting to take a toll on their content, according to a study being released Monday.
The challenge newspapers must meet immediately is to find more revenue on the Internet, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's study, called "The Changing Newsroom: What is Being Gained and What is Being Lost in America's Daily Newspapers."
Newspaper managers need to "find a way to monetize the rapid growth of Web readership before newsroom staff cuts so weaken newspapers that their competitive advantage disappears."
Stories are shorter overall, the study found, and staff coverage tends to focus on local and community news.
"America's newspapers are narrowing their reach and their ambitions and becoming niche reads," the study said.
Even when foreign and national news makes it into the papers, it is being relegated to less prominent pages.
"To make the front page, it has to be a significant development or a story that we can see through Florida eyes," said Sharon Rosenhause, managing editor of the Fort Lauderdale-based South Florida Sun-Sentinel and a longtime newspaper executive.
The reasons for the newsroom cutbacks are well known: Newsprint costs have jumped, and advertising and circulation revenue have quickened their descent this year as advertisers follow readers online. Newspaper Web sites capture only a small fraction of the revenue lost as they sell fewer print ads, which fetch more money. MORE
Monday, June 30, 2008
Who needs those bloody subs anyway?!?!
About 40 editing jobs expected to go at Fairfax
NZPA
Fairfax Media, which owns The Dominion Post and The Press among other publications, today flagged lay-offs of about 40 sub-editors.
The company said it had 190 sub-editors across the group and although initial indications suggested about 40 redundancies, no firm numbers could be given until after a consultation period.
The move is another blow to the news media industry. This month the New Zealand Press Association announced it was cutting seven jobs and last year TVNZ cut nearly 60 news and current affairs jobs while The New Zealand Herald's publisher, APN New Zealand, cut 70 sub-editors in an out-sourcing move.
APN said at the time it w anted to centralise the sub-editing of all its print titles with Pagemasters, which hired up to 50 people.
Fairfax Media said today that the move was part of its plan to have "national centres of expertise" for world, features and business pages on its nine daily newspapers. More generic pages such as the weather and tv pages could follow. MORE
So ... does this represent a slow and steady erosion of the standards of journalism???
NZPA
Fairfax Media, which owns The Dominion Post and The Press among other publications, today flagged lay-offs of about 40 sub-editors.
The company said it had 190 sub-editors across the group and although initial indications suggested about 40 redundancies, no firm numbers could be given until after a consultation period.
The move is another blow to the news media industry. This month the New Zealand Press Association announced it was cutting seven jobs and last year TVNZ cut nearly 60 news and current affairs jobs while The New Zealand Herald's publisher, APN New Zealand, cut 70 sub-editors in an out-sourcing move.
APN said at the time it w anted to centralise the sub-editing of all its print titles with Pagemasters, which hired up to 50 people.
Fairfax Media said today that the move was part of its plan to have "national centres of expertise" for world, features and business pages on its nine daily newspapers. More generic pages such as the weather and tv pages could follow. MORE
So ... does this represent a slow and steady erosion of the standards of journalism???
Us v Them, or rather, new v old media
Yup, the "fight", if you want to call it that, is still going on strong, as seen in the furore over the Associated Press taking issue with The Drudge Report. Good or bad move? What does it represent?
Here's some takes on it:
Associated Press takedown notice sets the net abuzz
Bloggers to AP: I got your feed right here
I don't understand why it has to be an Us V Them type scenario to be honest. In the end, news wires like AP are still, I believe the lifeblood of the news industry. Without them, news would be one unregulated mess. Maybe that's how the bloggers like it, I don't know. But I can't see how sifting through millions of blogs to get just a decent bit of information would be feasible as a newsgathering activity. Or, I could be wrong ...
But yes, AP is cutting back, and so is Reuters. So maybe one day it'll just be blogs eh?
Here's some takes on it:
Associated Press takedown notice sets the net abuzz
Bloggers to AP: I got your feed right here
I don't understand why it has to be an Us V Them type scenario to be honest. In the end, news wires like AP are still, I believe the lifeblood of the news industry. Without them, news would be one unregulated mess. Maybe that's how the bloggers like it, I don't know. But I can't see how sifting through millions of blogs to get just a decent bit of information would be feasible as a newsgathering activity. Or, I could be wrong ...
But yes, AP is cutting back, and so is Reuters. So maybe one day it'll just be blogs eh?
What Newspapers and Journalism Need Now: Experimentation, Not Nostalgia
By Clay Shirky
Nick Carr is right. Now what?
As new capabilities go, effortless distribution of unlimited perfect copies is a lulu. (Throw in low cost, accessibility to amateurs, and global reach, just for good measure.) Defending businesses based on scarce production is simply special pleading in the face of a change this epochal.
That’s not to say that the beneficiaries of the old system are above a bit of special pleading; indeed, there is a whole literature of newspaper publishers equating their falling revenues with social calamity.
To hear publishers tell it, they are deeply concerned about losing their audience, but the facts don’t bear this out. They’ve been losing their audience since 1984, the year readership first began shrinking (and ten years before the launch of the commercial web.) When their audience was shrinking but their ad revenues were growing, they were mum about social value. Now that the web means their audience is growing again but their ad revenues are falling, they’ve suddenly discovered their civic function. (Next stop: publishers lobbying for federal support on national security grounds. This will happen within two years.) MORE
Nick Carr is right. Now what?
As new capabilities go, effortless distribution of unlimited perfect copies is a lulu. (Throw in low cost, accessibility to amateurs, and global reach, just for good measure.) Defending businesses based on scarce production is simply special pleading in the face of a change this epochal.
That’s not to say that the beneficiaries of the old system are above a bit of special pleading; indeed, there is a whole literature of newspaper publishers equating their falling revenues with social calamity.
To hear publishers tell it, they are deeply concerned about losing their audience, but the facts don’t bear this out. They’ve been losing their audience since 1984, the year readership first began shrinking (and ten years before the launch of the commercial web.) When their audience was shrinking but their ad revenues were growing, they were mum about social value. Now that the web means their audience is growing again but their ad revenues are falling, they’ve suddenly discovered their civic function. (Next stop: publishers lobbying for federal support on national security grounds. This will happen within two years.) MORE
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Sacred Facts blog
One of my favourite blogs on news media and its evolution is Richard Sambrook's blog "Sacred Facts".
Richard Sambrook the Director of the BBC's Global News division.
Richard Sambrook the Director of the BBC's Global News division.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Britannica Blog: Newspapers & the Net Forum
So here's the first link ...
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/category/newspapers-the-net-forum/
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/category/newspapers-the-net-forum/
So is it all doom and gloom?
I've been collecting bits and pieces here and there about online news media and traditional print and broadcast media, and how the integration between the two is or is not happening.
It's all secondhand stuff really, but I thought I'll collect them all together in one blog ...
So why "brave new world"? It has a negative connotation I suppose, because of Adolf Huxley's book. But does the advent of the internet necessarily mean the demise of journalism? Are we all focusing on the wrong issues? Does an online news website have to be "Kylie's Bum" journalism (as one newspaper colleague said) to be finanically viable (let alone successful)??
It's all secondhand stuff really, but I thought I'll collect them all together in one blog ...
So why "brave new world"? It has a negative connotation I suppose, because of Adolf Huxley's book. But does the advent of the internet necessarily mean the demise of journalism? Are we all focusing on the wrong issues? Does an online news website have to be "Kylie's Bum" journalism (as one newspaper colleague said) to be finanically viable (let alone successful)??
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