The New Storytellers: With journalism startups springing forth, new business models are being tested

Staffers from the news startup NJ Spotlight spend a lot of time at the New Jersey statehouse covering the intricacies of state policymaking. (Credit: mtstradling/Flickr/Creative Commons License)

Staffers from the news startup NJ Spotlight spend a lot of time at the New Jersey statehouse covering the intricacies of state policymaking. (Credit: mtstradling/Flickr/Creative Commons License)

This is the first of a two-part series looking at the growing variety of journalism startups and the business models that are powering them. The second part, which you can read here, examines for-profit news outlets, with a particular focus on the mobile video service NowThis News.

Cameras flash in the New Jersey statehouse. It’s early January, and in a back corner of the Assembly chamber, the Trenton press corps sit in three close rows of chairs as they await Gov. Chris Christie’s State of the State address. The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is all anyone expects the governor to talk about. [Read more…]

With Aggregation Becoming Big Business, Some Publishers Are Playing Along…For Now

Flipboard has become hugely popular by focusing on a smart, simple reading experience, letting the users decide what content to fill it with. (Credit: Shardayyy/Flickr/Creative Commons License)

Flipboard has become hugely popular by focusing on a smart, simple reading experience, letting the users decide what content to fill it with. (Credit: Shardayyy/Flickr/Creative Commons License)

Tech startups big and small are fighting for dominance in a new market offering personalized, curated or DIY magazines that aggregate what can be an overwhelming roar of online news content into something more manageable and meaningful. Judging from the popularity of apps like Flipboard, they have a captive audience. [Read more…]

Paywalls may be starting to pay off

Digital-only and hybrid digital-print subscriptions drove up total newspaper circulation revenue by 5 percent in 2012, according to a report released this week by the Newspaper Assn. of America. It marked the first circulation gains in a decade, and hinted that the industry’s adoption of website paywalls is starting to pay off. [Read more…]