http://www.ojr.org/ojr New articles from OJR en-us http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201002/1820/ By Robert Niles: What's the value of journalism? The short answer is, of course, "whatever someone will pay for it." But a more thoughtful response gets at why people are willing to exchange something of value for news information. Economics 101 teaches that if more people want something, and the scarcer it is, the higher the price. With millions of new websites competing for people's attention, advertising rates across all media have plunged, threatening news businesses that depend upon advertising income. But the Internet hasn't just created more advertising space, driving down its price. It's also developing millions of new writers, diminishing the economic value of writing itself as a craft. Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:48:00 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201002/1819/ By Robert Niles: To encourage OJR readers to apply for our 2010 News Entrepreneur Boot Camp, I'm writing again on some of the things you need to know, and skills you might need to develop, to become the successful publisher of a thriving news website. Much of what you'll learn at the camp, should you be one of those selected to attend, focuses on mind-set. The skills necessary to run a news website are remarkably similar to the skills needed to work as a reporter. But the mindsets of a successful entrepreneur and a newsroom reporter, unfortunately, are very often quite different. To that end... have you talked with a customer lately? (Or a potential one?) By "customer," I mean a person who writes - or might someday write - you a check to fund your site. (Your current boss does not count!) It could be an advertiser, a subscriber or a non-profit foundation. You can't publish a website - or run any business - without customers, and if you're even just thinking about doing that one day, you need to learn what your potential customers are doing... and what they want. So for my post this week, I offer not some provocative opinion but an assignment - some entrepreneurial homework. Find some people, at least one, who you think might someday, possibly, provide some financial support for that website you might start (assuming you don't have one already). Then start a conversation. Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:10:30 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201001/1817/ By Robert Niles: 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. Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:12:00 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201001/1816/ By Robert Niles: 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. Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:59:37 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201001/1815/ By Robert Niles: 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. Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:22:00 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/dchase/201001/1814/ By Dave Chase: One of the biggest early decisions a hyperlocal site entrepreneur makes is what Content Management System [CMS] they will use. One can think about this similar to picking a spouse. You are going to live with the decision day and night for a long, long time. Also, similar to choosing a spouse, each person has different criteria. I will share the criteria I used for my hyperlocal site (www.sunvalleyonline.com) so that you can consider them and prioritize them based upon your needs. Think through these criteria or your "spousal" choice may leave you feeling like Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in The War of the Roses. Before I get into that, I will share my experience and scenario which gives you some perspective on my situation. I'm a tech industry veteran (~25 years) though my hands-on coding experience is ancient (~20 years ago) but as a non-technical person goes, I'm reasonably technical though I've been on the business and editorial side of Web properties the last 15 years. Part of my background includes being part of the early team of Microsoft Sidewalk starting in 1995 where I ran a team that supported the cities, as well as about half the cities reported through me, so I've been working with CMSs in the local arena for nearly 15 years. SunValleyOnline (SVO) has been around for about 5 years and was built on a proprietary platform that hasn't changed in years. We are in the final stages of the transition from the old to the new site. SVO has been self-sustaining for a couple years with a small team of three people. We rely on a mix of community and staff contributions. I have personally blogged for several years and have used blogs built on Blogger and mostly Wordpress. To jump ahead, there's lots of merit in Wordpress and the ecosystem built around it, however I felt it came up short on the criteria I established to make the decision. Listed below are the criteria I used with a brief explanation. While everyone will have somewhat different criteria, I listed the items in priority order from most to least important based upon my experience and priorities. Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:37:00 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201001/1813/ By Robert Niles: 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. Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:15:00 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201001/1812/ By Robert Niles: 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: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:02:00 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/gstorch/201001/1811/ By Gerry Storch: Gerry Storch is editor/administrator of www.ourblook.com, a media analysis/public issues discussion site that bridges the gap between a blog and a book. He has been a feature writer with the Detroit News and Miami Herald, Accent section editor and newsroom investigative team leader with the News, and sports editor and business editor for Gannett News Service. He holds a B.A. in political science and M.A. in journalism, both from the University of Michigan. The media shield bill that frequently seems poised to whisk through Congress, but has incurred several discomfiting delays, is a bad idea unless it gets one big change. And isn't it odd that the shield bill is revving up with its sprint-to-the-finish momentum, and the mainstream media would be gaining a significant new power, just when ... Just when these same media are declining precipitously in readership and finances, are at an all-time low in public believability as measured by the recent Pew research report, and have relatively few reporters left investigative or otherwise who would avail themselves of such a law. Let's call it for what it is, a power grab. As many states already have their own shield law, this is an attempt to cram one down the throats of those who have declined to grant the media such a privilege, or have done so in tepid fashion. If it passes as is, the press would have virtually unlimited power in reporting. Back in the '80s, I would have been a kneejerk and enthusiastic supporter of this bill. I was fortunate to be the leader of an investigative team at the Detroit News when it was a big, robust paper ... the nation's ninth largest daily, and the seventh largest Sunday edition. I oversaw half a dozen reporters and could tap more if needed. So from the stories we did, I think I'm well enough aware of the need for confidential sources and to protect them. Often, there's no other way to expose wrongdoing. That was then, now is now. Now I've been out of the journalism biz for eight years and have a hopefully broader view. The big change I'd like to see is this: if the story goes to trial, the judge should have the discretion to disallow the confidentiality protection of the sources if the reporter has made any significant errors or if the sources' information is wrong or unfair. If the reporter has screwed up or been dishonest or been suckered, why should he/she be protected? Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:30:00 MST http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201001/1810/ By Robert Niles: 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. Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:23:00 MST