Archive for December, 2007
The LA Times (and many others) still don’t get it
David Lazarus has a new, nonsensical column in the Los Angeles Times about how not charging for content will “cost journalism dearly.” I don’t pretend to understand all the minutiae of the writers strike, but I do know this much: Hollywood scribes want to be compensated fairly when their work is accessed on the Internet, [...]
You can’t win an online race without (good) horses
This may come as a shock (or just plain bad news), but newspapers won’t be able to compete online or make compelling products without hiring talented Web employees. Unfortunately, most newspapers pay poorly and most editors have no clue what to look for when hiring online employees or when creating online positions, which is very [...]
Newspapers can make money on the Web (a lot)
The No. 1 reason newspapers have trouble making money off the Web is because owners, publishers and business staff members fundamentally don’t understand the Web. Everyone is trying to force print paradigms onto a new medium. Well, guess what? They won’t work. If you want to make money off the Web, you should look at [...]
Being clueless does pay after all
Former Tribune chief executive Dennis FitzSimons is set to receive $38 million from a severance package and stock options. And all he had to do was all but destroy two of the nations proudest newspapers and watch as the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune become mere footnotes in history, while papers like the Washington [...]
Do you know your new media staff members? Probably not.
How many of your colleagues know the names and locations of the new media/online journalism staff members at your paper? And where are your new media people located? At many newspapers, if not most, they are off to the side somewhere — often out of sight, out of mind. Few newspapers integrate their Web producers, [...]
Newspapers, it’s not Craigslist’s fault, it’s your own
I’m going to say it: Craigslist. Am I fired? Whispering that two-syllable bugaboo can get you in a lot of hot water at many newspapers today, because Craigslist is “killing newspapers” by drying up the former newspaper cash cow of classified advertising. Cry me a river. Newspapers, you refused to give users what they wanted. [...]
Online journalism still means real journalism
I am tired of seeing people stick random content on their Web sites to see what sticks. I am tired of seeing people place reject stories, photos and graphics from the print edition on their Web site. I am tired of people believing that any story can be told well by any means. Sometimes you [...]
Breaking news: the Web is not a fad
The Web is here to stay, and it will be the dominant form of distribution of news and knowledge for the foreseeable future. This might seem obvious but I have been hearing stories lately of older journalists believing that the Web is just a fad. One older editor believes that everything will come full circle [...]
Breaking news is the first step towards a modern news organization
It’s shocking that we still have to bring up how the ability to handle breaking news is critical for a newspaper transitioning to a 21st century news model. And news organizations need to be able to deliver news on a continuous cycle, not in big chunks once or twice a day. But here we are [...]
Tear down barriers to convergence
Newspaper employees have to stop thinking about just their traditional roles and begin embracing convergence much earlier in the process. This mean thinking of different ways to tell a story before reporting or interviewing, not after. It means bringing in Web people before a project is done, not after it is ready for publishing. And [...]