So much for the penny press
The New York Times raised its daily price to $2.50 today. I thought back to the penny press at the turn of the last century and wondered what such a paper would cost today, inflation adjusted. Answer: a quarter.So, in inflation-adjusted current pennies, The New York Times today costs 10 times more than...
Why not a reverse meter?
As I ponder the future of The New York Times, it occurred to me that its pay meter could be exactly reversed. I’ll also tell you why this wouldn’t work in a minute. But in any case, this is a way to illustate how how media are valuing our readers/users/customers opposite how we should, rewarding...
Scaling fact-checking
Before Thanksgiving, CUNY’s Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism convened a meeting of three dozen journalists, technologists, librarians, entrepreneurs, and academics to discuss ways to scale fact-checking.
The event was born out a conversation with Craig Newmark, who helped fund it. Improving trust in the press and battling disinformation are among the causes he supports. There are...
Digital First
At CUNY’s Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, we invited John Paton, CEO of Digital First Media, Journal Register, and Media News, and Justin Smith, CEO of Atlantic Media, to answer questions about how they are executing their digital first strategies. I interviewed them, digging down into revenue, costs, transition for staff, audience, and advertisers, and...
Digital First, indeed
I’m delighted by the news that Journal Register’s John Paton is spreading the digital first gospel (I’m a believer). He announced today that through a new company — Digital First Media — he will take over management of MediaNews, a much bigger newspaper company, and bring the methods used and lessons learned at JRC (and...
But is it journalism? (Damnit)
Four incidents of late challenge the very notion of journalism. Michael Arrington, Henry Blodget, Wikileaks, and TV’s Irene coverage each in their own way raise the question: What is journalism? And does it matter?
When Michael Arrington announced that he was starting an investment fund at Aol with capital from other VCs, Kara Swisher...
How we could cover storms
On Twitter, I’ve been ridiculing the #stormporn in coverage of #Irene: the predictable and numbing repetition, alarmism, and idiocy that is TV. Of course, the storm is serious but the coverage is often laughable and, some would argue, a matter of crying wolf. The inefficiency of the coverage is also boggling: crews everywhere, all...
The disintegrating economics of newspaper circulation
Anna Tarkov calculates that the Chicago Tribune’s Groupon deal — two years of the Sunday ‘bune for $20 — works out to 19 cents an issue.
What’s at work here is the myth of legacy media, that every reader sees every ad thus every advertiser pays for every reader … thus every reader is equally...
PR and corruption theater
Today was about public relations — but not about the public.
What was exposed in Parliament during the Murdochs’ testimony wasn’t necessarily News Corp. — we shall see what happens to it — but instead the cozy, closed ties between institutional journalism and institutional government. The corruption of their close links was what was most...
What’s next for News Corp. and its worlds
There’s no telling how the News Corp. saga will turn out, but I’ll try. Here’s a scenario that leads to the breakup of News Corp., the Murdochs out of power, the deflation of institutional journalism, a break in the too-cozy media-government complex, an unfortunate rise in regulation of media, and a fortunate opening for newcomers....
