Hearst Corp. said its newspapers plan to hold back at least some content from their free Web sites, launching the publisher onto the vanguard of print media companies to begin charging for their digital news and information.
A top executive at Hearst, which publishes 16 newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said the company is mulling how much of its online offerings to keep free, while reserving some content exclusively for people who pay.
“Exactly how much paid content to hold back from our free sites will be a judgment call made daily by our management, whose mission should be to run the best free Web sites in our markets without compromising our ability to get a fair price from consumers for the expensive, unique reporting and writing that we produce each day,” Steven Swartz, the president of Hearst newspapers, said in a staff memo.
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Sunday, March 1, 2009
Emirates press corps feels chill as news turns bad
The ruling sheiks cannot stop the global economic crisis from intruding on their lofty dreams.
They can, however, try to keep it off the front pages.
A draft media law could give authorities wider powers to regulate increasingly gloomy economic reporting after years of basking in coverage of hyper-growth and gliterati just as dazzling and gossip-worthy as Hollywood's.
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They can, however, try to keep it off the front pages.
A draft media law could give authorities wider powers to regulate increasingly gloomy economic reporting after years of basking in coverage of hyper-growth and gliterati just as dazzling and gossip-worthy as Hollywood's.
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It's not a lack of readers, it's a lack of advertising
Cheryl Dell writes:
We are facing tough times – just as radio, television and Internet sites are – because our business models rely on the communities we serve being economically strong. The amount of money readers pay for the printed edition of the newspaper doesn't cover the costs of the newsprint it's printed on and its delivery to the reader. That means that advertising revenues pay for everything else. While The Bee's cost to transmit information electronically is much less (it's still not free), the content posted online is paid for by advertising, as well.
And our advertisers – like thousands of other businesses in the Sacramento region – are struggling. The Bee is a local business whose future is intertwined with the region's success.
We need to challenge ourselves to change our business model going forward.
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We are facing tough times – just as radio, television and Internet sites are – because our business models rely on the communities we serve being economically strong. The amount of money readers pay for the printed edition of the newspaper doesn't cover the costs of the newsprint it's printed on and its delivery to the reader. That means that advertising revenues pay for everything else. While The Bee's cost to transmit information electronically is much less (it's still not free), the content posted online is paid for by advertising, as well.
And our advertisers – like thousands of other businesses in the Sacramento region – are struggling. The Bee is a local business whose future is intertwined with the region's success.
We need to challenge ourselves to change our business model going forward.
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Tough day for newspapers
Eric Duvall writes:
I won’t sugarcoat it: This is going to get worse. This paper — every newspaper — will have to make more cuts. Hopefully it won’t be jobs, but that’s certainly not impossible if things continue the way they are right now. The staff here knows it, and they’re working their butts off just the same, believing as I do that our jobs are important.
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I won’t sugarcoat it: This is going to get worse. This paper — every newspaper — will have to make more cuts. Hopefully it won’t be jobs, but that’s certainly not impossible if things continue the way they are right now. The staff here knows it, and they’re working their butts off just the same, believing as I do that our jobs are important.
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The New York Times Battles a Googler for New Jersey
Why is the Gray Lady building websites for the obscure suburbs of South Orange, Maplewood, and Milburn? Perhaps because those are the exact same towns Google executive Tim Armstrong picked for Patch, his local-news startup.
Armstrong, Google's top U.S. sales executive, has invested in Patch, a company which promises to develop "hyperlocal" websites focusing on news coverage specific to their communities. He's putting in money from his own fortune — money which he made through Google's lucrative IPO — but one must imagine New York Times executives view Patch as a stalking horse for the search engine.
Hence the new Times feature called The Local. Besides Patch's three towns, The Local will also cover two Brooklyn neighborhoods.
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Armstrong, Google's top U.S. sales executive, has invested in Patch, a company which promises to develop "hyperlocal" websites focusing on news coverage specific to their communities. He's putting in money from his own fortune — money which he made through Google's lucrative IPO — but one must imagine New York Times executives view Patch as a stalking horse for the search engine.
Hence the new Times feature called The Local. Besides Patch's three towns, The Local will also cover two Brooklyn neighborhoods.
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Red all over
The Globe needs 50 buyout volunteers. So far, few are cooperating — and that likely means bloodshed on Morrissey Boulevard, writes Adam Reilly.
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Under Weight of Its Mistakes, Newspaper Industry Staggers
Howard Kurtz writes:
Why a once-profitable industry suddenly seems as outmoded as America's automakers is a tale that involves arrogance, mistakes, eroding trust and the rise of a digital world in which newspapers feel compelled to give away their content.
"Most of the wounds are self-inflicted," says Phil Bronstein, editor at large of the San Francisco Chronicle, which Hearst Corp. has threatened to close unless major cost savings are achieved or a buyer is found. Rather than engage the audience, he says, "the public was seen as kind of messy and icky and not something you needed to get involved with."
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Why a once-profitable industry suddenly seems as outmoded as America's automakers is a tale that involves arrogance, mistakes, eroding trust and the rise of a digital world in which newspapers feel compelled to give away their content.
"Most of the wounds are self-inflicted," says Phil Bronstein, editor at large of the San Francisco Chronicle, which Hearst Corp. has threatened to close unless major cost savings are achieved or a buyer is found. Rather than engage the audience, he says, "the public was seen as kind of messy and icky and not something you needed to get involved with."
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Decline of newspapers renews idea of nonprofits
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.
David Swensen, who managed one of the world's largest endowments as chief investment officer at Yale University, said endowments "would enhance newspapers' autonomy while shielding them from the economic forces that are now tearing them down."
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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.
David Swensen, who managed one of the world's largest endowments as chief investment officer at Yale University, said endowments "would enhance newspapers' autonomy while shielding them from the economic forces that are now tearing them down."
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Grim news for papers
February was among the cruelest months for a newspaper industry rocked by bankruptcies, large-scale layoffs and the shutdown of long-standing publications.
Among the industry's grim rumblings was the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing last weekend by Journal Register Co., the debt-laden newspaper publisher based in Pennsylvania.
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Among the industry's grim rumblings was the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing last weekend by Journal Register Co., the debt-laden newspaper publisher based in Pennsylvania.
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Support your local newspaper!
Devon Walker writes:
So, what does the future hold for journalism? We are entering this lull, and I fear the future. What happens when not enough people are looking for the dirt. What happens when fewer people are picking up the phones and asking questions? What happens when the people are not informed?
I interviewed a few folks on this topic recently: Traditional print journalists (dinosaurs), new media pioneers (rock throwers) and media watchdogs (whiners) to answer this question.
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So, what does the future hold for journalism? We are entering this lull, and I fear the future. What happens when not enough people are looking for the dirt. What happens when fewer people are picking up the phones and asking questions? What happens when the people are not informed?
I interviewed a few folks on this topic recently: Traditional print journalists (dinosaurs), new media pioneers (rock throwers) and media watchdogs (whiners) to answer this question.
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Die cast on Rocky as Dems gathered
The beginning of the end of the Rocky Mountain News coincided, ironically, with one of the newspaper's biggest journalistic endeavors.
As Rocky reporters and editors hustled in August to cover the presidential nomination in Denver of Barack Obama, the head of the Rocky's owner, E.W. Scripps, walked the streets of Denver, pondering the newspaper's future.
Cincinnati-based Scripps had known for at least two years that two major daily newspapers could not survive in Denver, even after a 2001 joint operating agreement intended to cut costs by combining the papers' business operations.
But Scripps family members and corporate directors had strong sentimental ties to their flagship paper, the 149-year-old Rocky. Preserve the Rocky, the corporate thinking went, and perhaps The Denver Post can be bought out or persuaded to fold.
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As Rocky reporters and editors hustled in August to cover the presidential nomination in Denver of Barack Obama, the head of the Rocky's owner, E.W. Scripps, walked the streets of Denver, pondering the newspaper's future.
Cincinnati-based Scripps had known for at least two years that two major daily newspapers could not survive in Denver, even after a 2001 joint operating agreement intended to cut costs by combining the papers' business operations.
But Scripps family members and corporate directors had strong sentimental ties to their flagship paper, the 149-year-old Rocky. Preserve the Rocky, the corporate thinking went, and perhaps The Denver Post can be bought out or persuaded to fold.
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There's still profit on the page
Peter Bradshaw writes:
The old boy doesn't dissemble. "I am extremely happy with all of our newspapers," he says. "There has never been a greater appetite for news in the community - and we will be able to capitalise on that pretty well." But listen to the analysts agonise as Peter Chernin, News Corp's chief operating officer and Hollywood head honcho, departs. Listen as the New York Times (for heavens sake!) pronounces Rupert Murdoch's love of printed news his Achilles heel. Listen to the drumbeats of doom as the media giant that Rupert built has to be rescued by a bevy of variously talented Murdoch kids and a battered boss lighting 78 candles on his birthday cake.
Is this, as some woe merchants now proclaim, the beginning of the end of the Murdoch hegemony? Is the special one too wrapped up in family succession manoeuvres to keep vital hired talent happy? Is his corporate structure so wonky that he has to take over the Beverly Hills beat himself pro tem, a lost tycoon diagnosing the tastes of movie audiences 60 years younger? Doesn't he realise that most media dynasties self-destruct?
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The old boy doesn't dissemble. "I am extremely happy with all of our newspapers," he says. "There has never been a greater appetite for news in the community - and we will be able to capitalise on that pretty well." But listen to the analysts agonise as Peter Chernin, News Corp's chief operating officer and Hollywood head honcho, departs. Listen as the New York Times (for heavens sake!) pronounces Rupert Murdoch's love of printed news his Achilles heel. Listen to the drumbeats of doom as the media giant that Rupert built has to be rescued by a bevy of variously talented Murdoch kids and a battered boss lighting 78 candles on his birthday cake.
Is this, as some woe merchants now proclaim, the beginning of the end of the Murdoch hegemony? Is the special one too wrapped up in family succession manoeuvres to keep vital hired talent happy? Is his corporate structure so wonky that he has to take over the Beverly Hills beat himself pro tem, a lost tycoon diagnosing the tastes of movie audiences 60 years younger? Doesn't he realise that most media dynasties self-destruct?
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Don't count out local newspapers
Don Miller writes:
Newspapers were once part of the community fabric -- often family owned and immensely profitable. Then came an era of corporate ownership, and these corporations, sometimes publicly traded, often used borrowed money to expand their media empires.
We all know what's happened to companies that are highly leveraged. When the recession hit, and credit became nearly impossible to obtain, many once-mighty titans of industry began to fall, like tropical rain. ...
Newspapers remain profitable -- especially if not dragged down by corporate debt. Readership, while aging, remains committed -- as long as the paper does what is should do: covering the news, acting as a watchdog on government and other publicly funded agencies, entertaining, explaining, making sense of the seemingly senseless, bringing clarity to the cacophony of the daily babble.
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Newspapers were once part of the community fabric -- often family owned and immensely profitable. Then came an era of corporate ownership, and these corporations, sometimes publicly traded, often used borrowed money to expand their media empires.
We all know what's happened to companies that are highly leveraged. When the recession hit, and credit became nearly impossible to obtain, many once-mighty titans of industry began to fall, like tropical rain. ...
Newspapers remain profitable -- especially if not dragged down by corporate debt. Readership, while aging, remains committed -- as long as the paper does what is should do: covering the news, acting as a watchdog on government and other publicly funded agencies, entertaining, explaining, making sense of the seemingly senseless, bringing clarity to the cacophony of the daily babble.
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