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The State of the News Media 2009

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Journalism.org - By Tom Rosenstiel - Mar. 16 (Special Report) - Two developments converged in the last year to shorten the time that journalism has left to reinvent its business model and secure its financial future, according to a new comprehensive study on the State of the American News Media. First, the audience migration to the web accelerated substantially in 2008, and even though most of that growth was at traditional news destinations, the financial impact of that was a negative one, according to the report by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Traffic to the 50 news websites, for instance, jumped 24%, triple the pace of growth of the year before, but online ad revenue flattened, and in newspapers it declined. Second, the recession hammered advertising and diverted attention away from innovating new revenue sources. The news industry was already in a race to find new ways to underwrite the gathering of news online, using the declining revenue of the old platforms to do so. The result of the changes of 2008, according to the report’s overview, is an industry diminished, with less time and resources to finance the transition. On the other hand, the notion that traditional journalism is on the brink of extinction is overstated.

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Watching our language: Writing about the financial crisis

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By Dean Wright - Mar. 16 (Opinion) - The global financial crisis may have drained the coffers of investors, businesses and nations, but it’s making our language a bit richer as we discover, revive, coin and develop words and phrases to help make sense of it all. Some take hold quickly and spread far and wide. “Bailout,” naturally, was voted Word of the Year for 2008 by the American Dialect Society and by Merriam-Webster and was No. 2 on Time’s “Top 10 Buzzwords” (a list that also included “staycation,” a frugal vacation spent close to home). Interestingly—and predictively, as it turned out—the dialect society’s 2007 Word of the Year was “subprime.” There is a blizzard of language that strives to describe—but sometimes obscures—the strange new financial world we’re in. Television shows, websites and talk radio have exhorted us to buy or sell, have faith or run for our lives, be calm and just trust CEOs or don’t believe a word they say. It’s enough to make you wonder if screenwriter William Goldman’s famous assessment of Hollywood—”Nobody knows anything”—applies here.

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Idea of newspapers as nonprofits gains ground

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - By John Christoffersen - Mar. 15 (Special Report) - As sharp revenue reductions put the future of many U.S. newspapers in doubt, one idea gaining attention is the conversion of newspapers into tax-exempt nonprofits supported by large endowments. Although viewed by many as a long shot at best, such a radical change could be a savior for the industry and its vital role in a democracy. That's why the endowment model is drawing renewed attention as newspapers impose massive layoffs, scale back home delivery and make other drastic cuts to counter plunging advertising revenue amid a recession that has compounded struggles from the migration of readers to the Internet.

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Workers OK deal in effort to save San Francisco Chronicle

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Paul Rogers - Mar. 15 (News Report) - San Francisco Chronicle employees Saturday voted to accept steep concessions to their contract as part of a deal that is expected to cut at least 150 jobs from the newsroom and other departments, yet which the company said is vital to keep the paper from closing. By a vote of 333 to 33, members of the California Media Workers Guild approved the givebacks at a midmorning meeting at the Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco. "People realize that as bad as this settlement is, it did provide severance pay for a substantial number of people who will be leaving and hopefully keeps alive the company's ability to survive," said Doug Cuthbertson, executive officer of the guild.

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Stop The Presses

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

stopthepressesdoc.com - By Mark Birnbaum, Manny Mendoza - Mar. 15 (Special Report) - The American newspaper’s vital role as public watchdog is in danger. Circulation and revenue have plunged as readers and advertisers flee to the Internet, thousands of journalists have been laid off or bought out, and stockholders have forced top news organizations out of business. Stop the Presses takes viewers inside disheartened newsrooms to document the devastation and into the community to learn what readers think of journalism’s fate. Critics have called the film “an absorbing account that should appeal to anyone concerned about the future of democracy” and “surprisingly inspiring, as it points to the inevitable reinvention of an industry in need of new life.”

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Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Clay Shirky - By Clay Shirky - Mar. 14 (Opinion) - When someone demands to be told how we can replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

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Washington Post to cut business section

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By Robert MacMillan - Mar. 14 (News Report) - The Washington Post will stop publishing a business section six days out of the week and move business news to the front section of the paper at a time when finance stories dominate world headlines. The decision, which the Post's editors explained in a memo obtained by Reuters, means that the paper will save money on newsprint when newspaper advertising revenue is plunging. The cost-cutting would allow the paper to keep providing readers with what they say they want, according to the memo signed by Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and other editors. "We remain absolutely committed to the strongest, in-depth and authoritative coverage of business locally, economics and economic-policy nationally, and the hugely important intersection of government, politics and money," the memo said.

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"This Song Ain't About You"

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Daniel Sinker - Mar. 14 (Opinion) - You see, Stewart's real critique wasn't about Cramer, it was also only marginally about CNBC. Instead, Stewart's real rage comes from the role the modern media has created for itself: the role of cheerleader instead of watchdog, of favoring surface over depth, of respecting authority instead of questioning it. It's the same critique that some have about the New York Times (and the rest of the media) in the leadup to the war in Iraq; the same critique lobbed every time a TV reporter does a stand up in front of the Apple Store before a product release; the same critique leveled every time a sensational murder steals a headline from a corporate crime: is this really the job we want the fourth estate to be doing?

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High Noon on the Set: Cramer vs. Stewart

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Alessandra Stanley - Mar. 14 (Opinion) - The much-hyped showdown between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer, the mercurial host of “Mad Money” on CNBC, felt like a Senate subcommittee hearing. Mr. Stewart treated his guest like a C.E.O. subpoenaed to testify before Congress: his point was not to hear Mr. Cramer out, but to act out a cathartic ritual of indignation and castigation. “Listen, you knew what the banks were doing, yet were touting it for months and months,” the Democratic senator from Comedy Central said. “The entire network was. For now to pretend that this was some sort of crazy, once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that nobody could have seen coming is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.”

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New York Times CEO: We Know What’s Wrong With Our Business. But We’re Not Sure What To Do About It

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

All Things Digital - By Peter Kafka - Mar. 14 (News Analysis) - Good news for everyone who’s been insisting that the New York Times (NYT) needs a radical overhaul in order to survive the digital era: CEO Arthur Sulzberger Jr. agrees with you. The bad news: It’s 2009, and he doesn’t know what that overhaul should be. Back to the good part. In a thoughtful speech he delivered at Stony Brook University in Long Island last week, Sulzberger did a nice job of laying out how the Times got to the position it’s in now — watching print dollars shrivel up while online dollars trickle in. Can’t argue with any of this:

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Brawl Street: Get Read to Buy Low! And Sell Die