Paywalls aren’t the only way to create online revenue for newspapers

November 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Creative Commons: Shannan Mortimer

A Canadian media commentator, Mathew Ingram, gave his opinions in a post the other day on how online newspapers can make money without paywalls. His ideas are for papers to sell non-news products such as ebooks and online events. He also suggested that news organizations look at their platforms to bring in money. Ingram said news organizations could sell their application programming interface (API) to companies who could build on them, similar to what The Guardian does.

Although the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and the The Economist are using paywalls effectively, he said that not everyone can duplicate what their doing because those publications have highly targeted markets. As for the New York Times’ paywall, Ingram said the NYT is a leading brand for national and international news and other publications would have a hard time modeling their success. Ingram also has a pessimistic view on the continued growth of NYT online subscribers.

You can read Matthew Ingram’s post here.

Other sources: 

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21st Century Journalism and Journalism Education

November 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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From C. W. Anderson, Tom Glaisyer, Jason Smith, New America Foundation and Marika Rothfeld

As the media industry evolves to meet the challenges of the emerging digitally-networked era, so too are journalism schools. Democracy and healthy local communities require this evolution. As the media industry reshapes itself, a tremendous opportunity emerges for America’s journalism programs. Neither news organizations nor journalism programs will disappear, but both must rethink their missions, particularly now that many more people can be journalists (at least, on an occasional basis) and many more people produce media than ever before.

Journalism education programs have an opportunity to become “anchor institutions” in the emerging informational ecosystem. Many schools have long embraced elements of this vision, but satisfying the information needs of communities will require schools to take on all the challenges of engaging as serious and valuable producers of meaningful journalism.

 

Read the full post at the New America Foundation website

 

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Infographic: How Students are Using Their Phones

November 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Below is an infographic created by Shep McAllister at HackCollege on how college students are using their phones and smartphones. It’s evident how much mobile technology is a part of their lives. Luckily, using a phone to cheat on an exam is rare, according to the survey.

Generation Mobile
Created by: HackCollege

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LSE: Should Journalism Students Be More Like Julian Assange?

October 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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On the London School of Economics and Political Science blog, Charlie Beckett asks the question of whether or not journalism students should be taught to be more like Julian Assange. He makes the argument that they should. He said at the beginning of his post:

“Imagine Julian Assange ran a journalism school. Why not? He’s created one of the world’s biggest media brands on a tiny budget. It’s produced some of the most extraordinary pieces of journalism in the digital era and he’s worked with all the big names. If you judge journalism by how much the people in power hate you, then he scores A*.

I think we can all learn from WikiLeaks.

Later in the post he goes on to say:

“What made WikiLeaks work was Assange’s ideological drive and his all-consuming desire to use digital communications as a political weapon. He spotted a new business model and a novel kind of platform.”

His argument is that students should learn not only what their mainstream media bosses want, but also learn new and “disruptive” ideas.

Read the full post at LSE

 

 

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Google refuses to remove videos of police brutality

October 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Requests to Google to remove videos of police brutality on YouTube have been denied. Google, who decides what to take down on a case by case basis, said in its mid-year transparency report,

“We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.”

You can read more about this on ReadWriteWeb

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Study finds tablet news junkies prefer web to apps

October 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Credit: New York Times

A recent Pew Research Center study showed that tablet users are consuming more news than they did before they owned a tablet. Although this is a good thing for news companies, the study also shows that users are getting the news primarily from the web (or a combination of the web and an app) instead of from the mobile apps alone. With many news agencies investing time and money into mobile apps, this report may help direct future mobile decisions for news organizations.

PaidContent had this to say about this study:

According to the report, 30 percent are spending more time with the news than before they had a tablet, and one-third are seeking out new news organizations on their tablets they didn’t frequent on their computers or televisions.

That probably all sounds pretty good to a news industry that is looking for any semblance of a spark from the rise of tablets as an alternative to print. But unfortunately for those who have invested heavily in applications as their news-delivery strategy on tablets, 40 percent of those who read news on their tablets at least once a week are getting that news through their browser. An additional 31 percent say they use a combination of the browser and apps, while just 21 percent said they primarily use apps to get their news.

You can read the full blog post on PaidContent here

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Pew: How People Use Tablets & What it Means for the Future of News

October 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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From the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, October 25, 2011 

Eighteen months after the introduction of the iPad, 11% of U.S. adults now own a tablet computer of some kind. About half (53%) get news on their tablet every day, and they read long articles as well as get headlines. But a majority says they would not be willing to pay for news content on these devices, according to the most detailed study to date of tablet users and how they interact with this new technology.

The study, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism in collaboration with The Economist Group, finds that the vast majority of tablet owners-fully 77%-use their tablet every day. They spend an average of about 90 minutes on them.

Consuming news (everything from the latest headlines to in-depth articles and commentary) ranks as one of the most popular activities on the tablet, about as popular as sending and receiving email (54% email daily on their tablet), and more popular than social networking (39%), gaming (30%), reading books (17%) or watching movies and videos (13%). The only activity that people said they were more likely to do on their tablet computer daily is browse the web generally (67%).

Read the full article and learn more about the study here

 

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Resource Website: Newmediatoolkit.org

October 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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The Renaissance Journalism Center has set up a resource website for nonprofits and ethnic and community news organizations.

From the website:

This curated collection of online tools, tutorials and resources is designed to help nonprofits and ethnic and community news organizations navigate the often intimidating and ever-evolving new media landscape. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, you will find valuable information on the technologies and best practices you need to tell a community’s stories in compelling ways; engage new audiences; optimize your website; and measure online impact.

You can visit the site here

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Getting Local: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability

October 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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By Mayur Patel and Michele McLellan on Knight Foundation

In the emerging landscape of non-profit news, good journalism is not enough. Even with generous foundation support, high-quality reporting alone will not create an organization that can sustain its ability to produce news in the public interest.

Instead, successful news organizations – even the nonprofit ones  - have to act like digital businesses, making revenue experimentation, entrepreneurship and community engagement important pieces of the mix. Understanding how to create social and economic value and how to adapt and innovate are just as important as good content.

The new study we just completed, “Getting Local,” offers a detailed look at some of the country’s leading online local nonprofit news ventures, providing data on how they are generating revenue, engaging users and cultivating donors.

It also offers a useful way for foundations and others interested in supporting nonprofit news to think about and assess the sustainability of these types of emerging organizations.

Read the full article and download the study on the Knight Foundation website

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Wikipedia Isn’t Journalism, But Are Wikipedians Relucant Journalists?

October 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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By Heather Ford (Bio) on PBS, October 20, 2011

Wikipedia articles on breaking news stories dominate page views on the world’s sixth-largest website. Perhaps more importantly, these articles drive the most significant editor contribution — especially among new editors.

In the first three months of this year, English Wikipedia articles with the most contributors were the 2011 Tucson shooting, the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami articles with 460, 405 and 785 editors contributing to the growth of the article respectively.

Interestingly, a number of Wikipedia policies discourage writing articles on breaking news. One of Wikipedia’s 42 policies, titled “What Wikipedia is not” (or WP:NOT), highlights that the site is, above all, an encyclopedia, not a newspaper (Wikipedia:NotNewspaper). The policy states that although the encyclopedia needs to include current and up-to-date information as well as standalone articles on “significant current events,” not all verifiable events are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia.


Read the full article on PBS

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