Giving readers in¢entive$ to $ubscribe to newspapers

The echo chamber of how to save the news business is as loud as it’s ever been.

The recent Chicago Journalism Townhall brought much discussion but few answers to how news organizations in Chicago might survive in the future.

The closing of the Rocky Mountain News Friday and the clouded futures of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and San Francisco Chronicle are underscoring the dire situation in which newspapers find themselves. Broadcast is not immune either, as the closing of bankrupt Tribune Co.’s Washington television bureau shows.

Rumor of the Kansas City Star shuttering some suburban bureaus, following devastating layoffs, bring the issue close to home in that city.

Just this week, Cablevision announced its Newsday would begin charging for online content. Hearst is exploring similar measures. And a lot of people don’t think this tactic will fly.

What other options are out there? Heck if I know, but I wonder if the following would fly:

• Give newspaper subscribers another incentive to get the paper: Make subscriptions tax-deductible. This is something I know next to nothing about, but if government appreciates the place the Fourth Estate holds in our democracy, this idea might gain traction. Readers could get some sort of tax incentive from local, state or the federal government to subscribe to the newspaper.

• Charge a small annual fee to give readers the privilege of commenting online. It’s often the most passionate (take that any way you want) who comment on news stories. A lot of people get fired up when their comments are removed from sites, claiming First Amendment violations, but the fact remains, it is the news organization’s choice to allow the public to participate in a forum. It is their choice to let people browse for free – or not.

• Charge for external components: Tribune Co. is part owner of CareerBuilder, the job search Web site. Having used this site in the past, I can attest that I’ve never paid a buck to post my resume, browse jobs or apply for new gigs. (It may be that CareerBuilder charges for some services, but I can’t determine that) Why not allow people to post their resumes for free, but charge for different levels of access to jobs? This is one example of external companies that are owned by news companies.
  

• I’m a big fan of wacky marketing ideas. Case in point: The Golden Ticket. It sent the world into a frenzy when Willy Wonka announced a lucky few could visit his (creepy) chocolate factory if they found a Golden Ticket. While this idea doesn’t leverage the news so much, I think newspapers could do a lot with the idea of a Golden Ticket. Five newspapers will include Super Bowl tickets/Eagles tickets/a fabulous Hawaiian vacation, etc. The Sun-Times does this periodically, and recently gave a reader a check for $25,000. For some towns, this is a great marketing opportunity for not only the paper, but also for businesses/advertisers.
  

Could ideas like this save the Rocky? I don’t know. But we’ve got to be open-minded, even if it means appearing close-minded. Too much is at stake.

Constructive criticism for "The Printed Blog"

About two months ago, I was ruminating about the future of journalism and how I could capitalize off the industry's woes. I realized that I and many other journalists will have to keep plugging away towards something to tip the balance back in our favor, but not before I had a genius idea.

Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if you could take locally produced news and blog content from the Web and repurpose it in print to distribute for free as a commuter tabloid, relying on local advertising? You can imagine my shock and dismay when I read several weeks later about The Printed Blog, a commuter tabloid relying on local advertising that repurposes locally produced Web content for print. Naturally, I think entrepreneur Scott Karp has a good idea here, and it debuted to much fanfare from major media outlets.

I finally got my hands on a copy of the full color, glossy rag, which looks more like Rolling Stone than the Sun-Times (PDF here). I was looking forward to seeing how Karp and his team presented my brilliant idea (with a hat-tip to Karp for putting it in motion...oh, and coming up with the same idea). I am unimpressed, and here's why.

I will concede that The Printed Blog, which is also distributed in San Francisco, is in its infancy, and is still working to add contributors, and is not a final product (in searching for a tagline, its temporary tag reads "Tagline would actually be nice here").

The publication strives to be uber-local, adding advertisers that appeal to crowds at certain L stops in Chicago. That said, I was expecting similiarly local blog content. But when I read the Feb. 17 edition, given to me by a co-worker, I found only one story that even mentioned Chicago. It was written by a blogger that apparently lives in New York.

Only two stories appeared to be written by Chicagoans. One was from a blog called Second City Hockey, and talked about how the NHL should link up with Turner Sports. The other, from The Latest and Greatest, compared the live viewing experiences of Oprah vs. Bozo the Clown.

To recap: Chicago mentioned once in a publication aimed at Chicagoans. Other places mentioned include: Washington, D.C.; New York; Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and Texas, in a story about states that have decent job markets; and Rhode Island. There's also a story written by what appears to be a British writer. A front-pager dealing with Proposition 8 was written by a New York blogger.

So this seems contrary to uber-localism. There's not one piece of content from some of the well-known local blogs, like Chicagoist or Gapers Block (which may not be signed on to contribute). Seems to me that if you're going to appeal to Chicagoans, your content should deal with issues and themes relevant to Chicago.

I also didn't like how TPB shared links to the blogs. Rather than showing readers they could visit a blog at say, www.webstainedwretch.blogspot.com, it directs to sites like tpburl.com/0rdnq3. If you go there, you'll somehow reach The Latest and Greatest. But tpburl.com is TPB's "link direction system," which I can only imagine leads to more clicks at TPB's Web site. It takes away from writers the opportunity for immediate recognition.

I don't know if it's because my 20s are waning, but I thought a lot of the content in this particular issue was lacking in substance. A rant about stupid band names (Wilco, Nirvana, the Beatles, apparently) by a guy who just discovered My Morning Jacket lacked passion. A Seattle blogger's story on foie gras is old news to Chicagoans. A lengthy detailing of a British girl's attempts at a one-night stand made me cringe. A slightly unpleasant story about kids trying anal sex would do little brighten a morning commute.

There's a lot of good blogging and reporting happening by indie outlets in Chicago. This could be a great place for them to be featured.

Lastly, I am not a big fan of the ultra-glossy paper. I was reading this issue at home and it was difficult to read, since the pages reflected the light in my apartment. I would suspect that newsprint would be easier on the eyes, easier to fold and read, and perhaps even cheaper to produce.

Now, this post is not meant as a slam on TPB, which I think has potential if it thinks more about its audience. And this is a non-scientific analysis of just one issue. If I looked through others, I might find differently. I hope so.

I wish the TPB the best of luck, but I think it needs to take a deep breath and think about how this publication can serve readers and survive.

Google, Craiglist and others can make a difference in journalism

The Internets were aflutter with responses to Google CEO Eric Schmidt's remarks about how Google probably couldn't save newspapers.

Let's not focus so much on the "paper" aspect of newspapers, but the news part. News organizations, thanks to cutbacks and a faltering economy, are less able to serve the public by providing in-depth, across-the-board coverage.

Often other organizations step up to plug the hole. The AP and Reuters did it in the latter part of the 19th century; today Spot.us and GlobalPost (Boston Globe story here) are stepping up. I was a beneficiary, like Spot.us, of the Knight Foundation, working with MTV's Street Team '08, providing political coverage from Kansas. It showed me what an amazing thing a foundation like that can be for journalism and innovation.

Mark Hamilton and Dan Froomkin (and many others, I'm sure) ruminated on Schmidt's comments. Froomkin suggested several ways Google could help news(papers), including endowing a chair to bloggers, adopting newspapers and contribute to non-profit news organizations.

All interesting ideas, but I'm going to suggest another angle.

Create fellowships at newspapers, where news organizations hire journalists to beef up local coverage, paid for with Google's fellowship dollars. Google could denote certain topics these fellows would cover, say public education, and require an application and review process from both news organizations and potential fellows. This would allow news organizations to examine areas where coverage is lacking or has fallen victim to cutbacks while allowing them to grow staff, coverage and authority in those areas.

Perhaps this could even turn into the open-source model Froomkin writes about. Google fellows' content could be distributed for free across the country to other organizations. Of course, giving content away for free may have gotten us where we are today. But that's where we stand.

Many have criticized Google for aggregating content, but that's what it does best. We can take advantage of that, and companies like Google, Craiglist, Yahoo and others that taken us into the information age can give back to the people they serve.

Word clouding KU's j-school

I saw a cool post on Megan Taylor's blog, exploring j-schools descriptions of their programs. She was inspired to create a wordcloud about the University of Florida's program after seeing something similar on 10,000 Words, which diagrammed programs at Northwestern, CUNY, Berkley, UNC and the Asian College of Journalism.

10,000's Mark Luckie writes:

One of the biggest complaints about modern journalism schools is aren't equipping the next wave of journalists with the skills they need to compete in today's newsrooms. So what are they teaching students? The online course description for several J-schools were run through Wordle.

I decided to see what the University of Kansas' program looks like, in wordle form. Here it is, below, in all its glory. First, the grad program:

Followed by the undergraduate program description, and undergrad course descriptions:

Where was Biden's announcement?

There's no way Joe Biden and his people would try to overshadow Obama on this day...but given how the Obama camp told voters about the Biden choice, shouldn't Biden's people be doing a similar thing?

While "he" updated his Facebook profile, the only change on Biden's MySpace profile is the profile photo; there have been no comments posted since January. "His" Twitter account is silent.

Maybe it's because Biden was out of the race and is suddenly jumping back in. Or maybe it's because Biden is now part of the Obama brand. But it's a fractured media world, and I would have thought Biden would be announcing the news in some way, shape or form on the Internets.

Obama made news media look silly

I was supposed to have my annual review on Friday. But it got pushed back because everyone in the newsroom was clutching their phones, waiting for Barack Obama to txt us his choice for vice prsdnt. When KMBC suggested Evan Bayh was the choice, we wondered what happened to Kathleen Sebelius.

We knew Obama had to announce the v.p. choice before his speech in Springfield today, but we kind of figured it would be during a time where we could report on it as it happened.

You had poor Wolf Blitzer standing in his Situation Room, speculating. Kansas City news reporters staking out a company that produces political signs. You had reporters in Kansas staking out Sebelius. We all thought Obama's media machine would come through.

Well, it turned out it was Obama's NEW media machine that took the helm, sending a text message that woke me up at 2:48 a.m. CST to announce Joe Biden is the choice. (By the way, I predicted this months ago neener neener)

Obama made us all look silly. He bypassed the news media by letting people know the v.p. choice in an expressly modern way. It's akin to Twittering the choice, or announcing it via Facebook. It was immediate, it was direct and kept Obama in the news all Friday as people discussed who his choice could be. One commenter at Daily Kos said the speculation allowed McCain to "marinate" in the question, keeping his seven houses in the news.

Is it strange that Obama bypassed the media? Today's front pages were almost devoid of Biden news, though the Journal-World, NY Post got it. The Times didn't. The Wall Street Journal didn't. The Tribune speculated. However, a late-breaking AP story quoted an anonymous source saying Biden was the choice.

Bottom line, is it's fascinating how Obama's play to the people gave the message directly to them, at a time when only bloggers and barflies could learn and disseminate the news.

Though not all bloggers appreciated the "3 a.m. phone call:"

The Internet is bottomless cup of coffee

Mindy McAdams has a succinct list of what journalism students need to learn, um, now.

Web stuff (XHTML and CSS, whatever those are...); audio reporting and editing; photo (graphy, editing, shop); video (check) and Soundslides, which is apparently ridiculously easy storyteling.

Bryan Murley suggests maps and blogging, too. Good points, all. I wish I knew what half of these things were without using the google.

It's part of a larger discussion across the Internets about what journalism education may be lagging in. Murley, at Innovation in College Media, even wrote up a syllabus for an all-encompassing multimedia course.

This can only help the journalists of tomorrow -- and today.

After all, everyone's pretty much in agreement that the Web is where it's at.

And isn' that part of a greater conversation about the need for entrepreneurship? I'd be interested to know how many j-schools are teaching students about creating their own news venues, whether they're part of a larger news organization or their own media venture.

They're talking about it in England, where there's a Journalism Enterprise & Entrepreneurship conference next week.

And Mark Glaser writes that journalists need to better exposed to the business side of the...business. Some schools, like CUNY, teach entrepreneurial journalism.

I think of all the possibilities that the Internet provides. Whether its ventures like Rocketboom or the Chi-Town Daily News or the Voice of San Diego, the Web is an bottomless cup of information coffee. I think if you localize a news venture, providing a very Webby product -- more than a blog, less than a newspaper -- you can tap into a niche that has yet to mature.

And thank God for the Web to teach me all about it.

Americans hate the media less

Even though the majority of America still hates the commie-pinko-liberal-right wing-agenda setters in the "MEDIA," they hate us less than in the past. A Zogby poll reveals few surprises: Republicans hate the media more than Democrats; blogs are important, but not that important; old people don't use the Web. Here's the rundown, via USNR:

—Although the vast majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism (64 percent), overall satisfaction has increased to 35 percent in this survey from 27 percent in 2007.

—Both traditional and new media are viewed as important for the future of journalism—87 percent believe professional journalism has a vital role to play in the nation's future, although citizen journalism (77 percent) and blogging (59 percent) are also seen as significant by most Americans.

—Very few Americans (1 percent) consider blogs their most trusted source of news or their primary source of news (1 percent).

—Three in four (75 percent) believe the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.

—Sixty-nine percent believe media companies are becoming too large and powerful to allow for competition, while 17 percent believe they are the right size to adequately compete.

—More Republicans (79 percent) than Democrats (50 percent) feel disenchanted with the media.

Multimedia = Hot naked people

There's been a lot of chatter on the Internets lately about the importance of journalism students having blogs. Hence a renewed interest in this one. But the problem with my blog is that, well, I'm not very interesting and I don't have a whole lot to say.

Well, I do, but I don't think everybody needs to know everything I want to say. We'll see what happens as I develop the Kansas beat for MTV News; I think that will give me a lot more to say. In fact, I think that could make me *gasp* a decent blogger because I'll have some sort of niche expertise about something.

The best blogs are targeted. They offer straight information about, for instance, politics, baseball, your own life, etc. They're not a mish-mash of random samplings of information, as this blog has been. Well, this blog has tried to be about journalism, with a few other musings, but I think it's pretty schizo.

Still, when people say j-students must have a blog, I'm not so sure. They say it gives insight to their unfiltered writing styles and skills. Perhaps. I wouldn't say it's totally unfiltered; we're all responsible for what we say. They say it shows you're an Internet "native," that you're interested in the Web culture, that you're down (or up) with the times...sure, these are all true. But what if you're an empty suit? Or blogger, in this case.

Rare is the time I walk away from a blog post thinking, "Job well done, sir. You are a shining beacon of Internet culture."

I think if you're going to have a blog it should be about something. Not just anything, but something. Having a blog just to say you have a blog is an empty gesture. And to do multimedia just to have a sense of accomplishment is an empty gesture, too. If it's going to be something worthwhile, then it has to be good, especially if it's something an employer is going to consider when hiring me.

To me, it's like nudity in a movie. If it furthers the story (Hello, "Wild Things"), fine. If there are just a bunch of man and lady parts on display for the heck of it (I'm looking at you...um "Wild Things" might be nsfw, but it's pretty tame), that's where it becomes a problem. These new media applications should be necessary components to the story, or else they should add a new, compelling element to them, not just WWWWH.

Just to have a link to a slideshow or movie isn't enough. After all, who's going to watch an audio slideshow about Student Senate or a short movie file about the traffic cops? But you will want to see a slideshow of KU's Orange Bowl victory, or a movie about a traffic cop who has some sort of disease that makes walking difficult. It's got to be well-done.

So, you may ask, what the hell are you doing on your blog? I guess I'm trying to make it worth it.

College media lagging behind

According to a new study, 91 percent of college newspapers have an online presence. I’ve gotta say, this seems like a low number, given the immediacy of the Web, the online culture of college students, and the ease in which an online presence can be created. Other mediums are much worse off: “36.3 percent for radio stations, 20.9 percent for television stations, 18.1 percent for magazines and 6 percent for yearbooks,” according to the study, conducted by researchers at James Madison University.

It’s fascinating to see how behind some of these outlets are (though, honestly, I’ve never heard of an online yearbook).

One of the things that attracted me to KU is its focus on multimedia. The University Daily Kansan has a great site, complete with RSS delivery, blogs and other community-oriented features. The local TV station, KUJH, brings the station to the people on the Internets; it includes podcasts and its own blog. Radio outlet KJHK (K-Jayhawk, get it? Yuck, yuck) streams online, though doesn’t break many barriers in its presentation or sevice.

I’ve only been here a week, so my experience is limited, but I can say that the media presence on campus trumps that of my beloved alma mater, Miami University. Granted, I was in Oxford a lifetime ago (sometimes it seems), but the Miami Student’s online presence is limited; I’ve long thought on OxBlog was in order…c’mon, it’s creative. MUTV, the student-run television station, has a deplorable site, but WMUB, the student-run NPR station, has a decent presence on the Web.

I’m told that Miami is increasing its emphasis on journalism. I hope so, especially since they’ve torn down Reid Hall , my freshman year home and named after Whitelaw Reid, who also founded the Miami chapter of my fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon (speaking of a weak Web presence). Reid, of course (?), was a famous journalist in his time, reporting from Gettysburg and later was the publisher of the New York Herald-Tribune.

Still, when you think about it, these “new” formats — blogging, podcasting, multimedia platforms — are essential. I don’t think college publications are hurting for readers or advertisers; college media is not facing the same problems as its professional counterparts (I don’t think; might make an interesting case study), so a robust Web presence is not an immediate concern.

In terms of media, it’s not a huge concern. But in terms of looking like the top tier educational outlet a university may claim to be, it’s a terriffic concern. Imagine a university without a Web site , or with a site that looks like it’s a Geocities production. You earn zero credibility. It’s just like companies that don’t have Web sites, like those I used to find on CareerBuilder looking for sports-minded players…those companies that had you tag along a sales associate as they trudge through suburban strip malls, hawking phone plans. S-H-A-D-Y.

“Why do I need to learn video?”

The study also says that a lot of young college journos decide their path in high school, shunning the emergence of new media. Like, duh. OMFG, say other bloggers. Kids, you’re sounding stodgy. Aren’t these young kids supposed to be up on all these new-fangled things? Video, audio, slideshows…these things make our product more robust, more “readable” and just plain better. Get with the program. I know I am.