tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-96041742009-07-13T17:40:34.187-07:00Musings (and occasional urgent warnings) of a veteran media executive, who fears our news-gathering companies are stumbling to extinctionNewsosaurhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954243708914033601alan.mutter@broadbandxxi.comBlogger554125blogspot/hbHOhttp://feedburner.google.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9604174.post-9420931482813588732009-07-13T06:57:00.000-07:002009-07-13T07:00:15.927-07:00

The dicarded plan to sell seats at dinner with the publisher of the Washington Post shouldn’t be taken by newspapers as a reason to avoid hosting profit-making events that deliver journalistic and public-service benefits to their communities.The key in organizing for-profit (and pro bono) events is to keep your commercial and ethical priorities straight. The Post, which aired its errors here,

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The mainstream media may have covered the bejabbers out of the death of Michael Jackson, but they hardly covered themselves in glory.The sudden death of the pop star overshadowed all manner of truly significant national and international news for nearly two weeks. And coverage of his memorial service dominated television for much of Tuesday while generating near-record traffic on websites

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The Inland Press Association today reissued an online summary of a newspaper-profitability study after questions were raised about it.The original summary of the findings was the basis for this Newsosaur post, which stated that Inland found newspapers with circulation greater than 80,000 suffered a 100.1% drop in operating earnings since 2004 but that they had average profits of 12% in 2008.Tim

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UPDATED 4:21 PM - July 7, 2009: The Inland Press Association today reissued the summary of the study on which this post was based. The major change is that 12% is the average profitability of large newspapers in the last five years, not solely in 2008. Although the original post is published below, it should be read in connection with the follow-up post here. The bigger newspapers are, the harder

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Macy’s has cut in half the amount of money it spends on newspaper advertising since 2005, depriving the struggling industry of some $616 million in sorely needed revenues.The drastic plunge has hit particularly hard the metro papers that used to rely on sumptuous and highly profitable schedules from the likes of Famous-Barr, Filene’s, Foley’s, Hecht’s, Kaufmann’s, May, and Marshall Field &

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Hey, fellow armchair copyeditors, do you see anything wrong with this sentence at the Los Angeles Times website?“Two senior Los Angeles Times editors were given new responsibilities today as part of an effort to create a 24-hour newsroom serving multiple mediums.”The blunder, of course, is the inappropriate use of “mediums” as a plural of the word medium.As everyone in the media business ought to

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My doubts are growing about whether we can rely on volunteers to produce credible journalism for a sustainable period of time.Although a number of do-it-yourself ventures have embraced modern technology to attempt to fill the void created by the retrenchment of the mainstream media, there is scant evidence to date that any have succeeded to the point that they will support the sustained efforts

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There is a new Twitter feed here to alert you to every future post on Newsosaur, if you happen to care.But there is strong evidence that you may not, according to a new Harvard Business School study of 300,542 inviduals. The research found that “most people” only tweet once in their lifetimes. Among the precious few who stick with it, “half of all the people using Twitter updated their pages

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“You got spunk,” barked Lou Grant at Mary Richards on the old Mary Tyler Moore show. “I hate spunk.”The quote came to mind today when I read the obit of Sarah Snyder, a much beloved and talented editor at the Boston Globe who died Sunday well before her time at the age of 51.Sarah had tons of spunk as a newly minted reporter working at the Chicago Sun-Times in the early 1980s. But we loved her

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There are many unsettling parallels between newspapers and General Motors, the iconic American corporation struggling to regain its financial health and vigor as a consumer brand.But there is a major difference between the opportunity that lies ahead for publishers and the continuing challenges facing America’s No. 1 disgraced automaker. Publishers have a far better chance at re-inventing their

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Now that I have offered newspaper publishers a potential solution to building revenues and improving their strategic position in the interactive age, some commentators have raised the legitimate question of whether this blog can be trusted.Sidestepping the obvious issue of whether anyone should have trusted me in the first place, my response is this: Once you know where I am coming from, you can

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Yes, it’s true. As reported today by the Nieman Journalism Lab, I was one of the three people who presented ideas to newspaper publishers at the (formerly) under-the-radar meeting to explore ways to monetize content.In a minute, I will share what I can of what I told the publishers. And I’ll tell you why I think those ideas are on the right track. But first, here’s the story of how I wound up

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In the worst quarter in modern history for American newspapers, advertising sales fell by an unprecedented 28.3% in the first three months of 2009, plunging sales by more than $2.6 billion from the prior year.Statistics posted without publicity on the website of the Newspaper Association of America show that print ad sales fell by a historic 29.7% to $5.9 billion in the first period of this year

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Amid growing economic distress at newspapers and magazines, a number of folks have suggested imposing a BBC-style tax on American households to rescue the struggling print media.Could the idea work? Potentially. Would it help? Possibly. Could it really happen? You be the judge.Although the idea of a news tax raises a host of troubling questions, it has one powerful argument going for it: It

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Working for free and doing just about everything at his bootstrap local website, veteran journalist David Boraks has become the sole source of news for his community in Davidson, NC. In this guest post, he describes life at what one of his readers calls the “21st Century replacement for the local newspaper.”By David BoraksA funny thing happened as I covered Davidson College's graduation on Sunday

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The shutdown by Chrysler and General Motors of roughly 10% of the surviving auto dealers in the United States could cost newspapers and local broadcasters millions in annual revenues they can ill afford to lose.The forced closing of a combined 1,889 dealerships ordered last week by Chrysler and GM will more than double the estimated number of dealers who went out of business in 2008 when the

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Newspapers sacrificed their moral authority and compromised their credibility in exchange for the gift of a token tax break from the governor and legislature in Washington State.While the 40% tax reduction in the state’s main business signed into law on Tuesday sounds impressive, it will save the jobs of perhaps 15 reporters across all of the state’s ailing newspapers.This calculation is based on

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As we celebrate the liberation of journalist Roxana Saberi from prison in Iran, don’t forget that two other innocent American newswomen are being held on similarly trumped-up charges in North Korea.Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two correspondents for San Francisco-based Current TV, have been detained in North Korea since March 17, when they were arrested while filming a story at the border between

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They looked high and low for two years for a new dean for the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley but it turns out the best man was there all the time: Professor Neil Henry.As a member of the adjunct faculty recently recruited by Neil, I have not only an obvious conflict of interest but also an insider’s view on the goings-on at fabled North Gate Hall, where

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This guest commentary comes from Bill Grueskin, the academic dean of the School of Journalism at Columbia University and former managing editor of WSJ.Com. For an alternative look at Google’s role in the emerging news ecosystem, see this prior post, Don’t Blame Google for Newspaper Woes. By Bill GrueskinMarissa Mayer is the Google executive whose rigid adherence to improving the user experience

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Apart from whatever modest cathartic effect it may have provided participants and observers, the qvetch-in over the fate of the newspaper industry hosted by Sen. John Kerry was pointless.Two days before the opening gavel struck Wednesday at the hearing called by the failed Democratic presidential candidate from Massachusetts, the outcome was presaged by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who

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Why do newspaper publishers think they can be saved by a clunky, electronic distraction like the double-wide Kindle DX introduced today?Do they really think anyone wants to spend $489 to lug around a clunky 10.4- by 7.2-inch tablet to read a static (that is to say non-interactive) version of the paper?In announcing the new jumbo Kindle today, Amazon.Com said pilot programs would be launched by

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Blogs.Com, a guide assembled by humans for humans, asked me to name the 10 blogs I turn to most often for information and inspiration about how technology is changing the media business.It was exceedingly tough boiling the list down to only 10, but here it is, with apologies in advance to the many worthy contenders who almost made the cut:Buzzmachine – A ready and reliable source of quick-draw

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Despite the recent uproar at the Chicago Tribune over road-testing stories with consumers prior to publication, there is nothing wrong with editors using market research to shape their publications.More of them should do it. And it’s pretty easy, too, as I’ll discuss in a moment.Well-executed research is a valuable tool for the managers of any consumer-oriented business. The long-running plunge

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A simple compromise on lifetime job guarantees is the right answer to breaking the impasse between the Boston Globe and its largest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild.The compromise would be for the union to abandon the archaic concept of preserving lifetime jobs for its most senior members – and for the Globe to agree to fund an enriched severance payment to any “lifetime” employee who is laid

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