Features
Tablets are the hottest thing going, sure. But does it pay for newspapers to rush to adopt their news product to this new format?
On the issue of Net neutrality, the little guys ? Internet users, in this case ? might be forgiven if all they see are giants lining up against one another. Let me suggest that newspapers and broadcasters that have online operations should also be keenly interested. They are standing in the grass.
Unfortunately, many publishers today invest too heavily in research aimed at persuading an increasingly skeptical world of the value of aggregating anonymous readers ? and not enough in learning about the individuals who ought to be their readers. The dearth of comprehensive consumer research not only could lead publishers into making wrong decisions about the future of their franchises, but also stands a good chance of undermining their credibility among advertisers.
Animated ?toons generate traffic, but their marketability remains untested. Certainly animation is getting more respect. After all, this year?s Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning went to Mark Fiore, who self-syndicates his weekly animated editorial cartoons to clients such as San Francisco area news site SFGate.com and NPR.org.
El Tiempo is by far Colombia?s biggest daily newspaper. Add in all Casa Editorial El Tiempo (CEET) properties ? its downmarket tabloid daily Hoy, a financial news daily, six news, fashion and men?s magazines, the CityTV broadcast channel and all their numerous Web sites ? and it?s the nation?s biggest media presence, period. No surprise then, in a region where newsroom staffing is historically higher than the U.S., journalists from El Tiempo and its sibling media flooded the field at big news or sports events.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, as organic circulation such as home delivery and single-copy sales sagged, many metro dailies responded by building up circ that was classified as ?other paid circulation?: Bulk sales, hotel tie-ins, and Newspaper In Education (NIE) were favorites for propping up numbers.
In August, ChicagoNow, a network of more than 300 local blogs created by the Chicago Tribune, expects to celebrate not just its first anniversary, but also its first profits. At a time when services like Patch abound, allowing newspapers to outsource the seemingly daunting task of erecting a blogging community, the Trib took the do-it-yourself route.
Diversity in newsrooms is one of those issues that even in the best of times, often gets short shrift. But these are not the best of times, and recent findings by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) provides a snapshot of just how racially diverse U.S. newsrooms are at the moment.
These days, there are endless cases of strapped newspapers with downsized staffs, that are hurting for content. One New Jersey daily met this need by having an employee of one of its sports teams write stories about that team for the paper, stirring an ethical debate in the process.
A unique campaign that launches this summer to promote the First Amendment ? and, not so coincidentally, its guarantee of a free press ? proceeds from this insight: Americans love their First Amendment rights, but they?re not all that crazy about the First Amendment itself.
E&P Editor Mark Fitzgerald catches up with Bernie Lunzer, the longtime secretary-treasurer of The Newspaper Guild who was elected its national president in 2008.
For Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Kim Komenich, fighting crime is evidently all in a day?s work.
How does the Postal Service favor direct mail over newspapers? Let us count the ways.
Newsosaur: How Publishers Can Win at Mobile Commerce