The Inquisitr » Media Industry

A boatload of trouble

Steven Hodson — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:52:42 +0000

Fox News and Bill O’Reilly are gloating over the numbers they got during the 8 o’clock slot over the news of the Ft. Hood shootings, saying that they wiped out CNN and MSNBC. Even scarier is that they seem to be under the impression that they are now the new voice of the news.

“We did 5 million viewers at 8 O’Clock, wiped out CNN and MSNBC, wiped them off the face of the earth. The guard has changed in this country. The media guard has changed. And you know why people came in here, because they knew they were going to get an honest story. They weren’t going to get spin that Hasan is some kind of post-traumatic syndrome victim. Some kind of victim of a terrible public policy gone awry. They’re not going to get that….. I almost said a bad word. They’re not going to get that garbage here.”

Source: TVNewser

If Fox News is the new guard of the old media then we are in for a boatload of trouble. Any shadow of old media impartiality just flew out the window.

O’Reilly and guest gloating over how Fox is getting the news right

The coming world of the multimedia journalist

Steven Hodson — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:32:53 +0000

We hear the scare tactics everyday. The news industry is tanking and the only way to save it is by returning to putting everything behind the paywall or instituting some sort of micro-payment schemes. News can’t survive by being given away for free is the mantra of the old school media companies.

News organizations after news organizations are crying the blues and cutting back on staff in order to keep the industry profitable enough for the owners and well placed editors. You would think that the coming news Armageddon will see the end of news as we know it.

The problem is that this is a specious argument that is put forth in order to protect the status quo of the news delivery systems. News will never die. Seriously. News is something that happens around us every day, every minute and nothing we do will ever stop news from happening.

What will change is the way in which we get our news and this is what is scaring the shit out of the old guard of the news industry – because at its root news isn’t an industry, we have just been led to believe it is.

While the boardrooms of the old world media companies are struggling to maintain any control they can over their profits that feed their million dollar lifestyles there are journalists and reporters who are finding a whole new freedom that comes from being exactly that – reporters of the news as it is happening. They are finding new freedom in being able to create content that will outlast even the outmoded methods of our current news delivery systems.

Even as these dinosaurs of newsprint carry on about returning to behind the paywall long time journalists are say no to the idea. Case in point is Saul Friedman who has been writing a column for Newsday since 1996.

Then he found out that Newsday, owned by Cablevision, would be returning its content back behind a paywall. It was a paywall that saw anyone other than a Cablevision and Newsday print subscriber having to pay $5 a week to access the site. This for Friedman was the breaking point and decided the time to quit had come. The idea of losing readership because of this paywall wasn’t acceptable to him.

Just as some journalists and reporters are deciding that the time is coming where they have to consider doing their job outside of the normal confines of a newspaper there are also a growing number of them that are looking to expand the way that they can keep on reporting on the news.

It is people like long time crime and court reporter Ron Sylvester who have seen the future of the business and realized that it is no longer just about the written word as published under some newspaper’s masthead. For Sylvester the role for journalists is going to become one of being a multi-media journalist where things like the written word are included with podcasts and videocasting.

As well it will mean being a part of the social media movement both as a way to promote one’s work as well as a way to find out about new stories that might be of interest. Journalist and reporters are becoming their own editors and ad departments. They are becoming their own sound man and videographers.

In Sylvester’s case he is also lucky enough to be able to draw on the skills of like minded contemporaries for projects that exceed his abilities to properly cover a story. This is almost the beginnings of the independent mobile teams of experts who can react quickly and without having to deal with the bureaucracy of an established newsroom.

While there is plenty of room for the independent journalist maintaining their own blog or being a part of a larger one I think the real power of a new world of news delivery will come from people like Ron Sylvester and other like him who will utilize all the aspects of technology in order to bring the real news to their readers. It will be the news without the preconceived filters that established old media organizations dole out what they think we need to read.

Regardless of what the dinosaurs of news might have us believe with their scare tactics news will never stop being delivered – only the methods of delivery will change.

Mainstream Media’s Death – Pending

Kyle Brady — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:10:10 +0000

Everyone has seen it coming but those effected by it: the mainstream media has been in a long, slow slide that will inevitably end in its death, and they have long since decried this as outrageous – but the cracks are beginning to show. Newspapers are asking for federal permission to collude as an industry, magazines are failing left and right, and all forms of publishing media has seen extensive layoffs and the closure of “extras” like non-local bureaus.

But what about the venerable media institutions that fall somewhere in-between newspapers and magazines? These are the TIME Magazine’s, Newsweek’s, and U.S. News‘ of the world.

TIME, along with it’s weekly brethren, typically has historically had more journalistic integrity per paragraph than any newspaper does per page – this is common knowledge, and it was assumed by many that they would weather the perfect storm of media collapse better than most. This, apparently, was an incorrect assumption.

Looking over the last three issues, disturbing trends begin to emerge.

The November 9th, 2009 issue of TIME has 64 pages: 25 are ads, and 11 are the beginning filler nonsense no-one reads – that’s over half the magazine, and another 5 pages are dedicated for entertainment “news” that doesn’t belong in a publication like TIME. But here’s where it gets good: there’s two “book adaptation” articles that total 6 pages. All told, that leaves just 17 pages for true journalism, half of which are actually commentary pieces.

The November 2nd, 2009 issue has 80 pages: 44 are ads, 11 are introductory filler, 10 are entertainment “news”, and there’s another 5 for commentary – leaving just 10 pages for journalism. The trend continues in the October 26, 2009 issue: 64 pages in length, 17 are ads, 5 are full-page “infographics”, 12 are intro filler, 3 are full-page pictures, 5 used for entertainment, and another 5 for commentary – 17 for journalism.

Did TIME think its readers wouldn’t notice? That people who care enough about politics and world issues to read lengthy stories are somehow too busy or ignorant to realize the content they pay for is dwindling substantially? The content I personally pay for now only represents somewhere around 20% of the magazine each week, and this is somehow supposed to be acceptable?

There was a time, just a few years ago, where the magazine took well over an hour to read – and it was an enjoyable, informed, educational timesink. Now it takes less than half an hour of mostly brainless reading, depending on the week’s content, because the majority of the magazine gets ignored. It’s understandable that such publications are going through tough financial times, due to a decreased readership and a number of other issues, but the way to increase your membership, or even maintain the status quo, is most definitively NOT to follow TIME’s current behavior.

To all the media moguls out there, here’s an important point you might want to write down for future use: when you need to increase your publication’s readership, replacing content with ads and journalism with reprints or filler is not going to net you the results you desire. This, in all honesty, should be common sense.

It goes without saying that I am not only disappointed in TIME for such behavior, but also that it deserves to fail in a miserable and public fashion, because it has proven itself incapable of making rational editorial decisions when threatened with existential questions. Since I don’t subscribe to Newsweek or U.S. Magazine, it’s hard to say definitively whether they are acting similarly, but this industry has proven to be very open to groupthink…

In short, let TIME and its ilk die the slow, painful death that they deserve.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Journal to Close Boston Bureau, Lay Off 9 As Ad Revenue Falls

AHN — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:49:40 +0000

New York, NY (AHN) – The editor of the Wall Street Journal thought the unthinkable on Thursday and announced the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston bureau is closing, resulting in the layoff of nine reporters.

Managing Editor Robert Thomson revealed the decision in a memo to staffers, saying that “we remain in the midst of a profound downturn in advertising revenue and thus must think the unthinkable.”

The affected reporters will be able to apply for other jobs within the Journal, the memo said. The Journal is owned by News Corp.

An “investigative function” will stay at the bureau, according to Thomson. Coverage of mutual fund companies in the Boston area will be transferred to the Money and Investing Team, which will remain in place.

The Newswires bureau and Marketwatch staff in Boston will not be affected.

The staff reductions come as media publications are experiencing a dramatic drop in advertising revenues, which fell 29 percent in the first six months of the year.

Combined circulation of the Journal’s print and online editions rose 0.6 percent in the six months through September compared to the same period in 2008. Print-only circulation fell 2.4 percent.

In 2007, two Journal reporters at the Boston bureau won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for stories about back-dated stock options for corporate executives.

The Journal has a news staff of about 750 people.

At mid-afternoon, trading in News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWSA) was up 4.7 percent.

Those ads are just so fly – literally

Steven Hodson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:35:37 +0000

I’ve seen some pretty ingenious advertising in my time but the idea of using flies – yes flies – to help deliver your ads is definitely out there in left field. I’m not sure who thought up this idea but they deserve a bonus.

The video is of a German trade show where one of the exhibitors released a whole bunch of flies with advertisements attached to them. You got to admit it is rather clever and a hell of a way to get people to look at your ad.

Book publishers, book sellers face being WalMarted to death

Steven Hodson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:35:03 +0000

If there is one thing you can say about the Web it is that it is responsible for the disruption of more businesses than just about any recession. We hear daily about the newspaper industry facing annihilation, the music industry trying to suck out the last dollar it can, and the movie industry trying to constantly stuff the genie back in the bottle.

What we don’t necessarily hear a lot about is the book industry whether it be from the point of view of the authors, or book sellers, or book publishers. Every once in awhile stuff will bubble to the surface but on the whole much of the discussion around books get quickly overshadowed by its more loud mouth industry cousins.

That doesn’t change the fact thought that the book industry is facing a full frontal assault that will have as much an impact on the industry as the ones facing our other entertainment related industries.

Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, gives a great overview of this assault in a post yesterday. In the post he outlines how companies like Amazon, WalMart, and Target are cutting the prices of books well below that of the publisher price, to the tune of 40-50%, in an effort to shore up their book sales. This is creating a multitude of problems for everyone in the business as this kind of subsidizing isn’t sustainable.

At some point something has to give. Publishers will be forced by retailers right across the board to cut their prices.

Publishers. For right now, publishers are getting paid an amount equal to the customary discount for hardcover books. But no one in the industry I have spoken with expects this to last for long. Amazon, Walmart, and Target are systematically conditioning consumers to expect these lower prices. Eventually, these retailers will be in the position to force publishers to lower their retail prices.

Book retailers, especially the small mom and pop shops, might be willing to discount some of the bestsellers but that is used to bring in consumers who the hope will buy additional books while there. By putting them in a position where they have to cut already slim margins in order to keep those customers hopefully returning this cheapening of their stock will make keeping the doors open even harder.

When it comes to authors Michael Hyatt has this to say

Authors. If retail prices collapse, it will mean that royalties and advances will also fall. You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure out that 10–15% of $9.00 is dramatically less than the same percentage of $25–35. Most authors have a difficult enough time making a living now. This will lower the income of all authors and force many to get out of the business altogether.

Now of course the freetards out there will suggest that this is actually beneficial for the authors in that it could allow them to deal directly with the consumer given the ease of creating ebooks and the availability of self-publishing services. There are also those that suggest that like bloggers, musicians, and newspapers book authors need to find different ways to market their books and provide auxiliary tangible goods to make up for what they might lose by giving away their books.

I don’t profess to know all the ins and outs of the book publishing business and I am sure that someone like Michael Hyatt would be able to provide more accurate numbers but the fact is that the large portion of authors out there aren’t making the big bucks. Not all authors are Steven King or Dan Brown and as much as we might think that all authors are racking in the cash nothing could be farther from the truth.

So when companies like Amazon and WalMart turn around and start slashing book prices to the bone because they are big enough to absorb the losses – for now – in the end this house of cards is going to come crashing down. While we might like to think that this will only affect the already rich book publishers the fact is that the ripple effect is going to me much larger and much deeper than we might think.

Free isn’t the answer for everything regardless of what the self professed experts might have us believe. Sometime paying for something tangible at a fair market price with actual real money is the right thing to do as that money spent often has a far wider effect that just clicking on a purchase button.

A Very Wordpress World

Kyle Brady — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:05:52 +0000

Since 2003, an open source, Internet-oriented software package has done what is exceedingly rare within that community: becoming not only immensely popular and wildly loved, but also profitable. Matt Mullenweg has managed to turn what began as a fork of an aging content management system (CMS) into a worldwide empire that doesn’t even technically have a central office – Automattic’s Wordpress.

And there’s more coming.

Wordpress has evolved into one of the leading CMS packages in the world, in large part thanks to its many features and intense focus. Over the years it’s morphed from a rough-around-the-edges, but useful, software tool into a fully featured and easy-to-use content management endpoint with de facto deployment status. With built-in features like automatic upgrade, an increasingly intelligent editing interface, and an extensive plugin system, it’s easy to see why, and viewing the list of features in the upcoming 2.9 release is evidence enough that they’re moving toward a singular goal, given their prior history.

One of the complaints with Wordpress has always been relatively simple: while it’s easier to use than Drupal or Joomla for non-programmers, a basic familiarity with programming and advanced “Internet skills” are necessary to establish an enjoyable and highly functional site/blog. Themes use direct PHP references, plugins (until recently) had to be uploaded via FTP, and content was typically written externally – none of these facets of software lend themselves to attracting the proverbial Grandma as a user. Yes, the interface is more slick and friendly than their competitors’, but the Wordpress team still has far to go.

Wordpress 2.9 will supposedly see public access to easier rich-media embedding, inline image editing, and an operating system-like Trashcan – these are the most standout features of the impending upgrade, and they are definitively GUI- and Grandma-oriented. For some time now, Automattic has been playing both sides of the coin by enhancing the software backend and functionality while simultaneously smoothing over the user experience for the world-at-large, and this is admirable. It is, therefore, not a significant stretch to assume that Wordpress is intended to one day have rich functionality and extensibility, but with an interface that caters to the general public – the Gmail, Facebook, or Firefox of CMS packages.

There is, however, a problem.

Unless a user chooses the watered-down, hosted version, a site/blog using Wordpress in any fashion still requires significant setup and configuration – hosting, databases, and the initial software setup are all required elements to achieving functionality, and they all require some technological knowledge. Even worse are those sites that use Wordpress and begin to see traffic, because there is still a significant memory/load issue at its very core. The Inquisitr uses Wordpress, and I’ve always used it for my own site, business, and clients, but it is almost always heavily modified for any popular or load-bearing use.

All of us use some sort of content caching option, but a step further is still required: in my case, all sites are hosted with MediaTemple’s (gridserver) plan, with extra database-only memory resources, but in the case of the Inquisitr, an extensive hosting solution, involving Amazon’s AWS products, was necessary for the site to remain functional. How is this still a problem for Wordpress installations?

For Wordpress to achieve its high-minded goals, it needs to begin work on the core immediately. Given that Automattic has been slowly acquiring plugins and other software that advances its ideals, it would make more sense for Wordpress to come prepackaged with certain features, not as plugins, in order to enhance its basic usability – page caching should be first on the list.

Matt Mullenweg, Automattic, and Wordpress, I salute you. You’ve done an admirable job and the world generally loves you – but it’s time to step up to what you’ve created, and do things right.

You don’t want to become the Microsoft of content management systems, do you?

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Newsday To Charge For Online Content

AHN — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:52:16 +0000

Long Island, NY (AHN) – The online version of Newsday will begin charging for access to content beginning next week.

The announcement was made in a report in Newsday as well as a printed statement by publisher Terry Jimenez. The subscription service will begin Oct. 28.

While some of the stories will continue to be free, most content on newsday.com will require a subscription of $5 a week unless the reader is already a subscriber to Newsday or Cablevision, which owns the paper, according to the account.

Free content will include the home page, school closing, weather, obituaries, classified and entertainment listings.

The $5 weekly fee is the same that the newspaper charges new subscribers for the print edition.

Cablevision claims a customer base of 75 percent of Long Island residences.

In making the change, Newsday joins a small group of print media who charge for online content: the Wall Street, Financial Times, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Albuquerque Journal.

Newsday.com’s subscription cost is at the high end of those charging for online content. The Wall Street Journal charges $1.99 a week, while the Democrat-Gazette is $5.95 a month. The Albuquerque Journal is $110 a year.

The Denver Post recently lowered the subscription price of its print edition to $5 a month.

The fallacy of using “the public’s right to know” to support traditional media

Steven Hodson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:39:39 +0000

It is a well accepted fact that once survival instincts kick in we will use anything and say anything in order to survive. This isn’t an instinct just regulated to men and woman as we have seen companies that are drowning in their own missteps and mistakes come out fighting using specious and ridiculous arguments as to why they shouldn’t be left to rot by the roadside.

Both the music and video, albeit movies or television, are famous for trotting out all kinds of dire warnings about how we will lose those industries if something isn’t done to save them. Things like a 3-strike law that will see people kicked off the Internet if they are caught “stealing” music or videos. Of course this is all under the assumption that these businesses are doing to save the artists involved from never being able to earn an income.

Then we have the news industry which is currently performing the waffle dance about going back to a paywall subscription system in order to save the news industry. After all without the corporations being able to make massive profits as they have in the past we all know that news will disappear forever.

One of the arguments that the news industry likes to trot out as a reason why we can’t afford to have their businesses go tits up is because with out the news industry the way it is now the public’s right to know is in danger of being taken away from them.

Bullshit.

Besides the fact that there has never been a better informed public than ever before (as long as they are willing to get up off their asses to look for it) the idea that the news industry is our conduit to all that we have the right to know is stupid.

What it really boils down to is that the news we get is only the news that news organizations feel will bring them the biggest viewership numbers and what they – and them alone – decide they want us to see or read. There is no public right involved in any of this. It is all about them being the gatekeepers and deciding what is best for them – we don’t enter into the picture.

New York Times To Cut Another 100 News Staff Jobs

AHN — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:41:24 +0000

New York, NY (AHN) – The New York Times will cut its newsroom by another 100 jobs, the newspaper announced Monday.

Buyouts will be offered to all union and non-union employees. Layoffs will be instituted if not enough people respond to the buyout.

The planned cuts represent 8 percent of the 1,250-person newsroom. An earlier round of buyouts and layoffs in the spring of 2008 eliminated about 100 positions.

Other staff reductions are planned in the editorial and op-ed sections of the newsroom, as well as in the business side of the paper, executive editor Bill Keller said in a memo to newsroom staff obtained by the New York Observer.

“I won’t promise this will be easy or painless,” Keller said, “but I believe we can weather these cuts without seriously compromising our commitment to coverage of the region, the country and the world. We will remain the single best news organization on earth.”

Earlier this year, employees took a 5 percent pay cut in an attempt to forestall further personnel cuts.

The announcement comes less than a week after the Times said it cancelled the sale of the Boston Globe, which is owned by the Times, after receiving bids considered insufficient. The Globe is projected to lose up to $85 million by the end of the year.

New York Times Goes Hyper-Local With Weekend Bay Area Edition

Paul Short — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:36:29 +0000

The New York Times has added a San Francisco Bay Area metro report to its Northern California editions on Fridays and Sundays.

The new addition to the paper went into effect Friday, Oct. 16 and includes content written by New York Times staff as well as other local contributors. The Times already had a staff of 10 people in the bay area who, along with contributors, will write about public affairs and local lifestyle.

In the past, the Times had shown an interest in partnering with local news organizations and building a cooperative news outlet. Warren Hellman’s Bay Area News Project was one of those organizations said to be considering a partnership.

From Mediabistro:

“At a time when so many news organizations are in a forced retreat, it’s exciting to be part of a venture that has set out to build more and better news coverage,” said Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, in the official release. “And as someone who grew up in the Bay Area, I’m proud that we can play a role in enriching the quality of reporting about the region.”

The day that radio was killed

Steven Hodson — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:22:59 +0000

Technology didn’t kill radio.

Satellite radio didn’t kill terrestrial radio.

But as of today radio stands a very good chance of becoming an ever increasing wasteland to the point that we will see a massive shift away from radio stations playing music. If you think that talk radio is big now you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This is going to happen all because the very basis of how music radio works has shifted. Instead of record companies using radio stations as a way to promote new artists and new releases from established musicians the passing (with a heap of lobbying entertainment backed groups like the RIAA and musicFirst Coalition) of the Performance Rights Act radio stations will now have to pay to play that same music.

The argument put forth by the lobbyists is that this is a revenue stream that the artists are not seeing and therefor not getting paid for their work. Radio has been getting a free ride forever – getting rich off of the backs of musicians by not having to pay royalties for the music they play.

It’s a nice argument and would make sense if the musicians were actually going to see any of that royalty money. As it is they already don’t see a large chunk of what is suppose to be their money that is collected supposedly on their behalf by SoundExchange. The excuse used of course by the organization is that they can’t find the artists in order to give them the money.

So what happens with all that money?

Well the SoundEchange gets to keep it which ends up making this suppose to be non-profit very wealthy - to the tune of over $100 million as of 2007.

Now this is the group that is going to be able to collect some pretty hefty royalty money from radio stations all on the basis that it is for the musicians. The problem is that by changing the economic landscape by which radio works they are removing the incentive for any stations, other than the big conglomerates, to play new music from anyone other than the really big established musicians or bands.

Radio play has always been considered to be the biggest promotional play a musician could hope for. Even though the power of the hit lists may have lessened in our Internet world they still hold considerable power. It was advertising at it best (or worst during the payola years). That power is now gone.

As Michael Masnick at Techdirt notes

Besides, all this will do is harm up-and-coming musicians. Because radio stations will now need to pay more for playing music, they’ll play less music, and if they’re playing less music, they’ll focus just on the big name acts. Smaller up-and-coming artists should be furious with the RIAA for giving radio stations less incentive to play their works. Remember, this is the opposite of payola. While payola got new records on the air, this will make sure fewer get on the air. But it will sure put a bunch more money in the pockets of the major record labels.

This new tax revenue stream for the entertainment industry through its watchdog groups might not truly kill off radio but is sure is going to lengthen its time on life-support.

The AP hooks up with Microsoft to battle Google

Steven Hodson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:03:57 +0000

Tom Curley, CEO of The Associated Press was in Hong Kong recently where he would tell anyone who would listen that the times are a changing and Google had better watch out. During the Xinhua Beijing Media Summit Curley once more made it quite plain that he thinks that all the AP’s woes can be traced right back to the doorstep of the evil money grubbing Google. All that is about to change according to him because the “real content producers” aren’t going to be giving away the farm like they have in the past.

Part of this new policy of “play with us or don’t play at all” will include their recently announced News Registry and most likely the plan to allow some providers to cough up extra money to be able to access AP content before their competitors. No more favorable conditions for the providers as far as Curley is concerned. It’s all about bowing to the wishes of the AP as was caught on an audio tape during the conferences and provided to Zachary M. Seward at Nieman Journalism Lab.

We are only going to work with those who use our principles. We are not going to work with everybody. So if you don’t agree to our protocols, if you don’t agree to give us real-time metrics, we aren’t going to work with you. So when I sat down in the portal negotiations, you know, I said, this time is different. You have got to be able to give us the metrics. This is not about money. We’ll get to the money part of the conversation later. If you want our content, these are the things you have to do. And that’s what I outlined. If you can’t do that, or if you won’t do that, let’s not waste time. And so far, everybody’s doing technical due diligence, including us.

When asked if Microsoft was willing to kowtow to what the AP wants Curley had this to say:

Someone asked Curley if Microsoft was willing to accept the AP’s demands. “They have said very strongly that they would,” Curley responded. A bit earlier, he said of Microsoft, “They know how to have a conversation.” And what about Google? “I’m not talking about Google,” he said. “We haven’t talked. We haven’t talked. We haven’t talked with them in any serious way.”

Along the way Curley also blamed the DMCA for letting companies like Google to get away with shafting the real news content providers. As well with some allusion to some new multimedia technology from Microsoft (which apparently they’ve been one of the only companies it has been shown too) being a game changer there is supposedly some huge looming partnership deal coming between the AP and Microsoft.

If Curley is really deluded to the degree that he thinks The AP can be saved by hitching its future to Microsoft/Bing/Yahoo then I think he’s been drinking too much sake. As for the idea that companies like Google, Microsoft, and other news providers are going to turn back the hands of time to a period where The AP might have been the king of news then they are in for a rude awakening.

For every new demand that The AP decides to throw down on the negotiating table there will be umpteen different companies out there that will willingly provide better alternatives. Just ask Reuters – they’re already doing it.

FTC guidelines take aim at guerilla marketing as well

Steven Hodson — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:02:07 +0000

While a lot of attention surrounding the new guidelines being issued by the FTC is regarding bloggers there is also another who section of advertisers that is going to get hit hard by these new guidelines. Ignoring the fact for now that newspapers are being given a clear path to maintain their current status quo of self-regulation guerilla marketers are going to have a very hard time doing business under these guidelines.

For those not familiar with the term guerilla marketing it is a type of marketing where for example sake you are sitting at the bar having a nice cold beer and some-one you don’t know sits down beside you and you both start talking about brands of beer and why you like certain ones. This person beside you starts really talking up the brand of beer, one you’ve probably never tried because it’s new, their are drinking and then offers to buy you one, or two.

That is what is commonly referred to as guerilla marketing.

To the FTC this type of advertising would require full disclosure

A young man signs up to be part of a “street team” program in which points
are awarded each time a team member talks to his or her friends about a particular
advertiser’s products. Team members can then exchange their points for prizes, such as
concert tickets or electronics. These incentives would materially affect the weight or
credibility of the team member’s endorsements. They should be clearly and
conspicuously disclosed, and the advertiser should take steps to ensure that these
disclosures are being provided.

(page 81)

As I said earlier the only medium not covered by any of these new guidelines is the traditional print media – anyone else … well you’re fair game.

FTC to celebs: you are responsible for what you’re hawking

Steven Hodson — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:14:27 +0000

As I delve further into this whole FTC mess and their new guidelines, which you can download and read all 81 pages yourself, one thing is clear – celebrities are screwed. Now whether or not the FTC guides were this blunt before I can’t speak to all I can do is point to what the document refers to as being new.

From the FTC document (page 19 and page 20)

The Commission is not persuaded that a celebrity endorser’s contractual obligation to
read the script he or she is given should confer immunity from liability for misrepresentations made in the course of that endorsement. The celebrity has decided to earn money by providing an endorsement. With that opportunity comes the responsibility for the celebrity or his or her legal representative to ensure in advance that the celebrity does not say something that does not “reflect [his or her] honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience.” See 16 CFR 255.1(a).

Furthermore, because celebrity endorsers are liable for what they say, not for the rest of the
advertisement, their lack of control over the final version of a commercial does not warrant the
immunity sought by the commenters. Nor are they required to become experts on the product or the industry, although they may have an obligation to make reasonable inquiries of the advertiser that there is an adequate basis for assertions that the script has them making.

So in other words all those celebrity endorsers of products or services can’t hide behind “they were just reading a script” as a protection from any potential lawsuits or fines from the FTC.

I wonder how many celeb lawyers are going over all those million dollar contracts right now hoping that they comply with the new guidelines?

AP offers to sell the hot news while it’s still hot

Steven Hodson — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:40:12 +0000

Hot news available to the highest bidder or the one’s most willing to cough up the money to be first in line. That’s the newest money making idea to come out of the Associated Press. The idea is that the AP will sell news stories to some of their more exclusive online customers for a certain period of time ahead of their competitors.

AP’s Chief executive, Tom Curley uses the tired old excuse that sites like Google have been reaping fortunes off of AP’s articles, photos and video without fair compensation.

Curley said the new products the AP is exploring include premium-priced information on certain topics.

And, he added, "products can be reserved, and there can be exclusives given, perhaps on a time-base measure. Those who get access to that content and the rich multimedia or metadata that comes with it might get an exclusive for, oh, 20 or 30 minutes."

Source: AP/Google News – AP might charge some customers to get news earlier

Tie this in with their idea for some sort of news registry that will be used to track unauthorized use of their news and the AP believes that it will be able to recoup the tens of millions of dollars that they have lost over the years.

Condé Nast closing Gourmet Magazine

Duncan Riley — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:43:25 +0000

Condé Nast today announced that it was immediately closing the well regarded Gourmet Magazine due to a massive decline in advertising revenues.

The folding of Gourmet Magazine comes as Condé Nast undertakes a strategic review of its titles after a shocking 12 months for the magazine industry. Also closing effective immediately are Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Cookie.

Gourmet Magazine’s related recipes on Epicurious.com, as well as the book publishing and television programming is believed to be immune from the cuts, so the name will go on, even if the magazine won’t.

Editor Ruth Reichl thanked readers on Twitter: “Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I’m packing. We’re all stunned, sad.”

Condé Nast shutters Gourmet, Cookie, 2 bridal titles

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:40:38 +0000

Publishing giant Condé Nast announced today that it was discontinuing Gourmet magazine, an influential publication that has been published since 1940.

The closure comes as a shock, as Gourmet is a more influential magazine than fellow Condé Nast title Bon Appétit, and Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl is well known and powerful in food and restaurant circles. Condé Nast is also closing Cookie, Elegant Bride and Modern Bride, and in the past year has closed newer titles Condé Nast Portfolio, Domino and Men’s Vogue.

The New York Times reports that the closure of the 69-year-old title came as a shock even to industry insiders such as Bon Appétit publisher Paul Jowdy. The Times spoke with Jowdy in February (conceding that Jowdy was interviewed in far safer economic times) and he then doubted the title would be retired:

“They would never do that,” Mr. Jowdy said in February. “They’re both very important magazines in the culinary world, and they’re very different magazines, and they’re both very healthy. So there’s all these rumors that are just ridiculous. I try not to pay attention to them, but you have to know — if you think of two of the most prestigious, credible, trusted magazines in the industry, you’re going to say Bon Appétit and Gourmet.”

Cutting through the LA Times hype over the Wave hype

Steven Hodson — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:14:41 +0000

Not even a day into Google Wave crashing upon the shores of the tech blogosphere and we have the L.A. Times gushing on over how it’s is going to transform how they work. Now that would be all well in fine if it were for the fact that the number of points they make about how much Wave is going to be the killer journalistic toolkit couldn’t be applied to tools that have been already with us for some time.

Collaborative reporting: this was their high point.

The idea that you could share, edit, and change the flow of any article being written by more than one person or a single journalist and an editor. Uhm …. hmmm .. Perhaps you guys should have taken a look at Google Docs since much of what seems to be all hot and cool for you in Wave already for the most part existed in Google Docs. This would also take care of that whole live editing you mentioned further on.

Record and archive interviews: repeating what is already available

Again to varying degrees this has already been done by a program called Evernote which can be shared and stored in the cloud. As well it can perform text searches in photographs and other scanned in images or digitally imported information – something that Wave can’t do.

Discuss while you read: the making of a confusing mess

They seem for some reason enamored over the idea of people being able to add comments or have conversations interspersed throughout the article. Suddenly semi orderly comments are not good enough, no now we have to totally throw any possible coherence right out the window by letting conversations pop up in the middle of a journalistic train of thought. How anyone can see this as a benefit to reading the news is ridiculous.

Transparent writing process: watch as we string words together.

Ya, that’s a great idea … let’s hop right on that one. As a writer the last thing I want is someone looking over my shoulder as I try and string thoughts together from disparate source so that they can make sense. Not likely. I can just imagine how Truman Capote, or Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein would have reacted if they knew that someone else was reading what they were typing.

Instant Polls: that is so Web 1.0

I am sure that whoever through this one in there doesn’t have the first clue about the Web and all the tools that are already there because the idea of polls on the fly has been around for a long time – nothing new here.

The fact is that if journalism wanted to change the game they didn’t have to wait until Google Wave came along. Just about everything listed in this love affair of a post has either been available for some or is available without Google giving it some sort of kiss of authenticity.

If they wanted to advance journalism to a new era they could have done so long before Wave was even a ripple in a couple of Google engineer’s eyes.

NY Times Columnist William Safire Dead at 79

Duncan Riley — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:05:13 +0000

Former NY Times columnist, Pulitzer prize winner and former Nixon speechwriter William Safire has died after a battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 79.

Safire started his career as a radio and television producer until a stint as a PR executive lead him to greater things. While working as a publicist in 1959 he met Richard Nixon, subsequently joining Nixon’s 1960 Presidential campaign. After Nixon won in 68, Safire was appointed as a speechwriter for both Nixon and VP Spiro Agnew. He is credited with being a force behind some of the more memorable quotes from the administration, including Agnew’s use of the phrase “nattering nabobs of negativism.”

Safire joined the New York Times as a political columnist in 1973, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1978 for his coverage of Bert Lance’s alleged budgetary irregularities.

Staunchly conservative, Safire was none the less held in high regard by both sides of the political spectrum until his retirement in 2005. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of liberal New York Times stated on the day he retired:

The New York Times without Bill Safire is all but unimaginable, Bill’s provocative and insightful commentary has held our readers captive since he first graced our Op-Ed Page in 1973. Reaching for his column became a critical and enjoyable part of the day for our readers across the country and around the world. Whether you agreed with him or not was never the point, his writing is delightful, informed and engaging.

William Safire is survived by his wife, two children and one grand child.

(img: Wikipedia)