Is the Journal Sentinel for sale?

Blogger Bruce Murphy says that it might be, based on the company's buyback of all shares owned by the family of its long-time publisher, Harry Grant. The stock price has risen to a yearly high and at least one corporate raider has been purchasing shares. As could have been expected, Warren Buffet's name has been mentioned. He's said that he is is the market for more newspapers like the Journal Sentinel. There is some sentiment for selling the newspaper part of Journal Communications, Inc. but the company's retaining its other holdings, mostly in television and radio. Murphy's blog is here, and Jim Romenesko's is here.

Students, welcome to the real world

A few years ago one of my nieces was an intern at Teen People when the magazine abruptly closed. It was an awakening to the dark side of media these days. She since has switched to public relations, which has it's own dark side.

This came to mind while reading about the University of Georgia's student newspaper, the Red & Black, where all student staffers walked out after the independent newspaper's board took over operations, installing its former adviser as "editorial director," and said he would approve all stories before publication.

The Red & Black is independent of the university. The action was taken by its board.

These students are also getting, as publisher Harry Montevideo says, "experience which mirrors the real world." Even setting aside the fact the newspaper's publisher doesn't know when to use "which" and when to use "that," it's indicative of the real world in that staffers -- even the newspaper's editor who says he wasn't told about this change until he asked -- have no power, and, often, no voice.  Welcome to the "real world," students, and I hope that Marquette's student media never comes to this state. Some lessons are better left unlearned.

As the media world turns . . .

Beware of anyone who claims to know what is happening in the media world today. A good example comes from a story today about how the merger of Newsweek and The Daily Beast is working out.

The story, in digiday.com, begins under the headline: "The Daily Beast's Digital Challenge." It tells us that the merger resulted in "a publication that has crafted a model that is, by all appearances, caught between the analog and digital worlds. It goes on to say that it's not a sustainable business model, quoting Barry Lowenthal, president of Media Kitchen, saying: "Newsweek's not going to exist anymore. It will go away."

But then it quotes Stephen Colvin, CEO of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, talking about "impressive internal growth numbers," up 20 percent over last year with ad volume up 50 percent, with ad revenue at Newsweek up 13 percent.

It's interesting in part because media figures keep talking about synergy, which appears to be what's happening here, but the digital folks keep saying "It's not a sustainable model," and that the print half of the merged publication (I treat them as one) will just "go away."

The experience with college and professional newspapers is that if the print publication folds, the online version loses a whale of a lot of readers soon after.

Newspaper paywalls sprouting -- and working

The newspaper paywall trend is accelerating, a study finds, to such an extent that 84% of American newspapers now have some sort of paywall in place. A big part of the reason is that the paywall is working. Newspapers are retaining readers, and, linking free access to print circulation, has slowed down the decline in print.

The manner of paywalls range all over the place from newspapers with no stories free to ones with a few (the New York Times now allows 10 free stories) to ones with only limited material -- like sports or features -- behind the paywall.

All in all, it seems like the industry has figured out a strategy. Now they should start working on rebuilding content, which has been cut severely in most cases. 

Satire is a bad word in student newspapers

Here's a reason why satire is so hard to pull off in print -- especially in student newspapers. People take it seriously.

Study shows paywall revenue to be frontloaded, in one case

There's an interesting report from Poynter about revenues and paywalls. It finds that about half the first year's total revenue comes in the first three months. It's a study from a very small, local site so I don't know how this relates to mature sites like Milwaukee's jsonline.com or Chicago's chicagotribune.com. The report also includes the scary statistic that the average age of paid visitors rose to 59 after the paywall was erected. 

You don't need no stinkin' reporters to write stories

If number of stories counts (see previous post), then do we care whether they're written by a human, a community reporter, or someone in India writing to a formula. Yet more options are available to editors. For example, computers can string raw data into story form. Or a reporter far away from the actual story.

The problem with shortcuts is that they seldom produce good journalism. While I don't have a study to back it up, I strongly suspect that most people can tell the difference between the passionless words-strung-together by a machine or written-to-a-formula story and actual journalism. Yes, newspapers have cut their staffs way too far and they are offering way, way too little space for actual stories. But most consumers can tell the difference.

Yes, you don't need real reporters to write stories. But you need them to write good stories.

Once again. content pays off

This study finds a direct tie between number of stories on the website and more subscription revenue.

For those of us on the content bandwagon, it's yet more proof that we're right. The report in Poynter quoted Press+ cofound Steven Brill as saying, "“If you want to sell journalism, you have to do journalism." It's logical. It's a basic tenet of journalism. It's correct.


Unfortunately, given the vast amount of really bad journalism (see next post) out there, I'd caution that it should be good stories to really add up the numbers. 

Americans lose confidence in television

Americans' confidence in television news has hit a new low, according to a Gallup survey. Survey authors said, "It is not clear precisely why Americans soured so much on television news this year compared with last." Let me make a couple of suggestions. The first is the product is pretty weak, especially since cable television has gone so heavily toward opinion. The second is that this is a continuation of the almost 40-year long push by politicians to blame the messenger. Most of my adulthood has seen media vilified -- and that's taken a toll.

Younger people more willing to pay for news

Young people who disdain buying print media may well hold the key to the future for newspaper and magazine companies.

The reason? They're more willing to pay for digital services on tablets and smart phones, a study shows (see chart, above; other charts and the study here).  "The research suggests that, as more younger people buy tablet devices, willingness to pay money for the news products many publishers are delivering to them may grow," according to PaidContent.org. 


Perhaps most interesting is that while respondents said they weren't too interested in paying for news, they actually purchased news at a higher percentage. In other words, they don't way to consciously think about paying for news, but they will do so.

Can partisanship hurt American newspapers?

Sorry it's been so long, but this has been a very busy summer with lots of planning for major changes coming for Marquette student media.

However, this story illustrates the continuing experience of American newspapers in reverting to the past. In this case, it's further illustration that our rapidly segmenting news media is continuing a slide toward a partisan press, such as we had in America partisan press during the late 18th and first half of the 19th century when news outlets (generally newspapers) were openly affiliated with a party or political idea. That's where names like Waukesha Freeman, Manchester Union-Leader or any of the various newspapers called Republican or Democrat originated.

Erik Sass reports that purchases of newspapers by politically-oriented owners with open partisan leanings "threatens the editorial independence of some publications." He specifically cites the recent purchase of The San Diego Union-Tribune by a real estate developer who opens says, according to Sass, that the newspaper will be a cheerleader for a downtown stadium.  Frankly, the newspaper's previous owners were often accused of slanting the news so it's only changing the message, not the tone.


This trend, added to the increasing segmentation of the Internet and the open partisanship of cable television, allows us to only know all the news deemed important by likeminded media. It's interesting to see that issue being intelligently explored by Aaron Sorkin's HBO show, The Newsroom. And, yes, the show is highly partisan itself. Still, it is exploring some of the weaknesses of partisan media.

Ever heard of Journatic? You should

Journatic is the organization that largely uses algorithms and offshore "reporters" to write local news. The Chicago Tribune, in its continuing descent to irrelevance, has signed with the company to produce content for its TribLocal editions.

Building off that, NetNewsNet.com published an interview with Journatic CEO Brian Timpone, who does an excellent job of describing just what the Journatic produces for newspapers while not really describing how it does it.

To be totally honest, I'm not dead-set against using outside providers like this for some of the excruciatingly-detailed obtaining content (though I refuse to call them stories) like bringing in agendas of city council meetings or other routine data collections. I just want journalists to be interpreting that data.

But clearly part of today's media management is in love with things like Journatic. It's flashy. It's new. It's digital. It's cheap. Therefore, it will be a success.