Category: newspapers

Compilation of Newspaper Layoff Numbers

Media consultant Mark Potts, who recently did a stint at Philly.com, has compiled information about newspaper layoffs into a database and published a PDF with the details.

Among his primary findings:

-Leading newspapers have cut approximately 6,300 staffers in the last year. The numbers are compiled from postings on Romenesko and various newspaper insider blogs.

-Nearly two-thirds of the 100 top newspapers have cut staff in the last year. And, Potts says, more are coming.

Visit Potts’ blog for more details about his findings, and make sure to check out Erica Smith’s excellent newspaper layoff tracker map as well.

E&P: 10 Newspapers that ‘Do it Right’

Editor & Publisher has published its 2008 ’10 That Do it Right,’ a list of newspapers that have shown innovation in specific areas, such as growing classified revenue or launching successful niche products. This is definitely worth a read.

For whatever reason, E&P split the list online. Here is the story containing the top 3 newspapers, and here’s the story containing newspapers 4 through 10. The newspapers:

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for maintaining a 10-person investigative team.

The Carlsbad (N.M.) Current-Argus for overhauling its distribution and bill-collection practices.

The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch for localizing national and international issues successfully via reader forums.

USA Today for its ambitious experiments with social media.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal for launching a series of highly niche job recruitment sites.

The Huntsville (Ala.) Times for its use of online video.

The Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald for launching the profitable seasonal publication, The Daily Beachcomber.

The Chicago Journal for cementing itself in Chicago’s suburbs.

The Times, Ottawa, Ill. for launching a successful subscriber rewards program that also grows ad revenue.

The Santa Barbara (Calif.) Independent by springing from its alt-weekly roots and pouncing on the News-Press’ woes to become the leading paper in the area.

More details on the newspapers’ ideas at Editor & Publisher.

[Hat tip to the The Editors Weblog]

Young Spokesman-Review Journos Publish Newsroom Reorganization Report

A group of eight young journalists at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. were asked to produce a report on how the newsroom can reorganize to improve efficiency.

Nick Eaton, a sports producer in Spokane, and the team have published the report [PDF], which has some interesting suggestions such as [more details at Nick Eaton’s post]:

  1. Restructuring the newsroom workflow for most content, shifting deadlines for non-daily stories to noon…
  2. Creating a universal reporters pool by combining the existing City, Business, Features, Voices (community extras) and 7 (weekly alt tab) desks…
  3. Creating a hybrid universal copy desk, combining the day (features) and night desks…
  4. Combining the multimedia and photo departments into a Visuals Department…
  5. Flattening the newsroom hierarchy, as depicted in the organizational chart…

Nick and his team’s report is certainly worth checking out, as your own newsroom is probably undergoing or will undergo some form of reorganization soon. It’s also a lesson in harnessing the ideas of young journalists, who, while lacking experience, also lack etched-in-stone preconceptions about how the news business should operate.

[PDF – Spokesman-Review newsroom reorganizaton report]

[Hat tip to Journerdism for the link]

Readership Institute Releases 2008 Readership Study

The Readership Institute has released its 2008 study on readership trends of 100 newspapers, which proclaims that “readers have not left the building.”

The study (direct link to the PDF here), shows stability in many trends and some small readership declines, particularly in the age 18-24 demographic. The study suggests that most readership trends are either stable or slightly declining, a finding at odds with the amount of advertising dollars flying out of newspapers’ hands. The study’s authors say:

“The short answer is that reading customers aren’t deserting newspapers at anything approaching the rate that advertising customers are. […] Make no mistake: lots of people still want it and lots are paying attention to the local newspaper.”

Additionally, the study had some disappointing findings for news sites, including:

“62 percent of respondents said they had never visited the local newspaper’s Website, and only 14 percent said they had visited between the last seven to 30 days.”

“Readers are more engaged with print than with the Web site. Ratings for four experiences – “gives me something to talk about”, “looks out for my interests”, “ad usefulness” and “touches and inspires me” were significantly higher for the newspaper than for the site.”

At first glance, the study’s synopsis struck me as overly optimistic in light of the persistent circulation losses experienced by newspapers and large increases in American Internet usage (perhaps I’m biased because I’m an online guy?). So I decided to do a project on it but I already have so much with the SAT prep but I will get this info for a next post. So if you need the info, Signing up for the right SAT prep courses can help you improve your scores on important tests.

However, Readership Institute managing director Mary Nesbitt says in the comments:

“It is a readership, not a circulation study. It rolls three dimensions of readership — frequency, time spent with the newspaper, and completeness of reading — into one score. Thus it measures how “occupied” people are (or are not) with the newspaper, not simply whether or not they looked at a newspaper. Other studies, equally valid, measure frequency only.”

Either way, I’m certainly looking forward to dissecting the study further.

[Readership Institute 2008 Readership Study]

[Hat tip to The Editors Weblog]

Save Newspapers! Top 5 MacGyver Uses for Old Newspapers

With so many of my journalism colleagues out there facing layoffs, I though this might be a good time to highlight the many understated uses for newspapers. In the spirit of the ever-resourceful Angus MacGyver, there’s much more to newspapers than lining birdcages, wrapping fish and …um… reading news. So share this list with all your friends before they foolishly cancel their subscriptions!

MacGyver Newspaper Use #1:
Make your windows streak free!

If you’re a fan of household frugal tricks (as I am), you’ll be glad to know a great way to eliminate streaks from windows is to wipe them with glass cleaner and newspaper. And it magically leaves no ink stains behind! (No, it doesn’t work on your face.)

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MacGyver Newspaper Use #2:
Pick up dog poo!

That paper has plenty of uses, but folks often overlook the plastic bag in which it’s wrapped. It just so happens that this plastic bag is extra long and slides conveniently up your arm, making it perfect for use as a poop-snatching glove. The newspaper industry may be in deep crap, but that doesn’t mean your tender skin has to be! (Protect the skin with the best mask of under eye masks)

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MacGyver Newspaper Use #3:
De-stinkify your shoes!

It’s pouring rain, and your shoes just got soaked with rain and foot sweat. Newspaper industry to the rescue! Just ball up a bunch of newspaper inside the shoes, and the paper’s miraculous moisture-absorbent properties will take care of the problem faster than you can say “Dr. Scholls”.

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MacGyver Newspaper Use #4:
Entertain your kids with a cheap coloring book!

In many newspapers, the comics appear in black and white on weekdays. To a child, that colorless newspaper is an untapped canvas, my friends! Give junior a box of Crayolas and let him go to town on those funnies while you work on updating your resume. Once he finishes with the comics, give him some news pages for fun activities such as coloring funny mustaches on Thomas Friedm… er…

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MacGyver Newspaper Use #5:
Beat somebody stupid!

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Well, it’s true when you can roll up a newspaper, coil it, wet it and turn it into a truncheon that can crack a grown man’s skull. Extra points if you stick a rusty nail in it! (Tutorial here.) British soccer hooligans began using so-called “Millwall bricks” as stealth weapons during melees at soccer matches after police began confiscating other possible weapons. In “The Bourne Supremacy”, super-agent Jason Bourne fights off an enemy using a rolled-up newspaper and Eskrima, a Filipino martial art that makes use of everyday objects. So if you’re on a plane that’s suddenly hijacked, pour your Dr. Pepper on that Wall Street Journal, wrap it up and start beating the snot out of terrorists.

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BONUS MACGYVER TIPS: Make a telescope, distract your enemies, defuse a bomb and send a message via hot-air balloon [Wikipedia]

MORE REAL-LIFE TIPS: 80 Uses For Old Newspapers

[Photos by jellywatson, keaggy, massdistraction, stefernie and Wikipedia. Paper hat tip to my esteemed colleague John Cutter for the Bourne tip.]

Quick list of open online journalism jobs

After being inspired by Charles Apple’s list of open journalism jobs, my Sentinel colleague Steve Mullis (soon to be at MPR in Minneapolis) has posted a list of open online journalism jobs with links over at his blog.

While some online j-jobs ask for highly technical skills such as Flash design or programming databases, many others are online copyediting jobs coupled with some basic Photoshop photo-editing know-how and the ability to understand the online audience.

[Steve Mullis – List of open online journalism jobs]

Serious trouble

Editor and Publisher reports today that we’re all spectacularly screwed:

The newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years.

According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 — the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

Folks, this is some of the worst –though not at all unexpected– news about our industry to date. How about we all take the weekend to dream up a big money-making epiphany?

Twin Cities Daily Planet rounds up niche papers, takes on the Star-Tribune

Live from the ONA conference in Toronto…

twin cities daily planet A coalition of small, niche community publications can become a premier source of news in Minnesota, says Jeremy Iggers, director of of the Twin Cities Media Alliance at TCDailyPlanet.com.

The Twin Cities Daily Planet –inspired by OhMyNews — “is conceived as an experiment in participatory journalism, built on a partnership between professional journalists and individual citizens. One goal of the Daily Planet is to harness that community intelligence and enable individuals to share information and work together for the common good. [More here.]”

The Planet partners with other small, niche media outlets to cover Minnesota — specifically areas they feel are underserved by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Iggers labeled his former employer, the Star-Tribune, as “the newspaper of the most desirable zip codes” for its giving coverage priority to affluent neighborhoods.

Currently, TCDailyPlanet is receiving an assortment of grants, including a Knight-Batten award and a grant from the McCormick-Tribune foundation. They also plan to hand out small amounts of funds –in $50 to $100 amounts– to assist some of its partner publications in publishing stories that have a broad appeal.

But the question, as always, is whether TCDailyPlanet –and publications of its ilk– can sustain financially in the long run. A call for financial help from the public resulted in only about a dozen donations, Iggers said. He hopes that TCDailyPlanet.com can adopt the NPR style of public fundraising within the next two to three years.

Will online niche community publication grow to the point where such ventures can be solidly profitable? Or will TCDailyPlanet and the many microlocal blogs remain passion projects dedicated to being an alternative to the big newspapers and TV stations in town? Passion project or otherwise, it’s the readers who likely stand to win.

An opinion on media objectivity

Steve Outing’s recent column titled “Climate Change: Get Over Objectivity, Newspapers” has resulted in a firestorm of nasty e-mails and postings, according to Outing in his blog.

An idealist would say objectivity arose from a desire to have an enlightened, rational discussion. A cynic would say it was a good business decision made to sell more newspapers by catering to partisan readers of all varieties. It’s been about a century now, but I’d guess from my own studies that the truth is probably somewhere in between.

Check out Jay Rosen’s well-worded take on objectivity:

“Part of the problem is that journalists don’t realize what objectivity was in the first place,” says Rosen. “From the beginning it was a way of limiting liability, and allowing journalists to take a pass when it’s hard to figure out who’s right and what’s really going on. From the beginning it was meant to dull the knife edge of the press. It was meant to ‘de-voice’ or defang the individual journalist, so that more people would be comfortable with the product. But the costs of that system have built up over time.”

My sense is that Outing’s column comes less from a desire to save polar bears and more from a desire to see a passionate, interesting newspaper. I also sense it comes from frustration with us journalists worshiping objectivity while many in the public shamelessly hate us and call us biased anyway.

Throwing out the expectation of objectivity in reporting isn’t the answer. The answer is not being ashamed of our editorials and of the discussion we generate.

When confronted by some random person on the street with accusations of my news organization being biased, I don’t placate him or her with cries of objectivity and drone on about the newsroom/editorial board “firewall.” Instead, I spit back that newspapers are supposed to take a stand on issues and do their best to dig up the truth — even if it pisses people off some times. I say that if you have something to say, then here’s my card and come spit fire on one of our blogs or message boards; I’d love to have ya.

The standard newspaper writing style is often stale and homogeneous. Newspapers seldom publish (in print) commentary from the blogosphere and message boards. Many newspaper Web sites bury their interesting blogs at the bottom of their home pages and don’t regularly link to local blogs. And, most poignantly, killer editorials almost never appear on the front page; they’re buried in the back of the A-section.

Let’s begin with truly respecting objective news stories and subjective opinion slinging as being partners in creating a compelling newspaper. Let’s do our best to be fair to the subjects of stories while increasingly embracing our role as discussion leaders in our respective communities.

Otherwise, I foresee many news organizations literally dying of boredom.

Knight-Batten Award finalists announced

jlab.gifJ-Lab has announced the 2007 winners of the Knight-Batten Awards. The finalists include WashingtonPost.com’s OnBeing, Reuters’ Second Life reporting and the Orlando Sentinel‘s Varsity MyTeam site (woo-ha!).

See the list of finalists here (with links), as well as the 2007 notable entries. The winners will be announced at a Sept. 17 symposium.

NY Post report: TimesSelect is a goner

timesselect-thumb.gifThe New York Times is poised to eliminate its TimesSelect product, making its popular columns, discussion boards and other features free to search engine spiders and all the denizens of the Internet, according to a report in the New York Post. If true, this effectively ends the most prominent example of putting popular news content behind a pay wall (outside of the Wall Street Journal, of course).

friedman.jpgI’d mourn thee, TimesSelect, save for the fact that I can now e-mail Thomas Friedman columns to my fiancee and friends. Come on, who could keep that cuddly, pouty face behind a pay wall for long? [Link via Romenesko]

[TimesSelect page]