Better times ahead for media?

Agencies predict better times ahead for media -- except for newspapers.

The analysis, from two leading marketing firms, predict growth in advertising and revenues for media as the worldwide economy stabilizes. Print advertising is projected to continue to decline, but stabilize by 2012. Newspapers, while doing very well in developing countries, are seen as in a deep downward spiral.

Burnout hurting new media

I've felt for some time that the biggest threat to newspapers was their own managers. I watched as newspapers cut deeply into content in search of ever-more "savings," often while raising the prices they charged at the same time (see Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Let's see, hummm, less content for a higher price. Yep, sounds like a winning strategy to me. (Note to newspaper managers: the preceding two sentences are satire.)

Now comes a story that indicates new media are just as stupid. It's a New York Times story already behind its pay wall, but available easily by searching Nexus or just Googling key words. Its first page is here. The story describes about how various new media sites -- especially Politico -- are pressuring writers to constantly add material to their stories so Google bots will update the stories and the site will get more hits. Quality? Don't worry about it. Added value? No problem. Writer burnout? We'll just hire more.

I love journalism, and I believe new media tools are adding greatly to journalism. But I've yet to see any sign that the media industry really has a clue. Sure, it will eventually settle down to a profitable model based on actually providing information. But I worry about the incredibly-poor judgement in newsrooms and what will happen to the greater public good before the industry managers get a clue.

Gannett's announcement on centralizing design is unintentionally funny

Sometimes media news can make you laugh out loud. This morning's example came from reading a story about how Gannett will be consolidating design in five locations across the U.S. It's the typical story these days with a corporation using computers and the Internet to cut jobs by consolidating positions in a far-away location, and it's something that has been foreshadowed by other media companies consolidating design, including some who are outsourcing to India.

Gannett's announcement says it will locate the jobs in Louisville, Asbury Park, Nashville, Des Moines and Phoenix. OK so far. Actually design is one aspect that can easily be transferred to another area. Then the announcement, as reported by the Louisville Courier-Journal and that doesn't say how many jobs are going to be cut, goes on to report that "Some copy editing positions will remain at individual newspapers," indicating that at least some copy editing would be done locally where copy editors have a sense for the communities. This was followed by the "laugh out loud" statement: "The consolidation is intended to allow Gannett outlets 'to focus on - and protect - the creation of unique local content,' the memo said."

In other words, to focus on "the creation of unique local content," Gannett is transferring work away from local control to strangers who have only a vague idea of where, say, Green Bay is.

Magazine industry stabilizing?

In a sign of stability, MediaDailyPost reports that the magazine industry has reached some sort of equilibrium with a net gain of three magazine titles last year (measured by subtracting the 87 titles that folded from the 90 new ones). Significantly, those numbers are both way down from the previous year, which saw 187 new titles but 279 folding).

Meanwhile, magazine ad pages rose in the second quarter, a decided improvement over their big tumble a year earlier. Sure, it was only a 0.8 percent gain, but that beats the heck out of the 9.4 percent decline in the first quarter. This was the first increase in more than two years.

Are there too many journalists?

Are there too many journalists? That's the provocative question asked by this blog, which uses numbers to show no correlation between size of staff and newspapers sold. Even better are some of the points made in comments, especially one by Judy Sims of SimsBlog, who points out the importance (not mentioned in the analysis) of promotion and advertising. By the way, her blog is fast becoming one of my favorites. I'd especially recommend her current post, "If Newspapers Cease to Be, There Will be Two Causes of Death," in which she only gives one, promising the next in up upcoming post.

Good news: Paris Hilton no longers sells magazines

We're always looking out for "good" media news, a category I'd place this report that Paris Hilton is not only no longer a magazine cover "seller" but a negative. Unlike the recent past, this annual survey from GfK MRI, which looks at trends in magazine cover sales, found that Hilton was a negative, along with stories on "green" issues, negative feelings and most celebrity scandal. "Good" sellers include Barack Obama, George W. Bush, some celebrities (Jennifer Aniston, for example) and issues such as the economy, beach bodies and "best of . . ." stories.

Why 140 characters can be too few

Twitter can be deadly -- to careers. CNN has fired Octavia Nasr reportedly for a tweet praising the late Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of the founders of Hezbollah. According to the Guardian, she said she was praising his work for Muslim women, not actions many believe led to terrorism. The money quote from Nasr: "Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues, especially those dealing with the Middle East."

What's Time charging for?

It looks like Time is going to be following an idea I have been espousing for some time. A brief quote from a Time spokesman on a blog called "All Things Considered" includes this description of the company's plans: "Our strategy is to use the web for breaking news and ‘commodity’ type of news; (news events of any type, stock prices, sports scores) and keep (most of) the features and longer analysis for the print publication and iPad versions."

In other words, the free Internet material will be the sort of "news" that can come from anywhere with exclusive material protected for purchase either from print or iPad versions. Of course, comments on the blog ask the usual "Why would I want to pay to get what I can get elsewhere" questions that proliferate among new media devotes, but the Time plan (and others, such as Murdoch's newspapers) isn't offering news you can get elsewhere behind a paywall. It's up to Time and the others to make us want to pay to get it (as we do now for all sorts of material, see my Internet and cable bills for examples).

Paying for articles at Time

Has Time magazine joined the Internet paywall world? Nieman Journalism Lab notes that nearly every story on the current issue of Time carries this phrase: “The following is an abridged version of an article that appears in the July 12, 2010 print and iPad editions of TIME,” but without any links to the full story, just referring viewers to the print and iPad editions.

One comment on the Nieman site says the is "stupid," "Paywalls are bad enough, but making your digital version only available on one format is just plain dumb." But, putting only part of your stories on free sites makes sense to me. It's a strategy that I expect to see followed more and more as established media attempt to rebuild profits. Other commenters note that Time has pulled its archives from most aggregators, including Nexis.

The medium is indeed the message

Ken Swafford of Slate offers his take on why printed books will never be replaced by ebooks. The reason, based on reading of Marshall McLuhan as well as his experience, lies in the way we perceive words, or "delivering technology" in McLuhan-speak. We perceive words on screens differently than on paper, Swafford says, and the difference is important. The medium is indeed the message.

No more Mr. Nice Guys?

Tom Shales writes in the Washington Post that the end of Larry King on CNN means the end of "the nice guys." King, Shales, says, represented a time when television was more civil and friendly. Shales takes a number of shots at the "incivility" of cable television talk. Can't disagree with him.

Printed books faster to read

Some of my suspicions turn out to be true. One is that I wondered if one could read an ebook as rapidly as on paper. The answer? No. According to a study by A.C. Neilson, it takes significantly more time to read a book on a Kindle or iPad than on paper. The iPad was significantly better than the Kindle 2, which, in turn, was much better than reading it on a PC.