Features
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is at pains to emphasize that the ideas contained in its ?staff discussion draft of potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism? are just talking points ? not steps the government is about to implement. That?s a good thing, because the proposals packed in its 47 pages range from the brilliant to the boneheaded. With discussions continuing on the FTC draft, here?s E&P?s take on some of the ideas, from a newspaper industry perspective.
Newspapers that are early experimenters with geolocation Web and mobile services Foursquare and Gowalla are excited about the potential for increasing reader engagement, driving traffic to their online sites, finding new sources of advertising revenue ? even jazzing up their reporting. Here's what these early adopters are doing with geolocation.
Journalism Online has arrived on the paid-content scene with the purpose of providing publishers a wider variety of options in charging for online access. Former Wall Street Journal Publisher Gordon Crovitz, one of the partners in this venture and no stranger to charging for online content, spoke with E&P Managing Editor Shawn Moynihan about Journalism Online and how it might enable newspaper publishers to finally start turning ?digital dimes? into hard profits.
So how did Orange County Register columnist Frank Mickadeit find himself on exhibit in a cage at the Santa Ana Zoo in California for three days before the Fourth of July holiday? He was seduced, you might say, by a gibbon hanging from a perch at the zoo.
After raising $26K for the venture, cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Ted Rall will be traveling back to Afghanistan this month to ?see what has changed and how life is going for Afghans, especially those in the remote provinces in the southwest where Western reporters never venture.?
There?s a new media merger on the horizon -- and if approved by the government, it will make matters worse for Americans both inside and outside the news business. Newspapers could be especially hurt if the deal goes through.
In response to newspaper publishers who occasionally ask me what their next move should be in a time of seismic change, here are eight strategic seedlings to help newspapers thrive.
Congress must step in to stop the agency?s ?securities fraud? threat to journalists. Reporters should be made exempt from securities fraud charges.
The old presses are still there, silent in their darkened hall. Of the New York Daily News Libertyview plant?s original equipment, only prepress and post-press systems still operate, albeit with substantial modification.
When it comes to copyrighted material ? news that my company spends money to gather and constitutes the essence of what we are as a business ? some people think they can not only look at it, but also steal it. And they do. They essentially step into the front yard and drive that content away.
Journal Register Co.?s Ben Franklin Project might strike some as stunt. But to CEO John Paton, the reason to make the chain?s 18 dailies to produce a newspaper using only digital tools available for free on the Internet is to force a change in thinking. ?Newspapers are process-driven,? Paton says. ?And in many cases the processes are broken because the companies themselves haven?t invested in the proper IT, and our thinking gets heavily invested in this broken process.?
A still-brutal newspaper economy continues to hammer syndicates, but also offers new opportunities. What works and what doesn?t, these days?
One of the biggest challenges for newspapers in the age of interactive media is proving that their advertising works. The San Diego Union-Tribune seems to have solved that problem in a small, but meaningful, way ? and added an extra $100,000 per week to its gross advertising revenues. The idea sounds like a winner for other papers, too.
Newsosaur: How Publishers Can Win at Mobile Commerce