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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.

Enough with the navel gazing: What would readers do?

To pay or not to pay? That's the question journalists have been asking themselves in an online maelstrom of theory, ideas and criticism in a broad array of think pieces (to use a term that may have reduced relevance today) have accumulated on the series of tubes lately.

The news business is suffering as it rarely has before, and news organizations missed the boat on the Internet. Now people are used to getting their news for free. But, people wonder, how can we get them to pay for our product?

While I've seen a lot of chatter from people in the business, I haven't seen the question posed to the people who have the ultimate choice: Readers. (Looks like the Times got quite a response about the idea, though)

So, readers/users/consumers, if you get your news on the Internet, can you see a way that you would ever pay for it? Would you fork over a subscription fee, as you might with a printed paper? Would you go for micropayments, a debit account for news? Do you support a non-profit model? How could/would you pay to keep your news organizations of choice sustainable?

It is a dire situation. Without adequate funding (from readers and advertisers), news organizations can't report the news in the ways that best serve the community. A lot of papers may die. Others will operate on a skeleton staff.

But the people who might actually pay for these things deserve a seat at the table. After all, if they disappear, so will we.

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.

War, wind farms, Obama and MTV: Street Team '08 concludes

I posted my final video for MTV News' (EMMY AWARD-WINNING!) Choose or Lose Street Team '08, a Knight Foundation initiative that used 51 citizen journalists (hate that term) to cover the youth movement during the election.

This project was rewarding, though sometimes frustrating. But looking back on it, it provided me with skills, insight and ideas that I never had before. I can edit a video like a whiz, our Election Day-tweets were posted on Times' Square HD board and I interviewed Ralph Nader. Pretty cool.

Here are some highlights, in no particular order:

• I saw Barack Obama speak three times, including his first (and only) visit to Kansas, the state where his mother was from. Also twice in Kansas City, including a rally with 75,000 people, where I got patted down by Secret Service.
• I embedded with the 1st Infantry Division's Dagger Brigade, as they trained to go to Iraq at Fort Irwin, Calif. I saw first-hand how our troops train for war, reported from the back of a Humvee and had front row seats to some intense combat simulation. I was also invited to embed with them in Iraq, but that looks unlikely.
• Great interview with author Tom Frank, who wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and "The Wrecking Crew." Tom, if you're reading, I'll buy you a beer next time you're in Lawrence.
  
• Ralph Nader came to Lawrence to speak. I didn't do a story on him for MTV, but I got to interview him for LJWorld.com's Schoolhouse Talk blog.
• My MTV blog, Making Kansas Count, was named one of the state's top political blogs by The Washington Post's Chris Cilizza.
• I contributed an article on guerilla journalism to Harvard University's Nieman Reports.
• I met tons of exciting, engaged young people who are working hard (on both sides of the aisle) to make Kansas a better place. Most impressive, I think, are the kids at Greensburg High School, who are rebuilding their town as America's first all-green city.
• Daily Kos linked to a story I did on State Sen. Donald Betts, who was running for Congress at age 30. He, however, got smoked in the general election.

So it's been a long, crazy 11 months. Many thanks to MTV for choosing me to report on Kansas, and major props to my fellow Street Teamers, who were a source of support (both technically and emotionally).

What's the biggest challenge facing young journalists? For me, it's money.

What is the biggest challenge for young journalists? Well, for me it's realizing that I'm not going to be a young journalist for that much longer, and because of that I wonder if I can afford to be a journalist.

I got into this business not too long ago because I felt it pulling at me. The importance of informing communities, helping people understand their place in their community and the world, the need to challenge those in power...these ideas struck me and inspired me to leave a job in PR that just started paying off financially.

Despite a bump in the road (a graduate program that failed to deliver), I've been pretty happy with my decision to enter journalism. I work at an innovative paper, er news organization, that gives me opportunities to report for print, for the Web and for television; it gives me space to explore lots of stories; it's taught me multimedia storytelling methods and has made me feel as if my decision to enter journalism was the right one. Unlike some outlets, this paper takes chances and encourages innovation and exploration.

But, as countless journalists before me can attest, journalism doesn't pad your wallet very well.

And with the media business free falling at an alarming rate, and no true viable business model on the Web, I'm pretty sure it's going to stay that way.

Add the lack of money to a desire to live in a big city (where jobs are shrinking, not growing), and I have a pretty good reason to wonder if I can afford to be a reporter. After all, I've got debts to pay and it's nice to be able to eat and drive my car.

There are social pressures, too. All of my friends, it seems, are getting married, buying houses, having babies. If a woman will ever agree to it, I'd like to get married someday. My romantic failures aside, the prospects of a reporter's paycheck providing the things I would like in my life are slim.

I am satisfied knowing that I am achieving what I want in journalism. But the future is scary. With 30 on the horizon, I realize that I'm not so young anymore and I'm tired of Ramen noodles, tasty as they are.

Can I afford to be a journalist? I just don't know.

My new beat blog

Today LJWorld rolled out our new education beat blog, Schoolhouse Talk. 6News education reporter Lindsey Slater and I edit the blog, which we think will allow us to beef up and extend our coverage of schools in Lawrence. It's one of more than 10 blogs our reporters keep.

I've already got a million ideas for the blog, and things that can grow from it. Excited? You betcha.

It's ironic, because I don't do a particularly good job blogging here. I don't think I have many particularly interesting or groundbreaking insights to add to the debates surrounding journalism. Yeah, I have opinions and misgivings and maybe innovative ideas, but who cares what I think?

I have a few blog entries I want to write here, but I'm reticent to post them just because, well, what do I, as a reporter with a year under his belt, have to add?

I don't know. Maybe I'll post them here. All I know is that Schoolhouse Talk is going to be cool and fun. The layout might need some work, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get there.

Nieman Reports, featuring me

I got my copy of the Nieman Reports today. The one that I contributed to. Yep. I wrote a story about my experiences covering Kansas for MTV's Street Team '08, and how the Web provides a conundrum for citizen reporters, who are not only correspondents, but pundits, as well.

For folks like me, who work at mainstream media outlets, it's a quandary...while this type of guerilla journalism allows for punditry, we walk a fine line of fact vs. opinion. I'll post the link once it's online.

It's pretty cool to see my byline next to the likes of John Harris. Liz Nord, queen bee of ST08, also contributed.

In which I embed with the Army

I just got back from being embedded with the 1st Infantry Division, out of Fort Riley, Kan., as it underwent desert warfare training at Fort Irwin, Calif. It was an incredible experience, and I walked away with a greater respect for the very professional and mature troops fighting for our country. I'll produce some stories for MTV about the trip, but you can read my blog entries for the Lawrence Journal-World here, and check back at LJWorld.com on June 6 for complete coverage.

Anonymous reader comments hurt democracy

There's been a battle about the use of anonymous reader comments. How can a newspaper, which values transparency above all else, advocate readers masking who they are? These comment board discussions often devolve into name-calling and other unintelligent discourse. It's pretty reasonable to think that discussions would be more high-minded if users were required to provide their real names. We're all responsible for what we say, but not if you use a pseudonym.

I did some research on this in the fall, and concluded that anonymous reader comments hurt freedom of speech and democracy, by subjecting sources to intimidation and ridicule. Sources can be unwilling to go on the record, thus limiting the press' ability to hold others accountable. It's probably more prevalent on a local level.

This is something Doug Fisher will address at a journalism conference this summer in Chicago.

I wonder what others out there think about this? How harmful are anonymous comments?

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.

I love "The Wire"

Since the demise of "Journeyman," HBO's "The Wire" has become my newest can't-miss TV show. I'm not one for crime dramas. I've never seen "Law & Order" for more than a few minutes, and none of its counterparts have ever been boob tube destinations for me. But, "The Wire" is just good.

And I think I know why I like it so much. It's the newspapers, stupid!

After, no other show on television gives any play to newspapers. There was Bravo's short-lived "Tabloid Wars," but that was over pretty fast.

"The Wire," in case you didn't know, details the crime-ridden world of Baltimore from the eyes of gangsters in the street, cops tired of bureaucracy and the Baltimore Sun, fighting its own battle with the city and the business.

One of the reporters, a self-aggrandizing young newsie named Scott Templeton, scares me. He wants to be good, really good. So do I, but Templeton's moving towards a dangerous plateau. After moving to the Sun from the Wichita Eagle and then the Kansas City Star, Templeton's stuck. And his frustration at making it big is causing him to have some severe ethical lapses.

He's begun fabricating conversations with a serial killer who is murdering homeless men. The serial killer, of course, is a fabrication of the police department's homicide unit, which needs more manpower. It's a train wreck waiting to happen.

Last week, Templeton used a pay phone to call his cell phone, then made up a conversation with the killer. My heart jumped when I saw it. It's scary for me to see someone make such a terrible decision. After all, I'm taking an ethics course right now.

I only get emotional during select TV programs -- "Ed," for one. Great show. -- but I'm so mad at this guy. He's bright, he's young, he's got a future and talent. And he's throwing it away. Look, a lot of reporters have dreams of being great fiction writers. But the newsroom is not the place.

I'm interested to see how this mess will play out. My guess is that Templeton joins the Journalism Hall of Shame.

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.

FEMA follies show dispect for reporters

Oh, FEMA. FEMA, FEMA, FEMA. You are not doing a heckuva job.

When the FEMA PR staff decided to put on a phony news conference last week, it highlighted the incompetence of this agency and its top officials. It also displayed the disdain with which this government looks at reporters. There are so many instances of government employees shunning the media and then putting their feet in their mouths, it's almost funny. Too bad it's real life.

Jon Friedman of MarketWatch said correctly that this instance shows how little the feds think of reporters. They think that anyone can be a journalist. Even if they're actually employees of the agency they're "covering."

That brings about the subject of citizen journalism. So many people are crowing about the genius of citizen journalism, but FEMA highlights the exact problem with it: zero credibility. Citizen journalists -- and I have dabbled in it before -- are people who are free to display their bias and generally don't act as watchdogs or responsible dissemination of news. Now, many will see the mainstream media fails at this, too. But the fact is that MSM has some sort of credibility built into the establishment.

When FEMA decides that its PR people (!) can be journalists as well as any trained reporter, they show the value of real news people and the absolute lack of credibility from so many people in this government.

A look at days of yore

Here's a cool journalism recruitment video from the 1940s. My, how things have changed.

"I went to j-school for this?!?!?" Part II

From somewhere in Idaho comes a gross story that requires the reporter to say "leave a log." Seriously, folks. I'm sure this is important to that community, and I'm all for using creative language, but this somehow seemed inappropriate to me. And the visuals are just plain nasty. I guess if you've got to cover this, you've got to do it with a sense of humor.

"I went to j-school for this?!?!"

From the Ozark region of Missouri comes an in-depth look at a different organization. This affliate, the poor bastards, did a report on a group at Missouri State University called the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

At no point in the report was there a hint of humor. Everything was done with a perfectly straight face. Seriously, how could this reporter not lose it when he said that the group believes natural disasters are a result of fewer pirates in the world?

Where's the integrity? This story would do better buried in the Onion.

CSU editor should have been fired

J. David McSwain, the editor of Colorado State's Daily Collegian paper, got lucky this week. He's keeping his job after coming up fire for a two-word editorial chastising President Bush.

He should have been canned.

I am all for editorial freedom and I deeply believe in the First Amendment, but McSwain engaged in buffoonery that further tarnishes the reputation of journalists. The editorial, which read "Taser this: FUCK BUSH," was ostensibly in response to the tasering of a University of Florida student at a John Kerry event. Let's be clear: Bush didn't taser the kid. Overaggressive campus cops did and, despite your thoughts on Bush, he didn't encourage their behavior.

So the political statement is lost in a mixed metaphor of sorts.

Why should McSwain be fired? Quite frankly, the editorial was a grab for attention, not a provacative statement. Newspaper editorials should be thoughtful accounts of opinion, not trigger-happy zingers that have no literary value. The paper provided a disservice to its readers...and continues to do so, as advertisers jump ship.

McSwain proved to be an irresponsible editor and that's why he should have been fired.

Times-Pic photogs recount Katrina

I came across this incredible video put together by the New Orleans Times-Picayune. It's very well-done, and chronicles the experience of the paper's photographers during the storm. I visited NOLA in April for work and was blown away by how desolate it was and by the destruction that remained. I can't begin to fathom what it was like to be there for the big storm.