Category Archives: Journalism

The Daily Bugle

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NewspapersThe local newspaper here in Jefferson City has been locally owned for a long time. It was recently sold to a group with headquarters in Arkansas. As George and I discussed this over coffee a couple of weeks ago, he wondered why someone would buy a newspaper when it seems like –nationally– their profits are in free fall (I love that expression).

During our chat, George said he thought the local paper only had four full-time reporters. I have no idea if that’s accurate but, for the purposes of this post, let’s assume it is. It started me thinking. What if the local paper just shut down? What sort of online alternative would be possible? Could you create one using volunteers?

You might start by evaluating what’s currently in the paper: Local news, state news, world and national news, features, business and finance, entertainment, opinion, sports, community, obits, weather and classifieds.

I certainly won’t be the first to point out that much of the information in the local newspaper is available from other sources (weather, state news, national  news, etc). The one area a local paper can and should do better than anyone else is local. Local news, sports, business, entertainment… local, local, local.

What if you had one, maybe two “professional journalists,” coordinating a group of volunteers. Could you do a credible job of covering local news and events? For example, could a dozen highly motivated volunteers –armed with digital cameras and recorders– cover the local news as well as four paid staffers?

Hey, no question it would be different but I see no reason it couldn’t work. We’re already seeing a growing number of examples around the country. And, yes, a number of these efforts have failed.

Even the smallest newspapers have massive overhead. Paper, ink, printing presses, etc. That means you need LOTS of advertisements. What I’m envisioning has virtually no overhead. A few hundred dollars a year for web hosting. You could cover a lot of local news for the tiniest fraction of what a “real newspaper” costs.

I suspect that some small town papers are morphing in this direction already and one day the print edition will just disappear and the transition will be complete.

“Shovelware,” “repurposing” and facing reality

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Found an interesting idea at “Teaching Online Journalism”:

“It is time to stop talking about repurposing and instead to start a discussion on how to re-imagine journalism.”

She proposes a radical (but obvious) shift in priorities:

“What some newsrooms (e.g., The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) have done is turn the workflow around — in a way that makes sense when the number of subscribers to the print product is decreasing and the number of online visitors is increasing: Make “Web first” the rule, in all cases. Produce for online, write for online, shoot for online, design for online. And then “repurpose” for the dying media — the print newspaper and the local TV newscast.”

Dying media?! Yikes! I don’t want to be in the staff meeting the first time someone blurts that out.

Sound bites, talking points and YouTube

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Really interesting story at Politico by Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej about how YouTube is helping move us away from sound bite coverage to something more substantial.

“In the 1968 presidential election, the average amount of time given to a sound bite from presidential candidate on the network news shows was 43 seconds. In 1972 it dropped to 25. By 1988, it had shrunk to 9.8 seconds, and in 1996, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs and the Brookings Institution, to just 8.2 seconds. By 2004, a study by USC and the University of Wisconsin found that it had risen slightly to 10.3 seconds, but for all intents and purposes this was hardly much of an improvement.

Until now, all of national politics has operated within the context of those shrinking numbers. Since TV was the only way to reach millions of voters, and the only way to get your message across was to a) buy expensive airtime for 30-second TV ads or b) get free airtime by saying something memorable (and not damaging, unless aimed at your opponent), successful politicians have gotten very good at sticking to their talking points, speaking in sound-bites, and avoiding gaffes or detailed conversations as much as possible.”

My man Obama is proving these assumptions are out of date:

“So far, Obama’s videos have been viewed more than 33 million times on YouTube.com — and that’s not counting partial views, since YouTube only reports a full viewing as a “view.” His campaign has uploaded more than 800 video clips, and adds several more a day.”

In a pre-Internet era, the endless replayings on television of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sound bites denouncing America would probably have deeply damaged Obama’s candidacy. But millions of voters have been flocking to the web to watch his 37-minute response to the controversy.

Our longest newscast on our four state radio networks is 4 minutes. Only three of those being news. Even more popular –with affiliates– are our one-minute “capsules.” Formats which demand shorter and shorter sound bites.

But we now routinely post longer –sometimes complete– interviews with the stories we post to our websites.

I have to believe everyone is better served by new media alternatives.

iPhone users love mobile web

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Iphone150NYT Bits Blog reports the results from a January survey (of 10,000 adults) of media habits of iPhone users:

84.8 percent of iPhone users report accessing news and information from the hand-held device. That compares to 13.1 percent of the overall mobile phone market and 58.2 percent of total smartphone owners – which include those with Blackberries and devices that run Windows.

74.1 percent of iPhone users listen to music on their iTunes-equipped device. Only 27.9 percent of smartphone users listen to music on their phone and 6.7 percent of the overall mobile-phone-toting public listens to music on their mobile device.

Ron Paul: Still a candidate, but no longer a “contender”

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A reporter for one of our networks referred to Ron Paul the “former GOP presidential candidate”  in a story we ran on Saturday and posted on our website.

It didn’t take long for Paul supporters to discover the error launch an obviously coordinated email blitz. Some were nicer than others.

This evening Bob Priddy –the news director– posted a response on the network blog. I think he struck precisely the right tone. I’m sure we’ll find out if Ron Paul supporters agree.

But, all in all, this is a good thing. Our story was technically wrong. Ron Paul is not a “former” candidate. And his supporters let us know about, quickly and in larger numbers. And our network corrected the mistake and responded.