Site offers future for citizen journalist

     New web site seeks to build on entrepreneurial journalists. Staffers could be paid by the traffic they draw. Entrepreneurial journalism is a concept that is going to grow as we redefine the media world.

     I'm not sure this is the way to go because things are changing so rapidly. But at least it offers journalist some pay as opposed to those new media folks who scream citizen journalists and free news. Frankly, news, like everything else, is generally worth what you pay for it.

Ad spending continues to decline

News flash!  Ad spending down all over. In fact, Nielsen reports, it's down 12% in the first quarter alone.

This isn't a surprise to anyone, but the breakdown is. The worst category is newspaper Sunday supplements. The best is Hispanic cable networks. All newspaper categories are below the average decline. 

Lenders may take over Tribune Co.

Reports say the Chicago Tribune Co. lenders may take over the company from Sam Zell.  They can't run the company any worse than he has been.

Outsourcing the news

Interesting column by a writer in New England about his newspaper's attempt to show what outsourced news looks like. His auto column was replaced by one written by a writer in India. 

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I don't think American media can safely farm out writing and editing news, which depends so much on institutional memory.  However, design, copyediting national and international stories and some columns are a different matter.  For example, an auto column. Having written one for the old Milwaukee Journal, I can say that local climates affect driving enough that I don't think a writer in India can really speak to the local issues.  Still, most car reviews don't depend on climate conditions (I remember four cars and trucks where Milwaukee's climate was mentioned in the reviews).

On the other hand (remember we're talking about India where the Hindu god Vishnu has four hands), I spent two weeks teaching students at an Indian college backpack journalism a few months ago, and was taken with their seriousness and dedication to learning. They are going to be formidable journalists, and I am proud to have helped them.

My bottom line is that as long as it is JOURNALISTS writing the news, it's not all that bad. I am not a fan of amateurs writing the news. There are standards and ethics that shouldn't be overlooked.

Another media success story, the ethnic press

Want to see an American media success story? Go to your local supermarket and look at the free newspapers. America's ethnic media, with newspapers as its backbone, is growing in importance, a poll shows. As the nation diversifies, niche marketers are having a field day.

Nobody knows what's going to happen.

Point one: No one knows what's going to happen to the media. Point two: So why then do so many claim they are right and everyone else is wrong?

Yet again, a new media person reads someone saying that newspapers have a place in society -- especially if they would quit cutting back and glory in their own role -- and a new media person says that's blather. 

I'm currently at a new media workshop in Italy where 24 American students from around the country are working on creating a new form of journalism, one combining print, video, audio and photography.  Yes, the ultimate product will be posted to the Internet, but their work could just as easily be shifted to some other form of delivery. I don't know what the future of journalism hold; and neither does anyone else, no matter how fancy their blog.

Radio & Records magazine folds, victim of the economy

In a sign of the perfect storm that media face these days, Radio & Records magazine is folding. Not only is the media business facing problems, but it's even worse when the magazine's subject -- in this case, the music industry -- is also tanking. 

Things are really, really bad for newspapers

Wanna know how bad things are for newspapers? The only joy in a Pew Research Report concerning classified advertising shifting to free online is concerns about violence and murder linked to Craigs' List. That's pretty sad.

Newspaper revenues off 28% in first quarter

Earnings reports for newspaper companies' first quarter really look bad. I'd like to say there is good news somewhere in this report, but it's not there. The analysis indicates that, yes, a part of the problem is the economic troubles we are going through, but it's only part. Online revenues are also dropping.

Median age of magazine readers rising fast

New report shows that median age of magazine readers is rising faster than the age of the population in general. The trend has been big since at least 2002. It doesn't bode well for the future.

Time to think like a contrarian

I'm going to go out on a limb. I predict the future will be kind to publications that do not follow Newsweek Editor John Meacham's belief that “as the number of news outlets expands, it is said, attention spans shrink; only the fast and the pithy will survive.” The New York Times has a nice essay about Newsweek's makeover, but it runs under the heading of "Newsweek's Journalism of Fourth and Long," and states "The makeover represents a rethinking of what it means to be a newsweekly, but no redesign can gild the cold fact that it remains a news magazine that comes out weekly at a time when current events are produced and digested on a cycle that is measured with an egg timer, not a calendar."

I'd be foolish to disagree that current events are produced on that quick a cycle, but I don't believe they are digested that quickly, which is why I predict a brighter future for some publications that, instead of trying to out-quick the Internet, opt instead for intelligently putting the news in perspective. That, by the way, was exactly what Time and Newsweek did in their most successful years. And I'll point out that the Times essay ran in it's weekly "Week in Review" section, which also works because it puts events into perspective.

I am a news junky who reads three print newspapers daily, four more weekly, regularly scan eight on the Internet (four from outside the U.S.) daily, and read too many blogs/homepages/whatever to remember. I subscribe to five rss news feeds daily and eight discussion groups (there are probably more that I'm forgetting). My problem is that I'm getting all that "egg timer" news, and I am always seeking something to put it into perspective.

I predict somebody's going to built a highly-successful future doing just that -- and probably more than just one publication. They just have to get away from those with the attention span of a gnat who haven't read any history (or at least have forgotten all they've read) who are killing publications right and left by trying to out-quick the Internet and shirking long-form journalism. It can't be done.

The Times headline used a sports analogy, so I'll offer another, especially for basketball fans. It's like a fast break where the smart teams always have a player trailing the first ones down the court. The trailer is the one who scores when the quicker players are offset by even quicker players on defense, allowing the trailer to take the ball to the basket unmolested. You can't out-quick the Internet, but you can out-smart it.

State of newspapers worldwide discussed

The state of newspapers worldwide is the object of the Washington Post's major editorial discussion today. It offers assessments of newspapers from many regions. Very interesting. Bottom line: Newspapers may well die, but journalism will flourish.