Tag: business models Page 1 of 2

Today marks one year since we launched Mahoning Matters in Youngstown, Ohio. In some ways, October 9, 2019 feels like it was a decade ago, in others it feels like yesterday.

Nobody could have predicted the ups and downs we’d face in our inaugural year. We knew we’d have a long road ahead to grow our audience and build relationships with local advertisers in Youngstown. What we didn’t foresee was the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it would have on our business, community, and staff.

As I said in a post marking our six-month anniversary in April, this year has been a terrible and inspiring time to be working in local news.

Terrible in that the coronavirus pandemic not only took the life of a member of our team, it has also struck a major blow to a region that was already struggling.

Inspiring in that our team has been able to tell stories of impact that have made readers take notice. I encourage you to check out this list of 20 milestone stories from our first year compiled by the Mahoning Matters staff to see what I mean. From data dives on local nursing homes to creating resources for navigating the COVID shutdown, our team has focused on the stories that matter most.

We’ve worked hard to find out what people in the Valley need to know — through events, focus groups, and audience surveys — and we’ve adapted our work to meet those needs. And it is working. This year, we have grown to reach more than 200,000 monthly website readers and 8,000 email subscribers.

In addition to creating good journalism, we started The Compass Experiment to find ways to make local news financially sustainable. To do that, we knew we’d have to pursue a variety of revenue lines and be ready to adapt as needed.

This year, we have built relationships with local businesses, some of whom have become advertisers and partners even during these difficult times. We have been able to expand our coverage with new series built with the support of key local business partners through our Community Leaders Program.

The Movers and Makers series, sponsored by Farmers Bank, highlights the work of local entrepreneurs. Eastwood Mall stepped up to sponsor Difference Makers, which brings attention to the work of everyday local heroes serving the community.

Our readers have also made investments in our work. Earlier this year, on our six-month anniversary, we launched a voluntary giving program that asked readers to financially support our newsgathering. So many stepped up to give us what they could, be it in monthly payments or one-time donations, to keep our site free and accessible to all.

Mahoning Matters has also been fortunate to have found strong allies in the local philanthropic community. In close collaboration with Report for America, we have been able to get support for the concept of donor-funded journalism in the Mahoning Valley.

It all started with the Thomases Family Endowment of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation, who in July became the first local funder to support our work with Report for America.

Today, we announced the creation of the Mahoning Matters Journalism Impact Fund with the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, which ensures our future contributions are managed professionally in the community. This fund will help support our accountability and solutions-oriented reporting in the months and years to come and will give us an avenue to begin accepting tax-deductible donations with our fiscal sponsor, the McClatchy Journalism Institute.

That is all to say the pieces are coming together. We’re still a ways off from breaking even, but we’re building the framework for a local news business that can succeed long-term.

In the meantime, we are running forward. We have an election coming. The coronavirus pandemic is far from over. Our community has questions about what its leaders are going to do to improve their lives. We’re going to keep on telling these stories that matter in the Mahoning Valley for the next year and many more to come.

This was originally published on the Compass Experiment’s Medium site.

We’re launching a local news site in Youngstown

By Mandy

On July 18, 2019

In My Work, The Compass Experiment

When I started at The Compass Experiment a few weeks ago, I got right to work in trying to figure out where to launch our news operations. We spent a lot of time poring over data on markets across the U.S., seeking out communities big enough to financially support a digital news provider, but small enough that a startup-sized staff could still make an impact.

And then we heard the news that The Vindicator, Youngstown’s 150-year-old newspaper owned by the Maag-Brown family, would be closing its doors for good on August 31. Pretty much from the moment the story broke, I started getting messages from my former classmates at Kent State University, located about 40 miles away from Youngstown, worried about what was going to happen next.

The Vindicator kept its eye on the local city and county governments, tracked the campaign of local Congressman and presidential candidate Tim Ryan, and reported on the actions of police, courts, schools and businesses across a region of more than 500,000 people. Who would take up that mantle now?

We at The Compass Experiment want to help Youngstown find a path forward, which is why we have selected it as our first launch city. We are already on the ground working with people in the community to set up a digital news outlet that will launch in the fall.

In case you’re reading this and haven’t heard of us, The Compass Experiment is a local news laboratory founded by McClatchy and Google to explore sustainable business models for local news. Over the next three years, we will be starting three digital-only news operations in small to mid-sized U.S. communities that have limited sources of local, independent journalism.

Federal Street in downtown Youngstown. (Photo/Mandy Jenkins)

At first blush, Youngstown doesn’t seem like the sort of place where an experimental digital news project would put down stakes. It is a shrinking city in a region that has been suffering financially for decades, but it is also an area that has a distinct local identity and a need for a public watchdog now more than ever.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve spoken to many people in Northeast Ohio who care deeply about what happens once the Vindicator shuts it doors. They want to take action, and we want to help them do that.

Starting now, we are recruiting a small local team to drive the creation of this site with the needs of the Youngstown community in mind. For the sake of transparency, all of those local roles are posted here. Note that we will only be considering applications from those working in or with strong background in Youngstown or the surrounding region.

For those who want to help from afar, we are also hiring a couple of central roles who will work remotely to support the Youngstown staff and the teams that will be behind our next two sites. Those roles include a Central Editor and a Business Operations Manager.

As I said in my first post about Compass, we don’t plan on doing this alone. Since the announcement of the Vindicator’s impending closure, I have been heartened to see regional and national news outlets express interest in expanding their coverage in the Mahoning Valley. Instead of competing, we welcome the chance to collaborate with these and other news providers in the area to best serve the local audience. This is a region too big and too complex for us to tackle alone.

Youngstown State University is one of the largest employers in the area and is home to more than 12,000 students. (Photo/Mandy Jenkins)

When I first took on this job, I dreamed of opening a new news provider in my home state. While our accents are a little different, Youngstown is not all that different from my hometown of Zanesville, which is about 100 miles southwest, as the crow flies. Both are cities that were decimated by the exit of manufacturers and mills that used to provide a steady income and a good life. Both are places that are losing their children to joblessness, to drug abuse, or the best case scenario, to a job far away from home in a bigger city.

Naysayers might say Youngstown’s best years are past, but there are many others who celebrate the community, who honor its history while fighting to create a brighter future. They are revitalizing the downtown, opening new businesses and nurturing a growing student body at Youngstown State. Those are the sort of people we need on our team in Youngstown. I hope you’ll join us in writing the next chapter.

This was originally published on the Compass Experiment’s Medium site.

The Compass Experiment is creating sustainable local news –and needs your help

By Mandy

On June 11, 2019

In My Work, The Compass Experiment

Anyone watching the headlines lately knows that local newsrooms across the country are hurting, and some have disappeared altogether. Many more still are barely operating, publishing news as a shadow of their former selves. Amid these closures and cutbacks, news deserts — areas that have no locally-based media — are blooming.

In losing their local media, these areas are losing some of the vital ways they used to connect as a community. Births, deaths, local sports, city council, and businesses opening or closings are all left to be passed around as rumors on social media.

This is where the Compass Experiment comes in.

We are a local news laboratory founded by McClatchy and Google to explore new sustainable business models for local news. Over the next three years, we will launching three digital-only news operations in small to mid-sized U.S. communities that have limited sources of local, independent journalism. Our goal is not only to support the dissemination of news in these communities, but also to make the local operations financially self-sustaining.

Local news is where I started my career and I feel it is the bedrock of our industry’s connection with the audience. Local news tells their stories, lives in their communities and earns their trust through the kind of accountability that comes when you might run into your area reporter at the grocery store. We cannot ensure local journalism will survive for the long-haul without a focus on sustainability, which is why I sought to be a part of this initiative in the first place.

While we are very early in this project — so early, in fact, that I technically haven’t started yet — but here are a few things I want to share about our plans so far.

1. We aren’t going to be in the business of parachute journalism.

I have no interest in dropping journalists into unfamiliar places and giving the locals the news we want give them. The best community journalism is created by people who know it best. This is why we will be actively involving communities in the development of the sites and hiring local journalists who already know and love the area.

2. All sites won’t be the same.

All communities are not the same, so why would we assume they all need and want the same out of their journalism? We won’t be replicating the same cookie-cutter approach to every site’s coverage, but rather taking a custom approach dictated by the needs of each place.

3. These sites will have to be self-sustaining at some point.

To help solve the problems facing local news in the long-term, we have to focus on the business model. The reason this is an “experiment” and not a “project” is that we are using this opportunity to innovate and adapt new potential sources of revenue for these local sites.

4. We won’t be doing this alone.

We know there are many bright minds already working hard to create sustainable local media across the U.S. and the world. I believe we can get further, faster by working together. So I’m going to ensure we also are learning from what’s already going on out there and collaborate with those who share our goals to find new paths to what can help community news operations everywhere.

5. We won’t be doing this in the dark.

As part of the aforementioned collaboration, we’ve set up this site to share our progress and our failures along the way so that others can learn from them, adapt them and spread them as needed.

Where we are now

Right now, we are in the process of selecting the location of our first site. The sort of communities we have in mind would ideally meet the following criteria:

Has a population of roughly 60,000 to 300,000
Is not part of or close to a major city — we’re looking to cover communities where people work and live
Has an engaged citizenry that votes, volunteers and is already focused on making their city a better place
Has no or few sources of local news, or recently lost a local news provider

We want to hear your ideas. If you live in a community that is hungry for local news, let me know.

If you want to be a part of what we’re building, drop me a line.

If you’re already working on this problem and want a collaborator, I’m here for you.

I didn’t join The Compass Experiment only to make incremental improvements to the three communities where we’ll be starting new sites. I want to be part of a movement to make local news sustainable everywhere. I hope you’ll join me.

This post was originally published on the Compass Experiment’s Medium site.

Who Determines What’s News on Facebook?

By Mandy

On January 24, 2018

In Facebook, Industry News & Notes

Mark Zuckerberg announced last week yet another change to the Facebook newsfeed. Following a contentious year that embroiled the platform in controversy, Facebook intends to give preferential treatment to news sites based on users’ feedback as to which providers are most trusted.

From Zuckerberg’s post,

“The hard question we’ve struggled with is how to decide what news sources are broadly trusted in a world with so much division. We could try to make that decision ourselves, but that’s not something we’re comfortable with. We considered asking outside experts, which would take the decision out of our hands but would likely not solve the objectivity problem. Or we could ask you — the community — and have your feedback determine the ranking.”

Who those users are, how they are selected and exactly how “trust” is measured remains to be revealed. News and media professionals don’t appear to have a voice in determining the authority and credibility of news sites.

That’s problematic. In the past, Facebook demonstrated clear vulnerabilities when relying on its community. In mid-2016, when Facebook fired the editors curating its Trending module to instead rely on its algorithm and user engagement around stories, the community proved itself to not be the most reliable arbiter of legitimate news. False stories from dubious sources, such as a false report indicating Megyn Kelly had been fired from Fox News for endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, immediately rose to the top. Facebook later changed Trending again to try to tackle those issues.

So far, Facebook’s attempts to police its own platform have had little impact on the mitigation of disinformation and “fake news.” The platform itself reported that over 126 million Americans saw Russian disinformation leading up to 2016 election emanating from the community. Furthermore, independent fact-checkers brought in by Facebook to flag fake stories have said efforts to stem the tide of disinformation are falling short.

Outside of Facebook’s walls, trust is a contract between the audience, who gives an investment of time and the publishers’ ability to match that with quality journalism. Handing all of that power to the “community” creates dangerous opportunities for propagandists and purveyors of fake news to exploit the platform to further their own agendas. During the French elections, special interests organized on platforms like Discord to orchestrate social media events on Facebook and Twitter. More recently, following a November 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a false story spread across Facebook saying Antifa terrorists were the perpetrators.

At Storyful, we spent the last two years mapping and understanding the pathways that “fake news” travels. Our work makes it clear that Facebook is a well trod avenue for disseminating dubious information from private or semi-private platforms and communities to the masses. Following the tragic events in Las Vegas last year, we detailed false claims made by questionable entities on Facebook. In the UK, we highlighted the efforts of a special interest group to affect elections and advance an agenda. And, on our podcast, we discussed the impact of social media and disinformation in India.

What happens in the following weeks and months may have very serious implications for the news industry and the world. Upcoming elections in Eastern Europe, Brazil, Pakistan, Cambodia and the United States (among others) are prime opportunities for those who seek to spread disinformation via an increasingly siloed social media population who are most likely to trust sources they agree with.

Users the world over flock to Facebook to discuss happenings big and small, local and global, factual and fictional. Left alone, these would be the very same users that would assess the value and reach of stories generated by newsrooms that endeavor every day to report facts and vital information.

We at Storyful will watch for any further developments on these changes and hope industry experts will have a seat at the table to influence the fate of news on Facebook.

[This post was originally published on Storyful’s blog]

As Outsourced News Grows, Local Newsrooms Should Promote ‘Buying Local’

By Mandy

On July 2, 2012

In Industry News & Notes

Over the weekend, This American Life broadcast a story about the hyperlocal news company Journatic, introducing the reading public to the idea of local news produced offshore. Journatic’s success should worry local news producers, but their growing presence also presents us with a huge opportunity in our local markets.

If you aren’t familiar, Journatic uses a largely foreign workforce to assemble local data, rewrite press releases and parrot online obituaries for eventual publication on local and hyperlocal news sites from likes of the Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle and Newsday. These writers – who aren’t even given the dignity of being called writers by the company’s founder in the TAL broadcast – make very, very little money to produce this work. These briefs and announcements are created at the fraction of the cost of a news aide or editorial assistant in the local newsrooms – jobs that, you my have noticed, barely exist in our business anymore.

The real outrage and new info in the radio broadcast was that Journatic employees are producing local news essentially disguised as local reporters. Their stories have fake bylines, their writers given Americanized aliases. When they actually do call to contact a source for a quote, they cover up where they are calling from:

“We’ve been told time and time again to protect the Journatic identity.” When calling on a story, employees must say they’re calling on behalf of the newspaper Journatic works for and even acquire a temporary phone number with a local area code. “We are basically lying to our sources,” he said.

A Tremendous Opportunity

So should local newsrooms be worried about offshore journalism like this? Absolutely they should. But exposure of Journatic and their ilk also provides those of us who work in local news with a tremendous opportunity. It is up to us to show our readers where we’re coming from.

“Buying American” and “Shopping Local” have become a priority to some American consumers on goods from clothes to veggies – so why not newspapers? We should encourage our readers to “Read Local”.

For local journalists, there is no better time to show our readers that we are them. We live in the same neighborhoods. We shop at the same grocery stores. We attend the same local festivals and root for the same football teams. Our kids attend the same schools. We may have even gone to high school together.

It’s taken us a few years, but local journalists are starting to shake off that long-held belief that we as people aren’t an important element of our news. We’re becoming more comfortable showing personality in our tweets, opening up our Facebook pages, writing blogs alongside our traditional reporting. It’s not to say that our personal lives need to be an open book, or even that our readers care about the mundane details of our days, but we can find ways to show our connections to the community:

Don’t feel like you have to be all business on social media, if you have observations to make about your city or the people in it in your off-time, go for it. Be open about who you are, with a photo and your real name – unlike this Twitter account that may or may not represent Journatic.
Write or contribute to a local blog – and be yourself there. It might be on your beat, or it might not. Maybe the local cops reporter can explore his gardening hobby with a blog. Perhaps a sportswriter would want to pitch in on a parenting blog.
Hold live chats with your readers. You could do this using software like CoveritLive or ScribbleLive, on Twitter, Facebook or even just in the comments are of your website. Take their questions and ask your own. Be yourself.
Meet your readers in person. Either on your own or as a publication, hold or attend events where you will meet your readers face-to-face. Maybe you would want to offer some public office hours or hold reader meetups. Spend some time manning the paper’s booth at a local festival. Or you could follow the lead of some of our papers at Digital First and take your newsroom out to the public.

Sure, it sounds awfully simplistic to say that these small actions can save local journalism — but it’s certainly a start. By showing up in person to cover that city council meeting or taking that reader’s question, you show that you are a part of the community. If you get good story ideas and source leads from these interactions, all the better.

Being there will give us more than any outsourced news factory could ever hope to replicate. This is our strength – and we need to take better advantage of it.

Link roundup: How we’re getting paid this week

By Mandy

On December 29, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Recommended Links

Monetizing location at the local level

My former employer, the Cincinnati Enquirer, has launched a long-simmering idea for a locally-based Foursquare-esque app. The location-based app, called Porkappolis, is available for use worldwide, but has a local focus. It’s similar to a lot of other location-based services, but the potential for local deals and gameplay could make it a real player. We’ll see how it plays out – perhaps it can be an early example for other media venturing into the app space.

Newsflash: iPad hasn’t saved print yet

WWD reports that iPad magazine sales have gone down in the fall after the device’s summer debut. While this isn’t some larger sign that the iPad and other e-readers won’t help to fund news organizations in the long-term, it is a sign that the pricing structure may be all wrong right out of the gate.

As the commenters at WWD point out, the price structure for iPad magazines isn’t affordable or at all comparable to their print counterparts. Sure, some new iPad owners will buy that first issue to try it out on the new device, but they won’t continue if the price is continually as much or more than that of print edition. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

More Facebook = More Web Traffic

Facebook lays out the numbers for how news organizations like the Washington Post, Sporting News and Cracked have fared since further integrating the social networking tools into their sites.

Int he provided examples, at least, Facebook widgets, Connect and Open Graph integrations have led to a boost in referrals to those sites due to increased link-sharing, recommendations and comments from Facebook users. It’s hardly surprising, but it is a further indication that news sites that are closed off to including Facebook widgets and integrations are missing the boat on the web traffic they can provide. Maybe it’s time to shake that corporate template, eh?

New strategy: Berate bloggers, tell online readers to buzz off

By Mandy

On June 24, 2010

In Online Revenue Models, Rants

I’m not sure where newspaper execs are getting their PR advice these days, but whoever/whatever it is needs to be fired. The print news sector has put out some head-shaking proclamations this week – all of which have a common theme of holier-than-thou insults directed at online news consumers.

First up is the absolutely appalling handling of a new business model by the Tallahassee Democrat. The paper is going to start charging for news online – which the publisher finally gets around to saying on the second page after a long-winded, self-congratulatory monologue.

The column says:

It no longer seems fair to have only half of our readers pay for content while the other half reads for free online. This is about changing how we do business, not simply putting up a paywall on digital content.

Unless the TD happens to charge quite a bit for their print edition, the print subscribers aren’t paying for that journalism any more than the digital readers. They’re merely paying to have it delivered to their homes on expensive paper. That payment isn’t covering the cost of the reporting and editing. More on that later.

Aside: The same column that says online readers aren’t paying for content is unnecessarily paginated into three pages in order to rack up page views and generate online ad revenue. Talk about adding insult to injury.

But at least the paper’s publisher and editor were only trying to pull a fast one over on digital readers. A columnist at the paper upped the ante, going so far as to equate online readers with shoplifters.

He also seems to espouse the belief that the paper’s journalists are apparently above criticism, especially from the criminals who consume their news online. I won’t bother excerpting, as the entire column is essentially about this point.

Both pieces not only reflect complete distaste for online readers, they also seem to be a bit behind the times. The production of journalism is paid for by advertising revenue, which has been largely generated by printed ads in the past (hence why these guys want to keep readers there).

I suppose the Democrat must have missed the news that online advertising will soon be surpassing print. Maybe they’d be better off finding new ways to market themselves to online readers to keep more eyeballs on their site.

That brings us to the other newspaper industry wishful thought of the week: The classic “we’re the only trusted source for news” mantra.

McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt told the Tri-City Herald a bedtime story about how “real” journalists are far more trustworthy than bloggers.

It is often impossible to know if anyone has verified the material that’s on the internet or whether anyone is held responsible for rumors, misinformation or outright libel.

That uncertainty is working in newspapers’ favor. People are turning to newspaper websites as a trusted source.

I’m not sure where Pruitt got his facts, which the paper reiterated without any backing up, because they’re quite flawed. I guess those online types aren’t the only ones who don’t back up what they hear from biased sources with real reporting. (Zing)

Thankfully, the Herald’s coverage area has blogger Matt McGee to set the record straight – with links to back up his claims. As my boss, Steve Buttry, asks in his post on this back-and-forth, “Which is the stronger example of journalism?”

This standoffish game has to stop if newspapers want to stick around. As these guys are out there turning away online readers and dismissing potential partners, news startups like TBD are out there ready to pick them up. And we aren’t alone.

Scoff if you want, but readers do, in fact, trust bloggers and news via social media more than you think. As the online medium continues to grow – and today’s young people continue to grow as news consumers – this New Frontier will become News as We Know It. Don’t newspapers want to be a part of that?

On making a move and taking new chances

By Mandy

On April 14, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Work Stuff & Projects

For months now, I have been excitedly following the developing news of Allbritton’s local news site. As the parent company of Politico, many online types have hopes this as-yet-unnamed project can revitalize online news – and maybe give the Washington Post a run for their money.

I’m proud to say that as of today, I’m going to be a part of this exciting and altogether new approach to news. I recently accepted a job to be the site’s social media producer, working with the likes of Jim Brady, Steve Buttry and the site’s rapidly-growing community engagement staff.

So long Camp Washington Chili, hello Ben’s Chili Bowl.

Did I mention I was excited? I also meant terrified.

I’ve had a great ride in my three years at Cincinnati.Com. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some really great journalists and brilliant innovators. I lead a comfortable existence here, with my husband working right across the office and lots of friends living close by.

I’m terrified/excited to throw away all I know for a whole new life in a new city and a company with a new way of doing business. I think I’m running out of chances to take chances – and this one just seemed like the best fit possible.

I’m thrilled for the opportunity to learn from some of the best minds in the journalism industry – and hopefully do a little bit of teaching myself.

We’ll be out to redefine what it really means to connect with a news audience – and there’s no way we’ll be doing this alone. I encourage my readers and friends in Cincinnati to offer their ideas and advice (and maybe a pint or two?) as I prepare move ahead to the new job. If any of you are from the DC area, please introduce yourselves via social media or in the comments below. I’m sure I’ll need all the tips and ideas you can give me.

It is only with the cooperation and input from local readers that this new project will be able to thrive. I hope you’ll all be along for the ride.

The Enquirer’s print-only news experiment

By Mandy

On February 24, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Online Revenue Models

Publishers all over the country are currently trying to figure out how to make money from online content or, at the very least, how to make more money off their still-profitable print products.

Recently, The Cincinnati Enquirer (my employer) has been experimenting with ideas to boost the value of the printed newspaper. As an online employee my entire career, it’s been a bit out of my wheelhouse to focus on print, especially since the Enquirer’s previous claims to fame have been more in the digital side. Whether we like it or not, print still pays the bills, so our paper – and many papers – are willing to experiment if it means keeping the lights on.

The experiment started Feb. 7 when the Enquirer editors opted to hold the publication of our big Sunday showcase story until 5 p.m. on Sunday in order to to boost single-copy sales of the Sunday print edition. Prior to this, we had been posting the weekend blowouts online on Friday mornings or afternoons to give a “sneak peek” of sorts to our online readers.

The next week, Feb. 14, the experiment widened as the editors opted against publishing the Sunday centerpiece online at all. The print-only designation grew further this past weekend, Feb. 20, as one Sunday feature in every section of the newspaper was designated to be “print only”, with an icon denoting it as such in the paper.

On the Fridays before these experiments, we put a promo on the front of our site telling our online readers what they’d be missing online over the weekend and urging them to buy a newspaper. I don’t know what kind of reaction bubbled up to those on the print side, but I know I fielded a few reactions from readers looking for those stories online after the fact.

It could take awhile to determine the experiment’s success – or even figure out what success really means. My editor, Tom Callinan, said he expects the experimentation to become more focused and strategic over time. It could possibly accelerate toward a pay wall or premium model of some sort in the future. I guess we’ll see what develops.

I realize this kind of print-only content plan is hardly unheard-of, as many papers (see this in the Minneapolis Star Tribune) have been holding some or all publication from the web – and it’s pretty much the norm in the magazine publishing world.

I’m putting this out there because I’d like some feedback.

If you’re a Cincinnati-area reader: Did you notice this? What did you think? If you saw a story promoted only that was print-only that interested you, would it prompt you to seek out a Sunday paper?

If you’re an industry wonk (or wannabe wonk like me): What’s your reaction to this kind of experimentation? Do you know of other news sites that usually have everything online withholding their best stories from the web? More importantly, is this working to boost print sales?

If you don’t want to leave a comment, shoot me an email.

Editor’s Note: I opted against editorializing on this experiment because (as you might imagine) I like getting a paycheck. While I have a lot of thoughts on this, I’ll save them for internal discussions where they might actually be useful. You can probably figure out where I stand if you’ve ever read this blog before.

Social Media

Despite what some curmudgeonly types say, social media is definitely not just for kids. Recent demo studies say senior citizens are making huge inroads into social networks like Facebook and YouTube. I’m hearing all of the time how we need to keep hold of our senior readers by focusing more efforts into print, but maybe we as an industry just aren’t giving them enough credit in regards to the Internet.

Speaking of social media in the newsroom, Mashable thoughtfully put together The Journalist’s Guide to Maximizing Personal Social Media ROI. If you ever wondered why there’s a push to get into social media or what exactly you can get out of it, it’s worth a read. They have really good ideas for building a social media routine and establishing priorities for reporters and other news managers using social media in reporting/branding/aggregation.
If you aren’t very familiar with the mobile social network Foursquare, here’s something of a guide to get started. Foursquare has a lot of potential for journalists, mobile reporters in particular. I hope to write about this a bit more soon.

Saving Journalism

Robert Niles asks: What should the government do to help journalism? Niles really goes out on a limb to suggest that the government can help journalism not by funding it directly, but by changing the health care system and raising taxes on the wealthy. Sound crazy? Well, I don’t see your solutions anywhere.
In case you’ve been living under a technology rock, Apple’s making a tablet next year. Everyone’s been expecting it – and it very well could be the turning point in this particular realm of technology started by the likes of the Kindle and iPhone. For once, the journalism would would be wise to capitalize on what could be the beginnings of a new technology shift and we ready with tablet reader friendly news. No guarantees it’ll work out for Apple or for our industry, but it’s worth a shot.

Your plan to save journalism is not at all helpful

By Mandy

On November 6, 2009

In Industry News & Notes, Online Revenue Models, Rants, Recommended Links

I need a t-shirt that says: I asked the editor of the WaPo for a plan to save journalism and all I got was this book report on stuff I already knew.

I’ve been emailed “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” about a dozen times over the past few weeks. It’s a report from Len Downie and Michael Schudson that reviews, in painstaking detail, everything that has happened to journalism in the last 20 years and allegedly offers a plan to fix things.

I’ll save you the trouble of reading this tome (if you want) and tell you it doesn’t offer much at all. These were obviously the wrong guys to ask to change the business. The best idea they have? Asking private foundations and the government for help in funding news. (Newsflash: That isn’t new.)

What you should do, though is check out this rebuttal from the OJR and this one from Alan Mutter.

Of course, Slate also takes a contrarian view and argues that newspapers aren’t doing as badly as you think. They take an excellent analysis of the recent circulation numbers with a forehead smack thrown in for good measure. It isn’t just newspapers underperforming, it’s the economy, stupid.

Who’s trying to save journalism this week

By Mandy

On September 24, 2009

In Industry News & Notes, Recommended Links

Following the News 2.0 Forum a couple of weeks ago and my (awesome) vacation, it suddenly seems like everyone is talking about the “future of journalism” right now, particularly when it comes to how to fund it.

Under the familiar topic of paid online news, the Guardian reported this week on a poll that found web users prefer subscriptions to micropayments. Of course, that’s all entirely based on the premise that they’d have to be paying for news in the first place, as there was no option for “I will do what I can to not pay anything”.

Anyway, the finding isn’t entirely surprising. Most people don’t understand micropayments in the first place and, frankly, it makes sense to those who may be more familiar with print subscriptions to buy all-access for one fee than buying content one piece at a time.

Meanwhile, back in the US, Jack Shafer at Slate made the case as to why Obama should stay out of the fight to save American newspapers. The real issue at hand is a bill from Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin that would allow newspapers to reorganize themselves as non-profits.

The reasons this could be a very bad idea are many. For starters, it seeks to only help newspapers and not any other media. Two, it doesn’t actually fix the primary problem, anyway. If newspapers were to suddenly become non-profits, it wouldn’t change the fact that they lose money. And three, it seeks to preserve a status quo in an industry that needs to be anything but.

A far better solution (IMHO) gets a spotlight from David Westphal at the Online Journalism Review: Creating revenue by selling our best skills as journalists. Talk surfaced at a recent IRE conference about the prospect of selling journalists’ research skills on a “for hire” basis. This sort of thing has been done for years by the Economist and a few operations (like GlobalPost) have begun trying it out as well.

It’s a simple idea that could really have some legs if done correctly. It would take one of the most innate and specialized skills of investigative journalists – researching and reporting – and sell it to clients who want deep background on, say, a local company, an incident or a piece of legislation. We all know that anyone can write a story these days, but it takes a certain kind of skill set to tenaciously chase a story in the way an investigative reporter might – so why not market that?

Dispatches from the living amongst journalism's walking dead

Tag: business models Page 1 of 2

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