I’m sad to report that funding for BeatBlogging.Org will run out on Sept. 1 of this year.

Being the editor of BeatBlogging.Org has been a great ride. I’ve learned a lot about how beat reporters are adapting to the Web, how social media is changing journalism and where journalism is heading.

Working with NYU’s Jay Rosen has been a great learning experience. It’s very invigorating to work with someone who is interested in answering, “what’s next?” And in journalism, that’s the No. 1 question we all must answer.

What’s next for me? I don’t know yet. I hope to be able to contribute to the search for journalism next.

I’m interested in pushing journalism forward, in finding new ways to deliver content to people, in making journalism work on the Internet. We need journalism now more than ever, but journalism must adapt to fit new mediums, new paradigms and new ways of consumption.

I’m interested in working with people who want to move forward, not fixate on the past. I’m interested in working with people who believe that the Internet can offer incredible possibilities for journalism. I’m interested in working with people who want to fight to make journalism better, even in this dark hour.

I believe in journalism. I believe in the power of the Internet. And I believe that the Internet and journalism can work together to make incredible content and products for the world.

The fate of BeatBlogging.Org is undecided for now. I can at least assure you that the site will not be going away, as it is too strong of a new media brand to let die or even languish.

BeatBlogging.Org has certainly made me a better journalist and more prepared to fight the battles that lie ahead. I know that we travel a perilous road in journalism, but it’s a journey worth taking. The world needs good journalism.

I have been discussing the idea of starting a new journalism podcast with some people and would appreciate your feedback.

This podcast would be different from диваниthe existing podcast series on BeatBlogging.Org. It would involve multiple hosts and would attempt to be newsy, lively and fun. We would also have guests on and interview interesting people in the news business.

What kinds of topics would you like to see us cover? What kind of focus would you like to see this show have? Would you even be interested in a new journalism podcast?

My model for this podcast would be Buzz Out Loud — something that people can learn from, while also finding it entertaining.

Everything is in very early stages right now, but it’s never too early to get feedback and suggestions from our potential audience and community.

Well, I haven’t heard from Gannett yet about my application to become their new brand/wealth/good will destroying CEO.

So, I can only assume that either my bid is going really well and they are just figuring out how to break the news to Dubow (my best guess) or they are gearing up for a proxy fight.

Either way, I’m anxiously awaiting my coronation.

To whomever it may concern,

I’m writing to apply for the position of CEO of Gannett.

I think I can do the job cheaper, quicker and better-ish than your current CEO Craig Dubow. As I’m sure you’re aware, Gannett lost 79% of its market value in 2008. Now, I can’t guarantee that I can lose that much share holder value in one year, but I sure can try. And I can try, for less.

Check out this chart I’ve put together showing Gannett’s stock price since Craig took over. I will grant that it took a lot of hard work to get it to move this much:

Craig made $3.1 million last year. I’m willing to destroy just as much share holder value and provide just as little vision as Craig but for a fraction of the cost. I am asking for a mere $999,999.99 — less than a third of what Craig makes.

It’s a bargain for sure. You can even tell your shareholders that your new CEO “doesn’t even make a million dollars a year!” This compensation may seem like charity work to some, but for me it’s not about the money. It’s about the expense account, company car, huge corner office and personal secretary to read my e-mail for me (I don’t really do that whole technology thing).

Since we both know that Gannett is not going to do well in 2009, why not save yourselves $2 million+ by going with someone like me? And we could even take that $2 million+ in savings and keep around dozens of lower-level employees (like those reporter people), because it is they that will ultimately create value for this company. But shhh, we’ll keep that on the down low.

I think I can deliver a performance twice as good as Craig’s 2008 performance (or is that twice as bad? Is this a double negative thing?) for a fraction of the cost. Win-win my friends.

Sincerely,

Patrick Thornton

The Washington Post has launched a new “community reporter” position that requires more skills than a typical reporter and pays less.

What a new media double whammy!

In a letter to the newspaper guild that represents Post workers, the Post says the Community Journalist will write for the paper’s Extras, Web, and the daily paper and perform multimedia work, all for $34,000 a year.

34k in the District? Sign me up!

This position requires reporters to produce content for three different entities and in a variety of formats. Just to be clear how highly the Post thinks of this position, it’s warns those applying for it that they should not expect to be promoted to reporter.

What is a reporter exactly? Well, at most papers it’s very similar to this “community reporter” position, minus all that fancy Web work. But I digress.

Here is where the serious part of my post begins.

This is what the Post should do instead

Forget this shallow attempt at staffing the newsroom for less. Make this a real community journalist position. Make the main requirement of this position that a person already lives in the community they will cover.

No more bringing in candidates from outside the region to cover communities they know nothing about. Heck, I live in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., and I don’t think I’m qualified to cover Arlington or inside the District. Get people from Georgetown to cover Georgetown and people from Silver Spring, Maryland to cover Silver Spring.

That’s what a real community journalist does.

But here is the real kicker. $34,000 is too much for this position. Let’s slash the pay to $25,000-30,000. Let’s get rid of those expensive benefits.

Instead, make this position 20 hours a week or so. Yes, this will be a part-time job, and it doesn’t come with benefits. It’s also a telecommuting position, because I want community reporters to be out in the communities they cover, not stuck in a newsroom.

Encourage these community journalists to have other jobs. Maybe they’ll be local baristas or office workers or shop owners. Maybe someone who covers a government worker beat — gasp — works for the government. We want these people to have other jobs in the community.

I would give these community reporters their own beatblogs. In fact, their main focus would be on filling these beatblogs with great content (written, audio, video, photo, etc) and interacting with users. They would build networks of sources from within the community and online.

They would hold weekly office hours, ala Monica Guzman. They would be active on social media. They would carry a digital camera, laptop and smartphone with them wherever they went.

They would be a part of the community. That’s why the position should be part time. We want them to have another job, because we want these people to be a part of the communities they are covering.

That’s the point.

And get this, we’re not going to require them to have a journalism degree or journalism background. If they have a blog and understand social media and multimedia, that’s good enough for me. It’s more important to me for them to be of the community and to understand it rather than to have institutional knowledge of journalism. Plus, I don’t want to have to deal with teaching journalists “new” media.

For those of you who think $30,000 is a lot for a part-time job (especially one based on a $34,000 full-time job), consider this: we’re not paying benefits or retirement, we’re not training them on any newsroom systems, we’re not buying them computers, cameras, smartphones, desks, office space, etc. That all costs a lot of money, and could easily double or triple the $34,000 salary. Instead, these people will be independent contractors, and they’ll bring their own equipment (this can all be written off come tax time).

The possibilities to reinvent journalism are endless.

Instead, it’s clear to me that the Post is only interested in saving money, not in saving journalism.

Yes!

I’m totes getting this.

That is all. Good night.

All this talk about setting up an iTunes for news and getting people to pay for news is rather silly.

Steve Yelvington nails it on Twitter:

Repeat something I said years ago: How can you expect somebody to pay for content if they won’t read it regularly when it’s free?

There isn’t one news source that I am beholden to. I check many sources each day and could easily live without any of them. I’m not that regular of a reader of anything, and it’s all free.

Google Reader, Twitter, Delicious, Publish2, Facebook, etc are my main news sources. I follow the links from trusted sources.

Also, it’s impossible to charge for commoditzed content. Just look at how many news sources reported on Steve Jobs taking a leave of absence today. Go ahead and be that one news outlet that charges for something that people can get elsewhere.

And I bet advertisers notice too how the same news is reported and dissected ad nauseam by seemingly infinite news outlets. That certainly doesn’t create value for advertisers. More likely, it creates a glut of virtually identical content, allowing advertisers to offer rock bottom rates.

Journalism isn’t as unique as journalists want to believe it is. Unique niche content that creates value for both users and advertisers is our best path forward.

Seriously.

I’m not trying to be funny. There is no way that his columns are real. No way.

I’m convinced they only serve as link bait. He writes some of the most asinine, unresearched, unfathomable crap ever. There is no way the NY Times hired him to do anything other than troll and bait people.

Right?

If Carr is for real than he is a bona fide cubic moron. What’s a cubic moron? It’s a moron times a moron times a moron. In other words, someone who would write this: Let’s Invent an iTunes for News.

Actually, maybe Carr is the smartest person on the planet. He gets paid well to write some extremely poorly thought out — and rarely researched — crap that he doesn’t really understand.

Could you imagine getting paid well to do something really poorly? Something that you obviously put very little thought and time into? Carr’s a lottery winner as a far as I’m concerned.

Here are a couple holes I was able to punch on Carr’s latest gem with very little effort on my part:

• iTunes is not a main money maker for Apple — Apple has said repeatedly that iTunes doesn’t make huge profits. It’s purpose is to get people into the iPod/iTunes ecosystem. That ecosystem has now been extended to the iPhone and Apple TV. Repeat after me: Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. All the software they make is geared towards getting people to buy hardware. Guess why iLife isn’t on Windows? Because Apple doesn’t sell Windows hardware. Simple as that. Certainly the store has a much greater potential to make more money now that it is selling applications and video, which often cost much more than a $0.99 song. But it is difficult to make much of a profit on individual music tracks when Apple has to pay between $0.10 and $.25 per song to credit card companies in transaction fees. Regardless as to whether or not Apple can make a lot of money from iTunes, it’s not relevant to this debate. iTunes was started in order to get people to buy hardware. What hardware do newspapers sell again? Ultimately, if Apple is able to make lots of money from iTunes, it’s probably related to something other than the ala-carte song model.
• When have newspapers ever charged for news? — Newspapers charge for the product that is the newspaper and not the news itself. The physical production of a newspaper is expensive. Printing and distribution can often be more than half a newspapers operating cost. For those of who “pay” for the newspaper (and I do), we often get the newspaper at a subsidized rate. Most newspapers are happy to sell subscriptions below printing and distribution costs in order to boost their circulation numbers. Why? Because newspapers are an ad-supported business. An online-only news company can run much, much leaner than a newspaper could ever hope to. It’s imply comparing apples to oranges.
• Um, the LA Times? — Has Carr forgotten about how the LA Times online revenues are now enough to cover its entire editorial operations? Whoops. We don’t need an iTunes for news to keep news alive. We might need, however, to jettison costly print operations at some point.
• People pay for services — Home newspaper delivery is a service. Generic news (and most news is by definition) is not a service. Simply charging people to read individual stories on newspaper Web sites is not a service. Newspapers can charge for legitimate, bona fide Web services. But what legitimate services have they ever thought of? If newspapers do start successfully charging for services on their Web sites, I doubt they’ll be news related.

Seriously, it’s not that big of a deal.

Well, it is, but it doesn’t mean the quality of The New York Times will diminish. Nor do I think for a second that front page ads will influence editorial decisions.

But this is a big move for the Times, just not in a way traditionalists think it is. The Times is finding a way to add to its print revenue stream. We should all salute them for that.

Losing the Times would be catastrophic for the U.S. Putting front page ads in a newspaper? Eh, not really news.

Other, major U.S. newspapers already do it, and it’s common place in Europe. What this move signals to me more than anything else is that the Times is serious about trying to find ways to fight back in this troubled financial times (and to avoid defaulting on its debt). A front page ad in the Times is an advertisers dream, and should fetch a handsome sum.

The lone front page ad slot also sounds pretty harmless:

The first such ad, appearing Monday in color, was bought by CBS. The ad, two-and-a-half inches high, lies horizontally across the bottom of the front page, below the news articles and a brief summary of some articles in the paper.

The Times has huge debt obligations to make. This may not be the last, seemingly bold or drastic move (depending on your point of view) that the company makes in the coming months. Borrowing up to $225 million against its Manhattan headquarters is a much more drastic move than putting a single ad on the front page of the Times.

Before that move, the Times slashed its quarterly dividend to 6 cents a share from 23 cents. This will save the company almost $100 million a year. The Times is serious about making tough decisions to keep the company afloat.

If you have a problem with the Times selling front page ads, what would you rather the paper do? Cut more staff? Close more bureaus? Stop printing all together?

This isn’t your father’s newspaper recession. This is the real deal. Many of our most cheerished journalism institutions are in for the fight of their lives.

There is a new Facebook group called, “Don’t let newspapers die.”

It encourages journalists to try to get people to buy a newspaper again. Not by producing a better or a more relevant product mind you, but by badgering people to buy a product that they no longer find valuable.

The official logo for this group is a drawing of an old-time newspaper boy with the slogan, “Save a journalist buy a newspaper.” Listen, plenty of journalists don’t work for newspapers, and most people want their journalism in another format than a newspaper. 

Newspapers aren’t charities. In fact, many newspapers companies enjoyed gigantic profits for years. Instead of reinvesting those profits in R&D and focusing on the future, newspaper companies squandered it all. Most newspapers operated as monopolies for years.

Are the people joining this group on Facebook (which is officially listed as “cause” that people can donate money to), also going to donate money to Microsoft one day if it falters and looks like it is falling under? After all, it was a one-time monopoly with astronomical profits. 

The last reason this group is ridiculous (and shows that many journalists don’t get even understand the business they are in) is that most newspapers lose money on each newspaper sold. That is to say that printing and distribution costs outstrip the gains from subscription and newsstand sales. The vast majority of newspapers make their money on advertising (The Christian Science Monitor is a notable exception).

Advertisers have been fleeing newspapers for year. Now we’re in a global financial crisis. Companies naturally have to cut back on advertising. Unless newspapers substantially raise the cost of a single newspaper (always a hit in bad economic times), selling more newspapers won’t help. There just aren’t enough advertising dollars to go around right now. 

I’m glad to support real non-profits like David Cohn’s Spot.Us. I think the non-profit model for future Web journalism can work in certain instances. But newspapers aren’t charities. Almost all are for-profit businesses that should have been leaders in online journalism.

But they’re not. And whose fault is that?