Email remains atop social media

In more evidence of overreaching by new media partisans (most of whom have a financial interest in touting new media), the latest research contradicts those saying email was dead.

The newest study finds that email is still much more likely to be used in sharing content than Facebook or Twitter. In fact, email's share of the content-sharing market (as measured by those buttons at the end of stories using "Share This" buttons) is more than both Facebook and Twitter combined.

There's just a lot of bad information out there, and media folks trying to figure out the future from present and recent past trends need to be quite wary.

Does the media need to hire more conservatives?

In a switch from the norm, Thomas Frank (the Wall Street Journal's token moderate commentator) writes about Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander who said the media is too liberal and needs to hire conservatives (I'm paraphrasing Alexander, but this is the gist of what he's written). Frank points out the media is quite conservative already (no questioning of the run up to the Iraq war or, frankly, much else at the Bush White House until the final couple of years when it imploded, or questioning the banking industry as it took America down).

Hearkening back to basic journalism 101, Frank says what is needed is a media willing to hold power accountable. More power to him and his views.

I wonder if she went to journalism school?

And for those just dying to know how low the media can sink, the New York Post started a weekly advice column by Ashley Dupre, the "escort" who sank Eliot Spitzer's career.

A disquieting report on the Wall Street Journal

For nearly four decades, I've touted the Wall Street Journal as the best newspaper in America. I ignored its editorial page, not because of its editorial stances, but because I knew of at least two instances when the editorial page continued to use "facts" in its editorials that it knew were untrue. Despite that (and I routinely ignore opinion pages since they are, and should be, advocacy journalism), I felt the Journal did the best job of covering most of American society fairly and completely. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than the job anyone else was doing.

Two years ago, Rupert Murdoch took over the Journal, much to the dismay of many of its employees and loyal readers. He pledged to keep politics out of the news coverage. Then, as now, I kept an open mind since much of Murdoch's journalism is excellent. I watched as Journal editors broadened the coverage with more societal and cultural coverage. I believe media does have an important role in setting a cultural tone for our society, and by cultural, I mean reporting and reflecting on what is happening in our culture. I've seen significant improvements in areas of Journal coverage, for example an innovative approach to the field of sports, for better or worse, a significant part of our culture.

I've enjoyed reading the expanded Opinion page with often-thoughtful columns and a lengthy daily book review/essay. Sure, I noticed that page tilted heavily rightwing (only one columnist with a discernible moderate bent), and the Editorial and op-ed page, both also labeled "Opinion" seemed to become even more predictably fringe-right in stance. (I do wonder if people on the fringes on both sides of the political spectrum don't realize they'd gain credibility if they didn't always paint everything from their ideological stance -- for example, hasn't President Obama done anything right?)

Now comes a New York Times' "Media Equation" column that basically supports those who felt that Murdoch's company couldn't keep it's hands off the news pages. David Carr's piece cites several instances that appear to be clear ideological coloration to news pages. It supported a general impression that I had been having over the last year or so with instances of direct ideological tints. It saddens me. I had hoped that Murdoch would have kept his word concerning keeping ideology out of news content at the Journal. It's now started a slide into becoming as irrelevant as most of today's newspapers.

Animation and journalism: A good thing?

Oh, goody. Another chance to write about Tiger Woods. OK, this is a media blog, and this is a serious topic for the media, although Woods does illustrate a point, it's the point that matters.

Now that I've buried the lead deep enough, let's talk about how new technology leads to . . . old media ideas. The media world is -- properly, I think -- buzzing about video animation of news events. Most of us by now have seen the animation that shows an avatar of Woods' wife smashing the tailgate of his SUV before the crash, or some of the others since then.

This has led to all sorts of tsk, tsking since it's faked news, but is it really? It works by reporters telling artists and animators their version of a story, which is then converted to avatars to give video the film it really needs.

There are two points about this I believe are significant: First, use of this technology might lead to television actually covering some of the harder topics that don't come with film. That's always been the Achilles heel of television: most film comes on the easy stories. Here's a technology that allows television to move away from fires, crimes, "unsafe eating" and "sexual predators living among us!!!". The second is that, once again, it's a throwback to a journalism technique that influenced newspapers in the 19th century. Before technology allowed newspapers to have photos, they had illustrations and cartoons. They were good for journalism, and this most recent trend might well be good for journalism now.

Study reinforces newspaper audience strength

It's not news any more, but a Scarborough study shows that 74 percent of Americans are reading a newspaper each week, either online or in print. That follows other studies with similar results.

The audience also skews upscale, 84 percent college graduate, 82 percent of households earning more than $100,000 and 79 percent of white collar Americans read newspapers. Now, how to translate that into revenue?

New media making old media mistakes, again

I've held off commenting about Facebook's latest privacy mistake (actually, it's a privacy attack) because it's such an easy target. The company, clearly attempting to increase its profits, unilaterally puts into effect sweeping changes that opens our information to the world, then retreats little bit, but still leaves us unsure about what actually is happening with our information, which is why you won't find much personal information on my site and, frankly, shouldn't find much on your's either.

But as I was reading some of the comments today (more than 150 news stories on Google news) and noting a question on Twitter by my colleague and new media advocate Linda Menck about the future of Twitter, I was once again struck by the way lousy American business executives seem bent on ruining their media product by stupidity and total disregard for the customer. New media is being run just as stupidly as old media, and, frankly, it faces the same bleak future.

My personal concerns are (1) privacy, (2) commercialization, (3) privacy, (4) arrogance in changing my settings without any approval, (5) privacy, (6) attempts to harness my history to specific advertisers, (7 and a hundred or so more) privacy. Yes, I suppose it's nice for advertising to be targeted to my interests. But it doesn't really seem to match up. And I end up questioning the need for everyone to know just when I look online as well as what I share with my family and friends. Linda decries the commercialization of Twitter (I was tweeting about an earlier post on this blog; that could be commercialization, I suppose), and she's correct. She asks what the answer? It's not out there as of now.

Reporter's firing prompts criticism

Another case where a reporter's private views cost him a job involves a Catholic reporter and a gay-lesbian support group, and raised once again the question of how the freedom offered in new media (in this case a private email from a non-work account) can affect journalists.

The reporter, Larry Grard, was fired by his newspaper, the Waterville Morning Sentinel, in Maine, after he wrote an email responding to a press release from the Human Rights Campaign decrying Maine's vote denying same-sex marriage. The newspaper also cancelled a free-lance column his wife wrote.

Certainly we've long had ethnics policies saying reporters shouldn't get take positions in political situations, but this case -- especially the cancelling of Grard's wife's column -- brought the issue up again.

Tiger Woods, gossip and journalism

Nicholas DiFonzo takes on the role of gossip and Tiger Woods, arguing in today's Wall Street Journal that society learns from gossip.

"Out of the vanity and cruelty of gossip, though, can come socially beneficial consequences. That is the gossip paradox: just when we thought the airwaves and tabloids could not tell any more lurid tales about the moral failings of sports figures that we admire, it turns out that maybe we're learning something," he writes.

"Beware the lure of infotainment," preaches Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in "The Elements of Journalism." They say that infotainment, that category of focusing on entertaining news, drives away serious journalism, along with many other problems. DiFonzo makes a good case for good that comes from our reporting gossip.

Reading, writing and the American culture

A fascinating essay in today's New York Times' Styles section by Michelle Slatalla delves into a problem that I believe is becoming endemic among Americans, and poses significant concerns not only for those of us in the media but for our culture as a whole.

She writes about how she's finding it difficult to read books, even though she has read books for most of her life. She is experiencing something that studies have been showing is becoming more and more a problem. As we read, but only in short slivers (such as this post), or watch only parts of comedy shows (SNL skits on YouTube, for example), we are losing the ability to concentrate on longer-form media. It becomes worse with our multi-tasking, such as reading a newspaper, checking email while watching a movie on television (that was me last night). Because we really aren't doing justice to any of the three, we lose attention. And it's the longer-form that needs it the most.

Now that you've read this short form, follow the link and read the longer form of Slatalla's original thought. Then maybe, a whole book. Trust me, you'll feel better in the morning.

Bulletin! Print isn't dead

Print -- even newspapers -- isn't dead, according to a long takeout on the Editor & Publisher website. Even with daily newspaper circulation off 10.6 percent, higher prices and content cuts, the report finds reasons for optimism. Every time I see figures like that, I think of media analyst Alex Jones' comment that the above figures actually show the medium's strength -- 90% of newspaper readers are willing to pay more for less content for something they can get free on the Internet. If I were a newspaper publisher, I'd be throwing those number at advertisers (or former advertisers). He's absolutely correct, and it shows that the print model works.

Of further importance, buried in the story is a finding that directly ties content to readers. One study found a direct tie of price and content. "When asked about the perception of content
in tandem with price increases, the survey found a 4-to-1 gap in price versus defection. For example, if the paper raised the subscription price but readers felt they were getting more content, the fall-off in volume would be around 10%. At the same price, if readers felt like they were getting less content, volume would fall by 40%," E&P reported.

Of course, newspapers still have to deliver the paper. The Journal Sentinel announced it was cutting 39 more jobs, most in circulation. This comes after the mishandled newspaper dramatically reduced its content producers, sales personnel (doesn't it sort of make sense that you might want to strengthen sales if that's a problem, not cut the staff so badly that regular accounts are complaining not to mention all the potential accounts that aren't being contacted?), and the rest of the company (except, of course, for executives; after all, the company felt it had to give CEO Steven Smith a retention bonus last year since the market for CEOs who watch 90 percent of a company's value disappear is so large). That the continued cuts are hurting has showed the past few days when its website wasn't operating properly on some browsers and, so far at least, no one at the paper has noticed.

But, mismanagement aside, the print platform continues strong, and it's the job of print media to start telling their story effectively.

Email discussion continues

The debate about whether email is dying continues, with one veteran Internet marketer still seeing it as the preferred method of contacting potential customers. It's not that the marketer, Eric Kirby, is opposed to other methods -- in fact he cites a recent Outback Steakhouse promotion on Facebook as a great example of using social media -- but that it's still the widest used platform with little change in usage (87 percent of people prefer it, he says). In fact, the Outback promotion was used to gain email addresses.

Frankly, email works, it's worked for a long time, and it makes sense for those of us who can't (or won't) check Twitter or Facebook multiple times a day. For media folks, keeping track of how people communicate is vital, so this discussion is important.