tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30398632009-11-25T09:35:21.664-08:00A place to talk about the changing news media landscape.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.comBlogger759125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-81934978993878909072009-11-25T09:26:00.000-08:002009-11-25T09:35:21.672-08:00

What if civic news has always been a niche market and we just didn’t recognize that? Mixed up with the sports readers and food page readers and folks who just wanted to see what was on TV, the people who bought and read the newspaper mainly for civic news probably were no more than a fraction of the total “news audience” all along. This is at odds with my sense that most people are inherently

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-14548490020288737842009-11-20T09:00:00.000-08:002009-11-20T09:04:27.631-08:00

I guess Jim Barnett must trust rich people a lot more than I do. Don’t get me wrong: some of my best friends, yada-yada, and I certainly wouldn’t mind if my sister married one. (If I had a sister). But why on earth does he think putting media decisions in the hands of the richest few Americans is the best way to go? I hope Jim and everybody else understands my own preference: journalism needs

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-47116522391045122042009-11-18T10:18:00.000-08:002009-11-18T10:18:00.828-08:00

If you’re a reader of this blog, chances are you’ve already heard about the new online news organization being formed in Hawaii by Peer News. The brainchild of Pierre Omidyar and Randy Ching, this next-generation news service will bring a lot of web cred to an issue of considerable current interest: the future of local accountability journalism. I’ve spent some time with them as an advisor, and

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-58127949159480064962009-11-13T20:13:00.000-08:002009-11-13T20:13:15.777-08:00

I spotted a pithy, insightful notion early on while reading Ethan Zuckerman's post What if they stop clicking? , paused and sent it out as a Tweet right then. Moments later, I came across a second and Tweeted it, too. When I Tweeted a third too-good-to-pass-up nugget, I realized I should just encourage people to read the whole post. It's a cohesive, carefully sequenced contemplation and will

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-60365585534147992922009-11-08T08:15:00.000-08:002009-11-08T08:17:56.568-08:00

A TechCrunch article by Paul Carr (NSFW: After Fort Hood, another example of how ‘citizen journalists’ can’t handle the truth) stirred up a good bit of Twitter discussion for a Sunday morning. To me, the important question is not whether non-professional news reporting will be available or whether "jerks with cellphone" will run amok, but rather how we learn to handle that and incorporate it

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-10093980225668960212009-11-06T14:00:00.000-08:002009-11-07T08:10:12.709-08:00

Let us start with Plato and finish with Dave Pell, with a little Jeff Jarvis mixed in to help bind it all together. Sometime around 370 BC Plato held forth against the invention of writing, a mere crutch that would cause memory to atrophy while offering only a pale reflection of discourse in its place. The fact is that this invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-38390256867753278402009-10-12T16:36:00.000-07:002009-10-12T16:36:36.789-07:00

I've talked and written for some time about the need for serious journalism to stop marketing itself as "Eat your broccoli" and start describing the value of a balanced information diet. I had a discussion like this in Tacoma once, when I mentioned that it’s hard to make a living urging people to eat their broccoli when the guy in the next booth is selling curly fries. Editor Karen Peterson

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-43973294426337329952009-10-09T09:13:00.000-07:002009-10-09T09:17:53.552-07:00

Rupert Murdoch and Tom Curley at some bizarre news summit in Beijing insist that news companies must "take back control of our content."This is madness on many levels, but most importantly, it's just impossible. Down that path lies ruin.I can't say this better than Jeff Jarvis and Kevin Anderson. Please go read their observations.

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-23768315151391382382009-09-19T17:12:00.000-07:002009-09-19T19:46:57.436-07:00

Jeff Jarvis has already ranked it as near "seminal" and reprinted more than 350 words of Paul Graham's Post Medium Publishing, so let me try and bring something different to the party: some examples of sloppy thinking and errors in the piece.Graham: A copy of Time costs $5 for 58 pages, or 8.6 cents a page. The Economist costs $7 for 86 pages, or 8.1 cents a page. Better journalism is actually

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-28246452108114584532009-09-15T09:37:00.000-07:002009-09-15T09:45:36.902-07:00

How simple is this? NYT reporter Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) asked his Twitter readers (more than 12,000 at last check) to help him make an upcoming newspaper story better:My blog post about "GMA" http://bit.ly/djbpT is the 1st draft of a bigger story. So please comment, annotate it, ask questions, poke holes!Even more useful and impressive would be asking them to help shape and report the

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-45079517257810485662009-08-31T10:38:00.000-07:002009-08-31T12:38:05.027-07:00

Internet triumphalists love the Wikipedia. In their view, it demonstrates why professionalism is no longer essential. The crowd-sourced online fact-a-palooza is a superior encyclopedia, news source and all-around reference, they say – and all that with volunteer editors and no paid editorial writing staff.I love Wikipedia, too, and often cite it in this blog and elsewhere. For a certain kind of

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-85038034106759657392009-08-28T19:44:00.000-07:002009-08-28T20:14:49.207-07:00

In a world where cheap, infinite and perfect copies are now the norm in many creative realms, old laws about limiting access – protecting copyrights, we called them – bear scant relation to reality. The world has out run the law.Robert Penn Warren has Boss Stark explain this is All The King's Men, generally acclaimed the best political novel in American literature: [The law] is like a single-bed

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-75956153899993587962009-08-18T10:19:00.000-07:002009-08-18T10:38:32.978-07:00

Here's a suggestion I haven't heard before: somebody ought to figure out what kind of business will support journalism rather than focusing on why our old business won't.Perhaps that's an oversimplification, but the whole argument is really pretty simple. Here's the nut graf from a discussion aimed at finding new journalism business models:The reason newspapers and magazines are dying is that

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-56002221319708807272009-08-17T07:45:00.000-07:002009-08-17T07:55:19.806-07:00

Apropos of "one-book novelists" wherever we find them, this note from one of the best American writers most people have never read:... Creative Writers' Workshops, poetry seminars and Festivals of the Arts will materialize midst campus greenery. The Failure of Hemingway The Failure of Faulker The Failure of Whitman The Failure of Melville The Failure of Crane The Failure of Twain The Failure of

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-75681738846749162212009-08-15T14:18:00.000-07:002009-08-15T16:24:04.097-07:00

I don’t know Bill Wyman from a posthole, and you probably never heard of him either. You might wonder why I’m sitting in the country on a sunny Saturday afternoon bothering to critque his analysis of Why Newspapers Are Failing. It’s certainly not like other people haven't plowed this ground before.And besides, he actually seems like a pretty interesting guy. I agree with 75- or 80% of what he’s

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-87594609656113320982009-08-06T10:04:00.000-07:002009-08-06T10:39:28.454-07:00

So, what’s with the logo? I’m glad you asked.A Twitter friend says it makes me look “corporate,” which I don’t think she meant as a compliment. It’s definitely a high-class design, done by my pal Peter Dunlap-Shohl in Anchorage. But it isn’t intended to signal a move back to the executive suites.Instead, it’s part of an experiment on my part. Thinking about the notion that individual journalists

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-25269247606288196772009-08-06T09:25:00.000-07:002009-08-06T09:34:07.693-07:00

The headline at the Nieman Journalism Lab website does sound apocalyptic, so of course it was quickly repeated and gained wide currency amongst folks who think the battles about journalism are already over.It says, “NAA/Nielsen stats show newspapers own less than 1 percent of U.S. online audience page views, time spent.”Less than one percent? We’re doomed.Well, no we’re not. The measure Martin

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-70000470469180638682009-07-30T20:27:00.000-07:002009-07-30T20:41:38.017-07:00

Off the news ticker this week:McClatchy and a number of other newspaper companies recently surprised and pleased Wall Street with first quarter earnings reports far better than predicted. One analyst (who’s invested in newspaper stocks) predicts that cost-cutting at the papers has taken hold just as the economy bottoms out, meaning that even modest improvement could mean “spectacular earnings

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-90317744663280134512009-07-29T12:02:00.000-07:002009-07-29T12:05:39.103-07:00

Whatever happens, however we rearrange our marketplace of ideas - as sooner or later we certainly shall - our sense of what “publication” means is bound to change. We will be able to make our commentary part of the text, and weave an elaborate series of interlocked commentaries together. We will, that is, be moving from a series of orations to a continuing conversation, and, as we have always

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-37485778731307975562009-07-26T11:40:00.000-07:002009-07-26T11:44:33.084-07:00

I asked folks on Twitter what stupid words in headlines bothered them most. Here are the initial responses:Probed; spar; faces; linger; walks back; curb; spark; exec; inks; Solons; pokes (for the Dallas Cowboys); mull; nix; tapped kudo; eyed; inked; dissed; slay/slainOne person offered a three-fer: Moguls Ink PactAdd to the list in comments below. There must be more stupid words than these ...

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-79088676033758487142009-07-22T09:28:00.000-07:002009-07-22T12:17:42.871-07:00

A Macintosh blogger I follow has a feature he calls "claim chowder" in which he delights in digging up and exposing old predictions and claims after they have been proven spectacularly wrong. It's a delightful dip in a pool of revenge and schadenfreude.Michael Simonton, welcome to a hot, steaming bowl of claim chowder:Fitch Ratings analyst Michael Simonton is among the camp that believes

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-86810907036353383572009-07-18T13:08:00.000-07:002009-07-18T13:13:44.546-07:00

I was having drinks with Frank McCulloch at the bar in the Crow’s Nest in Anchorage one night in the early ‘80s. (We never went for “a drink” in those days; we went for “drinks”.) Walter Cronkite, in town for a broadcasters’ shindig, spotted Frank across the room and came hustling over. A thirty-something journalist whose entire career had been in Anchorage couldn’t have dreamed of sitting at

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-27489197775746781322009-07-18T11:34:00.000-07:002009-07-18T12:58:32.653-07:00

The feedback and push back I'm getting for suggesting that news companies compete by building a better news site has become too varied and detailed to handle in the comments section. First, thanks to Scott, Dave, John and Chris for giving the idea respect enough to argue with it. (I haven't heard back yet from Jeff, whom I think misread my argument, but I hope to. I actually expected us to be on

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-54436404277279051102009-07-17T09:22:00.000-07:002009-07-17T12:31:54.572-07:00

If you don’t think paid content can ever pay the freight for professional journalism – and I don’t – then what hope is there for news companies?Well, the good news is that there’s plenty of money being made on content online. On the other hand, the news companies have to be willing to fight for it.Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL are making more money from online content than the newspaper industry

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039863.post-39998515313643731652009-07-16T18:41:00.000-07:002009-07-16T18:52:21.068-07:00

I've had some mean things to say about Chris Anderson's "Free" thesis, but beneath the book's overly simplified theme, he's done a lot of good thinking about what makes products competitive in a world where so much is, after all, free.Good interview here; this is the quote I liked best:You know, why do people buy music when you can download it for free? Why does iTunes exist. Because it's easier

Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08379598516764590842noreply@blogger.com1