Year / 2009

“In the debate about the future of news production in a networked age,  the question of the moderately local (or rather, the question of the neither “big” nor “hyperlocal”) remains the great unanswered question.”

“Media General’s Tampa news outlets have been leaders on the path towards integrated newsrooms for years. Now, as the financial situation at American newspapers weakens, the Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and television station WFLA 8 have used essential cuts in staff numbers and resources as an opportunity to go a step further in creating a completely…

“Various ideas to overhaul the business model of newspapers have been debated in recent weeks, such as the possibility of a return to paid online content, or a non-profit endowment scheme. Both have potential, but both are long term solutions that would take some time to implement, and for the immediate crisis at hand, could…

“The warnings and elegies for the big-city newspaper have been done to the point of exhaustion, and I don’t want to beat a breaking-down horse of a medium that I actually like. But the picture keeps worsening. Yearly ad falloffs at many such places are accelerating past 15%. At sundry recent points I’ve mistaken some…

“A lot of research can go into a piece of reporting, and in print the value of that research can only be passed on through brief quotes or references. But on the web, no longer limited by finite column inches, newsrooms can create huge value for readers by providing links to the source material that…

“One reason mainstream news organizations haven’t embraced the concepts may be that the spirit (if not the letter) of the cit-j discussion tends to focus on the people involved rather than the news being covered. That is, the tonal takeaway is often something like “Who needs professional journalists? Throw the useless bums out of their…

“With all the debate over the future of newspapers, here’s a question I haven’t heard anybody ask (much less answer): If a metropolitan newspaper suddenly ceased to publish, leaving the city with no newspaper, what would happen to all of that newspaper’s ad dollars?”

“Entering 2009, the future of media is undoubtedly a quandary, with no end of head-scratching across the industry. As with everything these days, it seems that it all comes down to radically changing economics. There are way too many conversations about the future of media, news, journalism, etc. going on out there that don’t reference…

Great article on video for newspapers…“If you work in New Media, the answer should be obvious. Nevertheless, there are still many newspapers that don’t understand why. Some merely offer online video as a novelty featured under the title ‘Multimedia.’”

Two production staff lost their jobs recently as Metroland moves to consolidate newsroom production at its Oshawa offices. Sales staff and reporters will remain in Brighton. This is part of a trend to regionalize production facilities within Metroland and other publications for smaller communities. Peterborough Examiner production staff were laid off recently as Sun Media…