Latest E&P Exclusive Reporting

It’s not your rate card; it’s your confidence

In news media advertising, organizations often spend too much time analyzing rates and comparing them to similar-sized outlets. It’s important, but sometimes, focusing too much on rate hinders the ability to assess an opportunity directly. Before immediately delving into pricing considerations, it’s crucial first to identify opportunities aligned with your organization’s goals.

Under the leadership of Dean Raul Reis, who took office in July 2022, the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina has significantly revised its curriculum, infusing courses that can assist students in excelling once they graduate — whether in journalism or other communication fields like advertising or public relations.

Ten news organizations won up to $25,000 in grants to help convert print subscribers into digital customers, and those teams no doubt celebrated their good fortune. But from the standpoint of The Lenfest Institute, which reviewed more than 50 applications and handed out the grants, the program’s value is more about helping the news industry than providing one-time allowances to 10 deserving companies.
More E&P Exclusive Reporting
AI is now powering an upheaval of the search economy that could devastate news publishers desperately needing good news. For the first time since it became the world’s largest search engine in 2000, Google’s dominance in the search market is facing a serious threat. One of the challengers, Perplexity, shoots back short, AI-generated responses to direct questions. Is it perfect? No. Is it pretty useful? Of course. But it comes at a terrible cost to publishers.
As of January 2024, 1,177 pink slime sites have been identified across the United States, representing both sides of the political spectrum, with innocuous-sounding names, like The Main Street Sentinel and Metric Media. NewsGuard, which uses AI to help programmatic advertisers direct ads to reputable sites, warns that the number will rise as election season heats up.
Most sales gurus agree that about 98% of all sales are not made on the first call. Sometimes the customer says “no.” That’s when the selling starts. If you can turn a no into a yes, you make the sale. There are a lot of reasons prospective advertisers say no.
Attacks on free speech and expression — including the role of journalism and the people’s right to know in a free-thinking society — are constant, regardless of the swings of the political and cultural pendulums. Advocating for those rights and educating Americans to understand them better has been the mission of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression since its founding in 1999.
Implementing new revenue streams, from events to newsletters to podcasts to philanthropy — and even T-shirts — has been the goal of many news publishers for several years. Some don’t require much investment, while others require a major commitment in money and staff time. Some have worked, and others haven’t.
Over the last few years, news leaders have discussed diversity at conferences and launched initiatives to address historical disparities in their reporting and their ranks. However, a recent study shows little traction in making actual change in the most elite sector of newsrooms.
The NPR-produced TED Radio Hour debuted in 2012 in partnership with the nonprofit TED organization. The weekly radio show and podcast explores an array of topics on issues related to climate, COVID, culture, food, technology, health, democracy, war and more. To the listeners, Manoush Zomorodi's conversations with her guests flow organically and spontaneously, but a great deal of research, preparation and thoughtful editing happens behind the scenes.
Popular. Fearless. And progressive. That’s Raw Story’s tagline. The other word that comes up when talking to leadership is nimble. Two decades into its run, the digital native site, started in 2004 by John Byrne as a counterpoint to the right-leaning Drudge Report, is reinventing itself to keep up with changing times.
In an era when local newsrooms are looking for creative ways to bring in revenue, The Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina, is putting its latest bet on a new high-end international travel program hosted by Editor-in-Chief Autumn Phillips.
An Ohio-based nonprofit organization is expanding journalism throughout the Buckeye State and engaging readers to help with public accountability. Like many nonprofit journalism startups across the U.S., Signal Ohio fills news coverage gaps vacated by for-profit newspapers and broadcast companies.
In this column for Editor & Publisher magazine, Michael Bugeja, a distinguished professor of journalism at Iowa State University, writes: "Journalists must stop worrying about impartiality when dealing with outright racist, sexist or autocratic comments and posts. And it is time to stop using the cliché 'dog whistle' and then searching for a source to interpret it.”
Design services are vital in the publishing industry. And one of the ways publishers are choosing to get their vital ads built and pages crafted is outsourcing the entire creative process. However it is crucial to evaluate first the advantages and disadvantages before deciding to outsource.
Providing in-depth coverage of what is already a tumultuous and historically significant election year will require persistence, late nights, and good old shoe leather. Accessing independent resources with tips and explainers of election topics will be of equal importance, from the science of polling to identifying misinformation to understanding how to report on local ballot measures.
The University of Kentucky has emphasized its support for rural journalism for two decades. Housed in the heart of one of America’s 60 largest cities, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (IRJCI) is celebrating its 20th year on campus. The IRJCI is designed to help students prepare for journalism work in rural areas and to provide training and other resources for small news organizations.
Are AI-powered chatbots covered under fair use laws, or are they stealing copyrighted content at the expense of the newsrooms that paid to produce it? Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, has been partnering with Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal on legislation that would help news organizations grapple with quick-moving changes in the tech world.
As the entire world seemingly rushes to embrace the latest iteration of generative AI, whether ChatGPT, Bard or the many similar apps, media sales teams must take a more measured approach. That starts with realizing it is a tool and is not the answer to all needs and challenges. Additionally, the parameters of its use and protections from its erroneous and malicious misuse are not yet set.
“Justice through journalism” is MLK50’s mission. Celebrating seven years in Memphis, Tennessee, the nonprofit newsroom honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, courageously producing journalism for the city’s marginalized communities.
Read the Current Issue Online
It’s time again for one of our favorite salutes — E&P’s 25 Under 35. In some way, it showcases our future — one that’s inspired, passionate and innovative — reinvigorated by fresh ideas and talent. There were so many deserving nominees this year that we stretched our 25 to include two more. Cheers to E&P’s 2024 class of 25 Under 35!
Today, with an almost overwhelming amount of information we must sift through on news sites, social media and third-party aggregation sites, like Apple and Google News, it’s nice to have information curated and summarized for us and delivered to our inboxes. That kind of sounds like a newspaper.
Investigative journalism has fallen by the wayside at too many newsrooms across the country. Investigative journalism is labor- and time-intensive and often expensive to produce. It also requires skilled journalists to do the work. What does it take to create and lead an investigative team today? E&P asked five investigative editors that question.
New York is credited with a lot of American newspaper firsts and milestones. Michelle Rae, executive director for the New York Press Association/New York Press Service, says: “New York is different from most states because we don’t have the publicly traded ownership percentages that many other states have. New York probably has the smallest percentage of chain ownership of anybody.”
Forum Communications, a family-owned newspaper company in the upper Midwest, rolled out a weekly newspaper in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in October. The print product was launched a year after unveiling a news website, stcloudlive.com. The move cuts against the grain of a shrinking industry.
Guy Tasaka, founder and managing partner of Tasaka Digital, suggests that newspapers have spent the past 15-plus years solving the wrong problem because "we didn’t understand our business model. The bad news was we were improving at solving the wrong problem and accelerating ourselves out of business."
Freedom of speech is one of the greatest achievements of the Founding Fathers. They understood that if the people were the ultimate rulers, not kings or despots, they must be able to criticize the government and its officials. Like the other freedoms embodied in the U.S. Constitution, freedom of speech has some limits. Using that freedom to defame or libel another party can lead to being sued. These concepts are taught in journalism schools, and publishers, editors and journalists understand where to draw the line.
While news media organizations have decreased the number of journalists assigned to statehouse reporting in a number of states, nonprofits are stepping in to fill the void. These nonprofit startups are often tiny news operations funded by a mix of philanthropy dollars, donations and memberships. In many cases, these organizations were started by journalists. So, while the journalism is often top-notch, leaders may need more knowledge in other areas.
In a recent interview with Editor & Publisher, Richard Rinehart, corporate vice president of operations at McClatchy, expressed his excitement about his upcoming role as president of the International Newspaper Group (ING) board of directors. With his extensive background in operations, Rinehart hopes to use his expertise to assist ING in their mission to promote excellence in the journalism industry.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, newspapers have delivered both types of content for over a century. Television took content one step further with motion, sound and color. Today, video content has exploded across multiple TV platforms and escaped from the TV environment to be available almost everywhere and created by almost anyone.