It's official.
A new Pew report confirms that the inevitable intersection between declining newspaper audience and growing internet audience has happened.
In the Pew survey, 40% of the respondents said they got most of their national and international news from the Internet in 2008 compared to 35% using newspapers. That internet share was 24% in 2007, so 2008 marked a dramatic leap for internet-based news.
While print reach continued to decline, newspapers could find hope in the dramatic growth in audience share for the online version of their content. Newspaper web sites drew 69 million visitors in October 2008, up more than 60 percent compared to the comparable period in 2004.
Overall, TV continued its long-standing dominance as the number one source for daily news, with 70% naming it as their primary source. However, the devil is in the details for broadcasters who might think they don't need to fear newspapers' fate.
That 70% share is a drop from 74% last year and a bigger decline from the 2002 peak of 82%. Foreshadowing the demographic-driven losses of newspapers, TV has fallen into a tie with the internet among those under 30, with an equal number citing TV and internet as their primary news source.
This year, 18-29, next up, 25-54?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Year in review, using multimedia storytelling tools
The "year in review" is a staple story of the news business. In the world of online journalism, it's also an opportunity to create a more rich, multimedia experience that includes text, audio/video and images from the big stories of the year.
Not long ago, only those with HTML and Flash coding skills were able to create high-end multimedia presentations. I've blogged before about one of my favorite examples, the Star Tribune's multimedia recap of "13 seconds in August", the story of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. The project is beautifully done. However, it took four months to create, and the most powerful elements required coding skills far beyond those of the typical journalist.
Barely more than a year later, much has changed. Web sites like widgetbox.com make it easy to create and embed widgets on a web site without any coding skills. And web sites have sprung up that enable non-techies to create multimedia content - for free - and embed that content.
Here is the Year in Review multimedia show I build for kgw.com in Portland using the free 'collage' feature on vuvox.com. The entire Year in Review page can be found at kgw.com.
Not long ago, only those with HTML and Flash coding skills were able to create high-end multimedia presentations. I've blogged before about one of my favorite examples, the Star Tribune's multimedia recap of "13 seconds in August", the story of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. The project is beautifully done. However, it took four months to create, and the most powerful elements required coding skills far beyond those of the typical journalist.
Barely more than a year later, much has changed. Web sites like widgetbox.com make it easy to create and embed widgets on a web site without any coding skills. And web sites have sprung up that enable non-techies to create multimedia content - for free - and embed that content.
Here is the Year in Review multimedia show I build for kgw.com in Portland using the free 'collage' feature on vuvox.com. The entire Year in Review page can be found at kgw.com.
Friday, December 26, 2008
2008 Year Ender, and New Media Predictions
2008 was a tumultuous year for those in the traditional journalism business: layoffs, bankruptcies, and reorganizations dominated the news - and this was all before the entire country was hit with the worst economic recession in decades.
What were the big take-aways from 2008, and how will the business and practice of journalism change in 2009. Here are a few of my thoughts, and a round-up of what other media bloggers are saying.
Frank's 5 for 2009:
1. Audiences will continue to shift toward consuming their news "on demand": online and, in 2009 more then ever before, via MOBILE devices. This will come at the expense of newspaper circulation; and, for the first time ever in 2009, more people will get their news daily from online than from local TV news.
2. Newspapers will continue to see declines in readership and revenue.
3. In 2009, with the election-year revenue bump behind them, local TV stations will experience the same kinds of deep layoffs newspapers have been enduring for the past several years.
4. Niche blogs and hyperlocal journalism will rise up, both as a competitor to and as a result of reductions at mainstream media outlets
5. Another year will pass, and we still will not have a sustainable business model answer to the question: How do we monetize the web?
Here's what some other media bloggers are saying:
On Poytner.org, Rick Edmonds offers journalists Four Reasons to be Hopeful about newspapers in 2009.
In newsless.org, Matt Thompson offers 5 Questions Worth Asking about journalism's future.
On his News After Newspapers blog, Martin Langeveld came out with his Predictions for 2009, then did a nice follow-up entry summarizing the other 2009 predictions by media bloggers.
What were the big take-aways from 2008, and how will the business and practice of journalism change in 2009. Here are a few of my thoughts, and a round-up of what other media bloggers are saying.
Frank's 5 for 2009:
1. Audiences will continue to shift toward consuming their news "on demand": online and, in 2009 more then ever before, via MOBILE devices. This will come at the expense of newspaper circulation; and, for the first time ever in 2009, more people will get their news daily from online than from local TV news.
2. Newspapers will continue to see declines in readership and revenue.
3. In 2009, with the election-year revenue bump behind them, local TV stations will experience the same kinds of deep layoffs newspapers have been enduring for the past several years.
4. Niche blogs and hyperlocal journalism will rise up, both as a competitor to and as a result of reductions at mainstream media outlets
5. Another year will pass, and we still will not have a sustainable business model answer to the question: How do we monetize the web?
Here's what some other media bloggers are saying:
On Poytner.org, Rick Edmonds offers journalists Four Reasons to be Hopeful about newspapers in 2009.
In newsless.org, Matt Thompson offers 5 Questions Worth Asking about journalism's future.
On his News After Newspapers blog, Martin Langeveld came out with his Predictions for 2009, then did a nice follow-up entry summarizing the other 2009 predictions by media bloggers.
Niche blogs: the future for laid off journalists?
The year 2008 saw widespread staffing reductions at newspapers across the country. Those cuts raise a macro and micro question, whose answers may be intertwined as we move into the next era of journalism.
The macro question is: What is the future of traditional journalism, now that the business model seems irreparably broken?
The micro question is (if you were any of the thousands of journalists laid off) : Where is my next job as a journalist?
The answer to both question may be: Niche journalism blogs.
As newspapers crumble under the weight of their financial debt and fixed costs for production and delivery, a content model that is more nimble and smaller makes sense. In Seattle, several neighborhood blogs have sprung up to meet the need for hyperlocal news.
The West Seattle Blog and the My Ballard blog both regularly break news in their respective neighborhoods; they are frequently updated and often pilfered by the local MSM; and they have developed regular contributors. As Cory Bergman, MyBallard.com creator notes on Lost Remote, it's not quite a 'quit your day job' revenue model, and it's also a lot of hard work. But for journalists who have a passion for local news, it is also an opportunity. As Bergman points out - amazing things can happen if a local news blog reaches "a critical mass of an audience AND contributors in a dense geographic area."
(Full disclosure: I know Cory personally and professionally; he once worked for Belo, my current employer.)
Laid off St. Petersburg Times reporter Scott Barancik has come up with a different and creative business model for individual journalism. As Steve Meyers reports on Poynter, Barancik has launched Baylawsuits.com, "newsworthy cases from the civil courts."
Meyers digs through the court dockets and identifies cases that could be newsworthy, then does bullet point summaries. He then makes his research available on his password-protected site to media clients, who pay for access and then follow up and report on the cases he's found. Meyers, in effect, is the media middle man, using his journalism skills to identify and summarize newsworthy cases that staff-strapped media outlets might overlook. Meyers started with the idea of targeting media clients, but has since expanded to law firms and PR agencies. Again, the dollars don't yet compare to his previous salary, but the idea is creative.
A third approach, the niche blog, has perhaps the most promising business model. A great example of this is Portland's bicycle blog, BikePortland.org. Created several years ago by Jonathan Maus, the blog has grown to become the destination web site for all things bike related in Portland, a city known and nationally recognized for its interest in bicycling. By taking a topic rather than a location, Maus has had business as well as audience success. Specializing in a single topic, he's drawn all of those most knowledgeable to his blog, where they then become posters and tip contributors, making the blog even more of a go-to destination. I know from first-hand experience that the blog is checked regularly by the Portland TV stations looking for story leads. And, thanks to having a targeted subject matter, Maus also has an ad-friendly web site for those looking to reach that very well defined audience. Maus has been making the site work as his full time job for several years now, and while not all of the content is what we'd traditionally call 'journalism', Maus regularly breaks news in this niche category.
Journalists looking to answer the question, personally and professionally, "what next?" may want to think hyperlocal and niched.
The macro question is: What is the future of traditional journalism, now that the business model seems irreparably broken?
The micro question is (if you were any of the thousands of journalists laid off) : Where is my next job as a journalist?
The answer to both question may be: Niche journalism blogs.
As newspapers crumble under the weight of their financial debt and fixed costs for production and delivery, a content model that is more nimble and smaller makes sense. In Seattle, several neighborhood blogs have sprung up to meet the need for hyperlocal news.
The West Seattle Blog and the My Ballard blog both regularly break news in their respective neighborhoods; they are frequently updated and often pilfered by the local MSM; and they have developed regular contributors. As Cory Bergman, MyBallard.com creator notes on Lost Remote, it's not quite a 'quit your day job' revenue model, and it's also a lot of hard work. But for journalists who have a passion for local news, it is also an opportunity. As Bergman points out - amazing things can happen if a local news blog reaches "a critical mass of an audience AND contributors in a dense geographic area."
(Full disclosure: I know Cory personally and professionally; he once worked for Belo, my current employer.)
Laid off St. Petersburg Times reporter Scott Barancik has come up with a different and creative business model for individual journalism. As Steve Meyers reports on Poynter, Barancik has launched Baylawsuits.com, "newsworthy cases from the civil courts."
Meyers digs through the court dockets and identifies cases that could be newsworthy, then does bullet point summaries. He then makes his research available on his password-protected site to media clients, who pay for access and then follow up and report on the cases he's found. Meyers, in effect, is the media middle man, using his journalism skills to identify and summarize newsworthy cases that staff-strapped media outlets might overlook. Meyers started with the idea of targeting media clients, but has since expanded to law firms and PR agencies. Again, the dollars don't yet compare to his previous salary, but the idea is creative.
A third approach, the niche blog, has perhaps the most promising business model. A great example of this is Portland's bicycle blog, BikePortland.org. Created several years ago by Jonathan Maus, the blog has grown to become the destination web site for all things bike related in Portland, a city known and nationally recognized for its interest in bicycling. By taking a topic rather than a location, Maus has had business as well as audience success. Specializing in a single topic, he's drawn all of those most knowledgeable to his blog, where they then become posters and tip contributors, making the blog even more of a go-to destination. I know from first-hand experience that the blog is checked regularly by the Portland TV stations looking for story leads. And, thanks to having a targeted subject matter, Maus also has an ad-friendly web site for those looking to reach that very well defined audience. Maus has been making the site work as his full time job for several years now, and while not all of the content is what we'd traditionally call 'journalism', Maus regularly breaks news in this niche category.
Journalists looking to answer the question, personally and professionally, "what next?" may want to think hyperlocal and niched.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Shrinking to survive: Newspapers get smaller
Here in the Northwest, the largest daily papers in the region's two major markets - Seattle and Portland - announced within the past two weeks that they would shrink or merge sections and cut back on content in their papers. Two other local papers, the Tacoma News Tribune and the Bend Bulletin, announced similar changes.
Today, Nieman Journalism Lab picked up on the Wall Street Journal report that the publisher of the major Detroit daily - the Free Press - will announce Tuesday that the newspaper will halt deliver on all but the three most profitable days of the week: Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Readers presumably will be encouraged to pick up the paper at newsstands or read the paper online.
Last week Tribune declared bankruptcy, in what could be a ghost-of-Christmas future for other struggling newspaper companies.
The decision to halt delivery of a major news daily would be a watershed announcement, and could lead to copycat decisions elsewhere. Shocking as the decision might be to newspaper veterans, the alternative is worse.
At a recent media conference, I was joined on the lunch panel by the former managing editor of the Spokane Spokesman review, who noted that only 17 cents of every dollar of newspaper spending goes to the content. The rest of that is burned up primarily in production (printing) and delivery (distribution) costs.
These 20th century sunk costs simply cannot be offset in a 21st-century business environment, and they are crushing a business already suffering from the 'Craigslist effect' of lost classifieds revenue.
Drastic times require drastic measures. Although newspapers will certainly have to make rate concessions to their advertisers to the extent that they halt delivery or publication of some days' papers, this approach is worth trying. As we noted at that same journalism conference, the "production and distribution" costs of the online version of a newspaper are almost zero.
That's a business model for journalism that has a future.
Today, Nieman Journalism Lab picked up on the Wall Street Journal report that the publisher of the major Detroit daily - the Free Press - will announce Tuesday that the newspaper will halt deliver on all but the three most profitable days of the week: Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Readers presumably will be encouraged to pick up the paper at newsstands or read the paper online.
Last week Tribune declared bankruptcy, in what could be a ghost-of-Christmas future for other struggling newspaper companies.
The decision to halt delivery of a major news daily would be a watershed announcement, and could lead to copycat decisions elsewhere. Shocking as the decision might be to newspaper veterans, the alternative is worse.
At a recent media conference, I was joined on the lunch panel by the former managing editor of the Spokane Spokesman review, who noted that only 17 cents of every dollar of newspaper spending goes to the content. The rest of that is burned up primarily in production (printing) and delivery (distribution) costs.
These 20th century sunk costs simply cannot be offset in a 21st-century business environment, and they are crushing a business already suffering from the 'Craigslist effect' of lost classifieds revenue.
Drastic times require drastic measures. Although newspapers will certainly have to make rate concessions to their advertisers to the extent that they halt delivery or publication of some days' papers, this approach is worth trying. As we noted at that same journalism conference, the "production and distribution" costs of the online version of a newspaper are almost zero.
That's a business model for journalism that has a future.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Grading Social Media coverage of Mumbai
The recent tragedy in Mumbai offered the latest chance to assess the continued evolution of the role of Social Media in the coverage of major breaking news stories.
As noted on the TechCrunch blog, in the early hours of the attacks there was more information on Twitter than on CNN, and photo sharing site Flickr had some of the first images from the scene.
On Poynter, Amy Gahran noted the diversity of Social Media coverage of the attacks, from Twitter Tweets to Blogs, Flickr photos and Wikipedia entries.
In the aftermath, CNN posted a story on "Tweeting the Terror" in which it correctly pointed out the pitfalls and failings of social media "coverage." The story notes how false rumors were posted, and then rapidly repeated, spreading like a 'Tweet' wildfire reminiscent of that old campfire circle game.
Professional journalists will appreciate how Social Media coverage of Mumbai illustrated the dynamic tension that always exists between being fast and being accurate. Clearly, social media - populated by 'civilians' - can easily err on the side of rumor spreading.
Following up on that point, Gahran authored a second blog post suggesting some "teachable moments" provided by the use of Twitter during the Mumbai attacks. For journalists, she throws down the challenge to teach/correct 'tweeters' who are merely repeating, by querying their source; and, when errors are found, tweeting the source of those errors to alert them.
Mindy McAdams, in her blog post Twitter, Mumbai, and 10 facts about online journalism now, nicely recaps some lessons reinforced by the Mumbai story, among them: In this era, major breaking news will be reported online before on-air; non-journalists will be the first to report it; cell phones have become the first-responder reporting tool; and, cell phones with camera/video/internet connection that can publish remotely are the reporting killer app when on location during breaking news.
Clearly, the general public - untrained in journalism - committed typical novice errors in repeating unconfirmed rumors during the Mumbai attacks. But no journalist interested in using all ethical means available to get the full story fast...can deny that Social Media represent both a resource and a publishing tool for a new era of journalism. Trained journalists are in the ideal position to use those tools well, and teach that practice to others.
As noted on the TechCrunch blog, in the early hours of the attacks there was more information on Twitter than on CNN, and photo sharing site Flickr had some of the first images from the scene.
On Poynter, Amy Gahran noted the diversity of Social Media coverage of the attacks, from Twitter Tweets to Blogs, Flickr photos and Wikipedia entries.
In the aftermath, CNN posted a story on "Tweeting the Terror" in which it correctly pointed out the pitfalls and failings of social media "coverage." The story notes how false rumors were posted, and then rapidly repeated, spreading like a 'Tweet' wildfire reminiscent of that old campfire circle game.
Professional journalists will appreciate how Social Media coverage of Mumbai illustrated the dynamic tension that always exists between being fast and being accurate. Clearly, social media - populated by 'civilians' - can easily err on the side of rumor spreading.
Following up on that point, Gahran authored a second blog post suggesting some "teachable moments" provided by the use of Twitter during the Mumbai attacks. For journalists, she throws down the challenge to teach/correct 'tweeters' who are merely repeating, by querying their source; and, when errors are found, tweeting the source of those errors to alert them.
Mindy McAdams, in her blog post Twitter, Mumbai, and 10 facts about online journalism now, nicely recaps some lessons reinforced by the Mumbai story, among them: In this era, major breaking news will be reported online before on-air; non-journalists will be the first to report it; cell phones have become the first-responder reporting tool; and, cell phones with camera/video/internet connection that can publish remotely are the reporting killer app when on location during breaking news.
Clearly, the general public - untrained in journalism - committed typical novice errors in repeating unconfirmed rumors during the Mumbai attacks. But no journalist interested in using all ethical means available to get the full story fast...can deny that Social Media represent both a resource and a publishing tool for a new era of journalism. Trained journalists are in the ideal position to use those tools well, and teach that practice to others.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)