Howard Owens

A Saturday road trip to Niagara and Orleans counties

Howard Owens — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 03:11:25 +0000

Today a client sent me to a town in Niagara County near Lake Ontario. The irony was, the night before the assignment came in, Billie said to me, “I’ve been thinking, we haven’t been up to Lake Ontario in a … Continue reading →

Photos: San Francisco

Howard Owens — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:19:49 +0000

I suspect I could spend a lifetime in San Francisco and never exhaust the photographic possibilities. A million photographers couldn’t. It’s no wonder it’s a city that inspires so much art. Here are a collection of photos from my two … Continue reading →

A collection of YouTube sales training videos for aspiring local online news publishers

Howard Owens — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:24:04 +0000

Some time ago I thought it would be interesting to see if I could put together a sales training course for beginners, thinking primarily of journalists, using just YouTube videos. I’m posting what I’ve come up with so far to … Continue reading →

You’re not in the railroad business, you’re in the news business

Howard Owens — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:19:49 +0000

Countless times in the past 15 years I’ve heard online news gurus exhort newspaper executives to “get” the digital media future with admonition: “Railroads thought they were in the railroad business. They didn’t realize they were in the transportation business.” … Continue reading →

It’s time to move legal notices online

Howard Owens — Mon, 14 May 2012 19:53:38 +0000

There are important reform bills in California and New York, and perhaps elsewhere, that would allow online-only publication of legal notices. Newspaper publishers are predictably fighting the bills, one of the last reliable revenue streams for print newspapers. But what … Continue reading →

Why Patch will never be profitable

Howard Owens — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:42:29 +0000

Patch faces to huge obstacles on its path to profitability: The first is expenses; the second is revenue. Expenses: Tim Armstrong is absolutely right that a great deal of the expense of a print publication can be wrung out of … Continue reading →

Paywalls create opportunities for local news entrepreneurs

Howard Owens — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:42:41 +0000

It seems like paywalls are popping up all over the place these days. In recent months Lee, GateHouse and Gannett, for example, have all announced or are implementing paid subscriptions for digital content. Nobody is rooting for these newspapers to … Continue reading →

Advocates of pay walls should consider the fate of the New York World

Howard Owens — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:44:01 +0000

First, let me remind you of a post November, 2009, in which I quote Walter Lippmann: We expect the newspaper to serve us with truth however unprofitable the truth may be. For this difficult and often dangerous service, which we … Continue reading →

Photo: A snowy night in my back yard

Howard Owens — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:02:40 +0000

To me, a night like tonight is a perfect winter night. Such nights are rare enough in winters when much snow falls. They are rarer still on mild winters, such as the one we’ve had to endure so far in … Continue reading →

Ten things journalists can do to reinvent journalism, the new list

Howard Owens — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:03:18 +0000

For no particular reason, I found myself looking at Google Analytics and decided to open the calendar all the way back to 2007. I discovered that the most popular post I’ve written in that time (and probably since I started … Continue reading →