First Draft by Tim PorterNewspapering, Readership & Relevance in a Digital AgeThe Tangled Web of Cookie-Cutter Thinking- June 30, 2006 A lot of bad business decisions and poor editorial assumptions were made in the late '90s during the heydays of the Boom, one of which was Knight Ridder's decision to impose a cookie-cutter web template on all its newspapers and run their online operations through the rigid backbone of the Real Cities Network. Knight Ridder, of course, is gone, but the sad legacy of its Internet arm, Knight Ridder Digital, lives on as a network of bland, generic websites representing the newspapers the company..http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000569.html The Audience for Journalism- June 28, 2006 One reason newspapers and other traditional journalism organizations have trouble embracing change is for them certitude is a treasured value and the changing future of news media offers nothing but uncertainty. One thing is knowable, though, and Jay Rosen expresses it thoroughly in this piece about the changing nature of "audience": The power of publishing has shifted. Once only the privilege of institutions and individuals who had the means, digital technology has devolved...http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000568.html Right-Sizing the Newspaper- June 27, 2006 Jack Shafer's column the other day on Slate about how the downsizing of the American newspaper may in fact be "right-sizing" hit the mark. Shafer made a couple of points worth remembering: The public has a ravenous appetite for news - online. Shafer cites the New York Times' 25 million unique online readers in April. Newspapers are paying the price of decades of over-reaching - in expanding circulation areas and flinging correspondents hither and yon, whether overseas or to...http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000566.html Ken Sands: Thinking About Tomorrow, Today- June 23, 2006 I am wading through a rewrite of a section on leadership and vision for the book my very patient writing partner Michele McLellan and I are doing as our Tomorrow's Workforce project wraps up. The going has been tough since so much of what I want to say in the book I've already said here (or others have said so much better than I elsewhere). Whenever I lack inspiration, or simply can't remember on which of the hundreds of Word files littering my computer I secreted away the exact quote I need...http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000562.html Why TimesSelect is the Right Thing for the Times to Do- June 8, 2006 Mark Glaser writes in his PBS column, MediaShift, that the New York Times should put an end to TimesSelect, the paid-content option of its online edition that keeps op-ed columnists and the archives behind a subscription wall. Glaser addresses Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger and reminds him he said TimesSelect was a "bet" and that it's time to call it in (emphasis added): "That bet goes against the movement in the online world toward open conversations and open discussion of...http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000560.html Hiring for Innovation- June 7, 2006 Bob Niles' interview at Online Journalism Review with Adrian Holovaty, the bright young programmer-journalist hired by the Washington Post, has been well linked, especially for his good ideas about journalism education (get technical) and information use (extend your reporting through structure), but I want to concentrate one something else he said: Hiring and innovation. Here's the question from Niles: "What ought news organizations do to encourage tech innovation from their staffs"..http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000559.html News & Notes from All Over- June 6, 2006 Follow the money - online: Web advertising for newspapers grew 35 percent in the first quarter of this year, while print ad revenue was up only 0.3 percent, says NAA. Colby Atwood of Borrell Associates supplies the obvious quote: ""Increasing amounts of revenue and focus should be on the online properties. This is a transition that's taking place over several years here." Follow the people - online: "Web media is the dominant at-work media and No. 2 in the home," says Cnet,...http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000558.html |