Robert Niles: January 2010 archive
Will Apple's iPad save the news industry?
January 29, 2010
Will Apple's new iPad help the news industry?Sure. Any new device that encourages people to read and watch more information will help publishers. With a larger screen than Apple's iPod Touch and iPhone, and far better display than we've seen from the Kindle or other e-book readers to date, people moving to the iPad from those devices should be expected to increase their "screen time," since they'll be using a more aesthetically pleasing device.
But can the iPad save the newspaper industry? What features in the new device might help financially struggling newsrooms encourage more people to pay for news delivered online?
Slow down, folks. First, if you haven't watch this years-old clip from Fox's old Mad TV sketch comedy show, please do now. It's best not to place any industry's hopes for survival upon a device whose name elicited so much ridicule from one half the population that Twitter users immediately moved "iTampon" to the top of the Trending Topics list in response.
I know that many news managers desperately want some technological innovation to come along that will turn back time and make people fall in love with printed content again. But paid circulation and readership were falling at most U.S. newspapers long before the World Wide Web made it easier for people dissatisfied with their local newspapers to find many more alternatives. The problem isn't the Web - it's that people have been rejecting and, in increasing numbers, continue to reject paying for the content offered by newspapers' newsrooms, in any medium. More...
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Build a better journalism career by shifting your focus from writing stories to creating assets
January 26, 2010
We're now taking applications for the 2010 News Entrepreneur Boot Camp at the University of Southern California. I hope that OJR readers will apply for the camp, which will bring 20 journalists to Los Angeles for a week in May for intensive instruction and discussion about starting and growing an online news business. To encourage you to apply, I'll be sharing on OJR for the next few weeks some of the topics I'll be discussing in greater depth at the camp.Many of these concepts will reduce to changes in the mindset that journalists bring to the practice of our craft. As journalists, we (should) understand the power of language. Simply changing some of our vocabulary can result in a profound shift in our practice of journalism, a shift that ultimately helps us create a more financially secure career for ourselves, while better serving our readers' needs as well.
As journalists, we typically frame our job as producing stories, usually for a daily edition. But as the combination of a poor economy and an increasingly competitive publishing market drives more of us into entrepreneurship, that focus must change. As an employee, your job is to perform a task that, in conjunction with the work of other employees, creates value for the company. But you don't need to concern yourself with what those other employees are doing (except, of course, for how their work affects your ability to do your job) or the big picture of how all your work creates value. Just make your deadlines, and file your stories.
But with "work for someone else's newsroom" jobs become scare in the news business, smart journalists need to start thinking more like entrepreneurs. Even if your goal remains a newsroom job, an entrepreneurial mindset can help you develop the assets that will make you a more valuable job prospect, as well as develop your ability to see which newsrooms are most likely to endure in this increasingly competitive environment.
Notice the word I just used: "assets." To me, that's the word that should replace "stories" in your vocabulary as a journalist. Too many of the journalists I've seen try to make the transition to running their own blogs and websites remain mired in the "story" mindset, endlessly creating newspaper-style "stories" or even brief-length snippets for their blogs. But they fail to create assets of enduring value that ultimately provide the income that they need to remain viable businesses online. More...
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Is anyone on staff actually reading the mobile version of your news website?
January 22, 2010
I've long complained about online news publications that automatically redirect all requests from mobile devices to their mobile home page. The practice kills deep-linking online, which is especially frustrating when the deep link comes from the news organization's own Twitter feed.But today, I'd like to highlight another frustrating practice by some news organizations - publishing incomplete articles to the mobile version of their websites or smartphone apps.
I'm illustrating two examples here today, but I've encountered so many on my iPhone over the past several weeks that I often wonder if many news organizations employ anyone to actually read their mobile publications, or if they merely entrusted their mobile versions and apps to automated processes.
With mobile news attracting a growing audience, news publishers simply can't afford to take the Ron Popeil approach to their mobile publications - "set it and forget it." They must devote some eyeballs toward a backread of all that they produce. More...
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Need help finding income for your start-up news website? We have a boot camp for you
January 15, 2010
If you are thinking about starting your own online news website or blog - or if you've already made that move, but wondering where the money will come from - please consider applying for the second edition of our News Entrepreneur Boot Camp.That's right, we're doing the camp again. The Knight Digital Media Center, in cooperation with OJR and the Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC's Marshall School of Business as well as the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, will select a dozen or so journalists to travel to Los Angeles in mid-May for the camp. There, you will work together and in one-on-one consultation with camp faculty to hone plans for your project - and its financial success.
Lots of other journalism organizations have jumped on the entrepreneurship bandwagon recently. But long-time OJR readers know that I've been writing about entrepreneurial journalism for years, and that OJR put on what may have been the first industry conference solely devoted to the topic, back in 2006.
The KDMC Boot Camp is different from other industry gatherings, as well, in the one-on-one work it provides with accomplished entrepreneurs. This isn't about bringing together a bunch of newspaper-industry executives to speculate about online entrepreneurship during one-way lectures. Like the medium you'll be publishing, in this is an interactive experience. More...
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There is no new revenue model for journalism
January 12, 2010
For all those hopeful newspaper managers, searching for a new revenue model that will save good, old-fashioned newsroom journalism, I have a message for you:You're wasting your time. Please, stop. There is no new revenue model for journalism.
This isn't to say that publishers cannot change the way that they've operated in past media to secure their future online. But they need to look beyond looking for radical new ways to charge customers for their work.
There are three ways - and only three ways - that publishers can make money from their content:
1. Direct purchases, such as subscriptions, copy sales and tickets
2. Advertising
3. Donations, including direct contributions and grant funding
Let's break 'em down: More...
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Doing journalism in 2010 is an act of community organizing
January 6, 2010
Nothing frustrates me more than watching journalists who've lost their newsroom jobs entering the blogosphere... with no clue as to what they should be doing online. Too few emerging online journalists understand that the function of news publishing has changed in the Internet era. Simply reporting the news, however you might define that, is no longer enough, not when you are publishing in such a competitive environment. The journalists who succeed online are the ones who understand that they are no longer simply reporters... they've become community organizers.Before the holidays, I had lunch with a local journalist who is making the transition from a print staff job to online entrepreneur. He wanted to pick my brain for ideas on how to make the switch, and I was happy to talk. But whatever he asked, my answer kept resolving to the same point: you have to have a community that supports you, if you want to make a living online.
Despite what years of local monopoly may have taught many veteran journalists, readers don't automatically show up for whatever you publish. I've seen too many journalists react in shock when they put up their first blog post, only to end up with fewer readers than they have clean socks in their dresser drawer.
"But thousands of people read me in the paper," they stammer.
Well, the paper might have sold thousands of copies each day, but as any newspaper-dot-com staffers who's looked at the traffic data can tell you, few subscribers actually read any given writer's work. And those who did usually did so out of habit - they'd grown up reading the paper and fell into the custom of reading specific sections, pages or features.
That habit does not extend to reading those writers online, just to whoever happens to be in that slot in print. Perhaps a few might accept an invitation to connect with a familiar writer on the Web, but you have to extend that invitation before it can be accepted.
So, your past earns you nothing online. Whatever audience you will have there, you must build yourself.
Now you're a community organizer. More...
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