Over a four-year period, we at the Azim Premji Foundation produced the largest single library of digital learning resources (DLR) in India for children. Contained in 125 CDs, these were exciting lessons for children from classes I to VIII. Made in 18 languages—including tribal ones— they were designed to be completely integrated in school curriculum.
Azim Premji varsity to hire 4,500 in next 5 years
Swetha Kannan, Anjali Prayag, Bangalore, Dec. 20
Azim Premji University, which will be operational from the academic year 2011, plans to hire 4,500 people in the next five years. The hunt is on for deans, professors and administrators.
HCL Info rolls out new range of laptops and computers for kids
indiatoday.in,24-Nov-2010
In order to tap the children's computing market, technology and computer hardware company HCL Infosystems, on Tuesday launched the children's educational computer series. The pricing of these computers start at Rs 1,099.
Television still survives -- thanks to sports
The Top Attraction on TV? No Script, but Plenty of Action
By Bill Carter/NYT
If it wasn't clear before, this season has underscored the point,
italicized it and shouted it from the rooftops: NFL football is by far
the most popular form of programming on Ameri
By Bill Carter/NYT
If it wasn't clear before, this season has underscored the point,
italicized it and shouted it from the rooftops: NFL football is by far
the most popular form of programming on Ameri
There is No Scope for Perfect Research
Research is an endeavor to discover knowledge by the scientific study of a subject or a fact. It involves treatment of materials, concepts and symbols for generalizing to extend, correct or verify the knowledge (Encyclopedia). By attempting to apply the vigorous systematic observation and analysis used in physical, chemical and biological sciences to the areas of social and behavioural sciences, the latter have grown and have advanced humanity's
Relevance of ‘review of literature’
An overview
The motto of research is making new consciousness and awareness.
Research is only possible through detail and accurate understanding of
previous studies and research in any
The motto of research is making new consciousness and awareness.
Research is only possible through detail and accurate understanding of
previous studies and research in any
Relevance of ‘review of literature’
An overview
The motto of research is making new consciousness and awareness.
Research is only possible through detail and accurate understanding of
previous studies and research in any research. The importance of
review of literature in research is not easy to measure especially
research in social science.
The motto of research is making new consciousness and awareness.
Research is only possible through detail and accurate understanding of
previous studies and research in any research. The importance of
review of literature in research is not easy to measure especially
research in social science.
Research methodology for social science
Research: an introduction
The word "research" is the combination of two words're' and 'search'.
Meaning of the word 'research' is 'to search again'. The purpose of
the search is to find out very new facts or
The word "research" is the combination of two words're' and 'search'.
Meaning of the word 'research' is 'to search again'. The purpose of
the search is to find out very new facts or
Television era is over, senses Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble moves from soap operas to tweets
By Dan Sewell, AP Business Writer/San Francisco Chronicle
Goodbye, "Guiding Light." Hello, YouTube.
Procter & Gamble Co., whose sponsorship and production of daytime TV
dramas helped coin the term "soap operas," has pulled the plug after
77 years. Instead, the maker of Tide detergent, Ivory soap and Olay
skincare is following its customers online with a big push on YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook.
By Dan Sewell, AP Business Writer/San Francisco Chronicle
Goodbye, "Guiding Light." Hello, YouTube.
Procter & Gamble Co., whose sponsorship and production of daytime TV
dramas helped coin the term "soap operas," has pulled the plug after
77 years. Instead, the maker of Tide detergent, Ivory soap and Olay
skincare is following its customers online with a big push on YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook.
Research Methodology in Social Science
Research methodology is indeed a science that really studies how the research process is done in a scientific manner. The research methodology is very much a systematic way of solving a given research problem on hand by the logical means of using a number of steps.
JAM Magazine Suspends Print; Focus on Online
This was brought to my notice by PV Harikrishnan, Senior Editor with OneIndia.
Joe
+++
JAM Magazine Suspends Print To Focus On Online, Events & Research
By Nikhil Pahwa/Medianama
Fifteen years after it was launched, JAM Magazine, has decided to
suspend its print publication, and focus its energies on the online
space, events and youth research, according
Joe
+++
JAM Magazine Suspends Print To Focus On Online, Events & Research
By Nikhil Pahwa/Medianama
Fifteen years after it was launched, JAM Magazine, has decided to
suspend its print publication, and focus its energies on the online
space, events and youth research, according
'Traditional media after 10 years? Pray hard'
This is what BS Anilkumar (formerly with New Indian Express) thought of it:
The only thing we have to wait for are :
(1) When unlimited internet connetvity is going to be available @ Rs 100
(2) When computers are going to be available as cheap as Rs 2,000 per piece
When it happens, it will certainly act as
The only thing we have to wait for are :
(1) When unlimited internet connetvity is going to be available @ Rs 100
(2) When computers are going to be available as cheap as Rs 2,000 per piece
When it happens, it will certainly act as
Various Methods of Social Science Research
Overview: - Social research is a peculiar program conducting by social science scientists. The term 'method' is very much associated with the social science research works. Numerous writings and teaching manuals are prepared on account of this social science research
Various Methods of Research
For any successful research to be undertaken by any researcher they have to follow a set of guidelines and also apply certain methods depending on the type of research work that is to be undertaken. This is primarily
Survey Method in Research
There are various methods that are practiced in research and one among them is the Survey method which is more commonly used in the Social research. The survey research is a method of measurement where the respondents are being asked a set of questions.
Survey Method in Social Science Research
Overview: - In Social Science Research program Survey is considered as the non experimental category. But it is featured with highly descriptive nature. Survey is considered as the conclusion of data collected from various questionnaires developed from numerous interviews. Generally the survey method comprises of questions which need to be answered as either true or false
Methods of Sampling
The researcher during the course of his research work has to very well use several methods so as to ensure the success of the research process.
What is sampling?
Sampling is one such process that is commonly used in the research process where by the researcher selects units from a given population with a view to
Hypothesis and Problem Statement in Research
Research often involves the finding out of some unknown things and unraveling of new things about a particular phenomenon. As a result the researcher before the start of the research process has to very well define the problem and the hypothesis before taking up any research activity.
Relevance of Review of Literature in Research
Overview
Research is not only considered as the collection and the revision and review of the data in hand. It is also very significant that the researcher needs to do a sort of study whereby he can bring about a connection between the data's that is presently collected and
Social Science Research Methodology
Overview: - Science subjects are broadly classified in to physical science and social science. Social science consists of matters related to social institutions, social groups, human behavior and human life. They comprises of subjects like behavior science, anthropology, demography, commerce, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, sociology, social work,
Methods of Sampling
Methods of Sampling
Overview
The researcher during the course of his research work has to very
well use several methods so as to ensure the success of the research
process.
What is sampling?
Overview
The researcher during the course of his research work has to very
well use several methods so as to ensure the success of the research
process.
What is sampling?
REVIEW OF LITERATURE WITH RESPECT TO RESEARCH
REVIEW OF LITERATURE WITH RESPECT TO RESEARCH
Overview: -The intention of research is to make people aware about new discoveries and related knowledge. Since the research work is very much related to papers worked out before, it is ideal for the current researchers to go through it perfectly. Thus the review of literature is a connecting media with respect to works already done and the works which are to be
Hypothesis and Problem Statement in Research
Hypothesis and Problem Statement in Research
Overview
Research often involves the finding out of some unknown things and
unraveling of new things about a particular phenomenon. As a result
the researcher before the start of the research process has to very
well define the problem and the hypothesis before taking up any
research activity. Thus the stating the Hypothesis of a research is
indeed a detail that is been
Overview
Research often involves the finding out of some unknown things and
unraveling of new things about a particular phenomenon. As a result
the researcher before the start of the research process has to very
well define the problem and the hypothesis before taking up any
research activity. Thus the stating the Hypothesis of a research is
indeed a detail that is been
METHODS OF SAMPLING IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
METHODS OF SAMPLING IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
Overview: - Researchers cannot examine and analyze each and every sections prevailing in a group. They cannot take into consideration regarding the nature and behavior of every individual in a group or each and every section in an organization.
HYPOTHESIS AND PROBLEM STATEMENT IN RESEARCH
HYPOTHESIS AND PROBLEM STATEMENT IN RESEARCH
Overview: - Research hypothesis is the statement prepared by the researcher regarding the outcome of the research experience. Problem statement with Hypothesis is an integral part of research papers. With out this statement the actual design of the research paper cannot be attained. The main goals of the concerned research programs can be
How cardboard boxes kick media's butt: A poem
Two reactions on 'How cardboard boxes cause hardship to print media' :
1. This once again proves that newspapers are simply pulp and their
contents are just pulp fiction!------Kurian Pampadi
2. Give us one last good news, please. We are marooned. (By K Balachandran)
'Every bad news is a good news'
All along we did think,
1. This once again proves that newspapers are simply pulp and their
contents are just pulp fiction!------Kurian Pampadi
2. Give us one last good news, please. We are marooned. (By K Balachandran)
'Every bad news is a good news'
All along we did think,
College Admission Essays
In today's world getting an admission into a college is becoming a really very hard task since the colleges are all making tough and stringent admission procedures.
I'm the no-panty girl: Yana Gupta
Right after she was caught offguard, Yana Gupta tags herself as the 'no-panty' girl and the day as the officially funniest day of her life.
What do you expect after a wardrobe malfunction? Shock or embarrassment? Item girl Yana Gupta, who was recently caught on camera without panties, has chosen to take the incident in her stride and be very sporting about it. Where any lesser girl may have cringed and disappeared from the scene in sheer embarrassment, Yana suggests half-jokingly that she should perhaps now endorse some underwear brand!
Vow! Read it, See it
What do you expect after a wardrobe malfunction? Shock or embarrassment? Item girl Yana Gupta, who was recently caught on camera without panties, has chosen to take the incident in her stride and be very sporting about it. Where any lesser girl may have cringed and disappeared from the scene in sheer embarrassment, Yana suggests half-jokingly that she should perhaps now endorse some underwear brand!
Vow! Read it, See it
Chitradurga will be next Science City
Chitradurga, 200 km from Bangalore could be the science hotspot of the country as four of India's most prestigious institutions are set to strike root there.
The Indian Institute of Science, Indian Space Research Organization, Defence Research and Development Organization, and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre will be located
title to a work is like a house's portal; It should invite you to go in
"A good title should be like a good metaphor. It should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious."
Walker Percy
"The title to a work of writing is like a house's front porch.... It should invite you to come on in." Angela Giles Klocke
"In conversation you can use timing, a look, an inflection. But on the page all you have is commas, dashes, the amount of syllables in a word. When I write, I read everything out loud to get the right rhythm." Fran Lebowitz
"Read, read, read. Read everything- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write." William Faulkner
"The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book." Samuel Johnson
"Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."
--William Strunk, Jr.
More at: http://www.bethanyroberts.com/writing_quotes.htm
Journalism 'at the end of a great arc of history'
Guardian's Rusbridger: Digital Threatens To Destroy Press Funding
The rise of many-to-many, a 15-point love-letter to Twitter and the possible destruction of the role and funding of the press. That was Guardian News & Media editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger's back-story in
delivering the Andrew Olle Media Lecture 2010 in Sydney - "we are living at the end of a great arc of history".
The rise of many-to-many, a 15-point love-letter to Twitter and the possible destruction of the role and funding of the press. That was Guardian News & Media editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger's back-story in
delivering the Andrew Olle Media Lecture 2010 in Sydney - "we are living at the end of a great arc of history".
Putting money where their heart is
While financial commitments by Indian companies towards philanthropy may be nowhere near that of Warren Buffet or Bill Gates, they are in their own way trying to bring about change in the lives of those less fortunate. The Infosys Foundation, Azim Premj Foundation and Biocon Foundation are among those whose well-heeled founders are setting aside resources to bring about that change.
The Azim Premji Foundation, for instance, is understood to be managing a fund of close to $1 billion from Wipro chairman Azim Premji and has been channelling this into healthcare and education.
<Read complete article> http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/putting-moneytheir-heart-is/415251/
Private Education--Fertile Fields for Entrepreneurs, Trusts
You have chances too....
African students throng Punjab's private varsity
Imminent investment boom in private education Rising public clamour for private pre-school, K-12, vocational and higher education has created huge investment and business opportunities for venture capital funds, education entrepreneurs as well as for charitable trusts, NGOs and philanthropists. Dilip Thakore reports
Fan fiction--A Not-so-popular Literature
Fan fiction (alternately referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF, or fic) is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters (or simply fictional characters) or settings written by fans of the original work
Scribes MAY have a future in niche journalism
Politico isn't a newspaper. But it might be the future of print
By Peter Preston/The Observer
Early on Wednesday morning, I did what all modern American election obsessives do naturally. I didn't turn on the radio.
By Peter Preston/The Observer
Early on Wednesday morning, I did what all modern American election obsessives do naturally. I didn't turn on the radio.
One-year MBAs, the way to go
An egregious example of resource wastage is the two-year MBA programme. In schools like the IIMs, more than 90% of the MBA students are engineers, often from the country's top engineering colleges. They are trained to be quick, adaptable learners. How long ought it take to provide such a highly skilled crew with the management arsenal they need to succeed?
At airports they eat, drink and play. Read? Hmmm...
In about 50 hours from Tuesday morning (Oct 19) to Thursday evening, I got to observe travellers at airports in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
Feedback on 'Warning: Not for journos with heart disease'
How long will/can mainstream media houses keep this watertight divide? I am all for a professional divide. The moot point here is that so long as the print media continues to depend near-totally on ad revenue for growth and profits, this divide will be under increasing stress to break down.
Journalism's leaky moral condom--Jeff Jarvis talk
This is a response to Roy Greenslade's article in Guardian,
titled 'Journalists as entrepreneurs? That's fine, but not if they have to sell advertising'.
The response is from Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine, and brought to my notice by OneIndia Senior Editor PV Harikrishnan.
Who reads newspapers? Surely not journalism students
Journalism students don't read newspapers
By Roy Greenslade/Guardian
Two eye-opening moments at my lecture to about 250 City University MA journalism students yesterday afternoon. I asked for a show of hands on a simple question: what is your primary news source?
Newspapers? No more than 20 hands went up. Radio?
By Roy Greenslade/Guardian
Two eye-opening moments at my lecture to about 250 City University MA journalism students yesterday afternoon. I asked for a show of hands on a simple question: what is your primary news source?
Newspapers? No more than 20 hands went up. Radio?
Double Pulitzer Prize winner? Sorry, no space on board
Philadelphia Inquirer Editor Out as New Owners Take Control
By Jeremy W Peters/NYTThe Philadelphia Inquirer has been through a lot in the last few years: bankruptcy, two new owners and layoffs, just to name some of it. It has now lost its editor, the newspaper veteran and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Marimow, who will step aside as the paper's new owners prepare to take over.
Citizen journalism? Nice idea, no moolah
'Community news sites are not a business yet'
By Alan D Mutter/Newsosaur
Although Jan Schaffer just produced a masterful analysis of how to run a grassroots news site, she came up dry on the crucial question of how to turn those journalistic labors of love into sustainable businesses.
The best she could do was tell the truth: "Community news sites are not a business yet," says
Journalism, it seems, has entered the final stage of grief
Journalism's fifth stage of grief
By Dale Peskin/We Media
Denial and isolation. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. The five stages of grief are a healing process for those who suffer serious loss. Now come signs that journalists are easing their pain through the fifth stage, acceptance.
Writing a book? Don't expect a big advance cheque
Authors Feel Pinch in Age of E-Books
By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg/Wall Street Journal
When literary agent Sarah Yake shopped around Kirsten Kaschock's debut novel "Sleight" this year, she thought it would be a shoo-in with New York's top publishers.
By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg/Wall Street Journal
When literary agent Sarah Yake shopped around Kirsten Kaschock's debut novel "Sleight" this year, she thought it would be a shoo-in with New York's top publishers.
Never consider a newspaper sold till the money is collected
Creditors To Buy Philly Papers—This Time For $105 Million
By Joseph Tartakoff/paidcontent
Bankrupt Philadelphia Media Holdings, which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, has been sold to a group of its senior lenders for the second time in six months. The same group of lenders agreed to pay $135 million for the company in April, but that deal never closed because of a dispute with one of the newspaper's unions.
No word play -- Blockbuster is reportedly going bust
Blockbuster Reportedly About To File For Bankruptcy
By Joseph Tartakoff/paidcontent
Blockbuster, which had warned for months that it might have to declare bankruptcy, is expected to file for Chapter 11 later this week or next, the Wall Street Journal says. The paper says that Blockbuster will likely close 500 to 800 stores. That's in addition to of the 960 stores Blockbuster announced it would close a year ago as part of what it called a "transformation" of its business.
As newspapers fold, a printing press maker cuts 500 jobs
Manroland Eliminating 500 Jobs, Consolidating Newspaper Press Manufacturing in Corporate Reorganization
By Mark Fitzgerald/Editor & Publisher
Chicago: Manroland AG, the world's second-biggest manufacturer of printing system, has announced a sweeping reorganization that includes consolidating manufacture of small and big newspaper press, and eliminating about 500 jobs.
More feedback on 'Wet prospects for print in Kerala -- literally'
Interesting to read your encounter with a newspaper 'boy' wetting through his job. They are not really unsung in Kerala. After all, the first new-wave movie in Malayalam was 'Newspaper Boy', made some 50 years ago.
N Muraleedharan
Miami Herald to eliminate 49 staff
(From PoynterOnline)
Miami Herald cuts 49 positions, announces new furloughs
Memos from the Herald's publisher and executive editor
From: Landsberg, David - Miami
Sept. 16, 2010
To all Herald employees:
Today we are announcing a plan to eliminate 49 staff positions across MHMC. The jobs will come from a combination of involuntary layoffs and reductions in certain work groups where employees will have the opportunity to voluntarily elect a severance package.
From: Landsberg, David - Miami
Sept. 16, 2010
To all Herald employees:
Today we are announcing a plan to eliminate 49 staff positions across MHMC. The jobs will come from a combination of involuntary layoffs and reductions in certain work groups where employees will have the opportunity to voluntarily elect a severance package.
Cost-cutting: CNN divorces AP, After 30 years
CNN Will No Longer Use AP Content
By David Kaplan/paidcontent
After preparing for some time to rely only on its own resources, CNN will not use any photos, videos or newswire reports from the AP, as the cable news network said. Three years ago, CNN dropped Reuters following a 27-year relationship as way to cut costs. In a staff memo written by CNN President Jim Walton, cost containment was cited as a reason for severing ties with the AP to shift costs in support of
Feedback on 'Media Armageddon -- as K Balachandran sees it'
Lovely piece.
Mini Tejaswi
This one is quite class. And unadultrated angst!
Even good enough dirge to sent to those sad timers (NYtimes and Financial Times and other chronicles) in camaradarie.
Although I am sceptic if any poet now will 'make a living' out of poetry,
Affluent ones do not fancy magazines any more
dDon't miss the penultimate paragraph.
Joe
+++
Magazine Readership Off Sharply Among Affluent
By Jack Neff
BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Magazine readership among the affluent plunged 16% in the past year as the group spent 12% more time using the internet
The Times circulation dips below 5,00,000
ABCs: The Times slips below 500,000 for first time in 16 years
News International flagship sinks towards pre-price war level in a grim month for the quality daily papers
By Steve Busfield/Guardian
The Times's circulation fell below 500,000 last month for the first time since April 1994, during its price war with the Daily Telegraph. All of the quality daily newspapers suffered
Imagine NYT dropping print. Now imagine it being real
This was brought to my notice by Cris Sita.
Joe
+++
Sulzberger Concedes: 'We Will Stop Printing the New York Times Sometime in Future'
By Henry Blodget/CEO, Business Insider
At a conference in London, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. conceded that someday the New York Times Company will be forced to stop publishing a printed paper. This sounds obvious,
Azim Premji Foundation to boost up Education--Forbes Magazine
Far away from the cut and thrust of running large corporate houses, there’s something that’s keeping Azim Premji and Sunil Mittal, among the most successful entrepreneurs in India, busy.
Three tears to journalism: UK lost 1/3 media jobs in 10 years
Research: UK Journalism Has Cut A Third Of Its Jobs In Last Decade
By Robert Andrews/paidcontentThe number of mainstream UK journalism jobs has shrunk by between 27 and 33 percent over the last decade to around 40,000, says University of Central
As Lucky's ad pages fall, editor is axed
The Editor of Lucky Magazine Is Replaced
By David Carr & Jeremy W Peters/NYTKim France, the editor who invented Lucky magazine in 2000 along with James Truman, the Conde Nast editorial director at the time, has been replaced
Print ads shrink, online ads climb -- That story stays
Newspaper Ad Spending Keeps On Falling—But More Slowly
By Joseph Tartakoff/paidcontent
Some relatively good news for the newspaper industry; total newspaper print and online ad spending dropped 5.55 percent last quarter, the smallest percentage drop
PLEASE DON'T USE (An Important Msg)
The whole thing below just came through. I'm not sure all these are true. Just couldn't verify. However, I thought I should share it here--for you to brood upon judiciously. Everything below is from an email, Not a word is mine:
10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make
| ||
Why broadcast model for news may be a basket case
At ABC News After Westin, Risk and Opportunity
By Bill Carter/NYT
David Westin's resignation as president of ABC News represents, in the words of one long-time television news executive, "an inflection point" for an
Feedback on 'Wet prospects for print in Kerala'
Several friends responded to the mail on 'Wet prospects for print in Kerala -- literally'.
Thought they were worth sharing.
Here they are:
After decision to shed 400 staff, ABC News chief quits
Don't miss the last para.
Joe
+++
David Westin, the longtime president of ABC News,
Joe
+++
Chief of ABC News Is Resigning
By Bill Carter/NYTDavid Westin, the longtime president of ABC News,
Channel 5 cost cutting: Big guns fall
Richard Desmond's staff cull claims big names at Channel 5
By Tara Conlan and Jason Deans/GuardianSome of Channel 5's longest-serving staff are taking voluntary
Wet prospects for print in Kerala -- literally
From an industry viewpoint, I witnessed two poignant scenes this Monday morning in Thiruvananthapuram. Driving near Kesavadasapuram in pouring rain and darkness at around 5.30 am, I saw this newspaper `boy', aged around 50, doing his rounds on a bicycle with an umbrella in one hand and balancing the cycle with the other. To let my vehicle overtake, he courteously moved to the left and I could see that he had gone right into a gutter, owing to poor visibility.
A few minutes later, near Pattom, I saw another newspaper boy, aged about 20, struggling to keep his packet of newspapers dry even as he himself was getting drenched despite the cover of an umbrella.
The two belong to a dwindling number of unsung heroes holding up the crumbling edifice of print in Kerala, which is facing the threat of being undone for want of newspaper boys. This is a state where labour cannot be got for love or money for plumbing, wiring, digging, household work, or what have you. A surprise indeed that there are these few who are still willing to do a job that involves waking up at unearthly hours, offers hardly any off-days and pays a pittance. Their frail and wet -- but serving -- hands hold the destiny of many media persons and their families.
A few minutes later, near Pattom, I saw another newspaper boy, aged about 20, struggling to keep his packet of newspapers dry even as he himself was getting drenched despite the cover of an umbrella.
The two belong to a dwindling number of unsung heroes holding up the crumbling edifice of print in Kerala, which is facing the threat of being undone for want of newspaper boys. This is a state where labour cannot be got for love or money for plumbing, wiring, digging, household work, or what have you. A surprise indeed that there are these few who are still willing to do a job that involves waking up at unearthly hours, offers hardly any off-days and pays a pittance. Their frail and wet -- but serving -- hands hold the destiny of many media persons and their families.
Deseret News to disband 43% of staff
Deseret News Tries A Controlled Burn To Save Itself
By Staci D Kramer/paidcontent
Last week, one of the nation's top dailies imploded its structure to go "digital first." Today, the Deseret News, a much smaller paper in Salt Lake City, Utah, is following USA Today with an equally radical reorganization but very different emphasis—keeping the daily newspaper alive. The DN is slashing its staff levels by 43 percent and merging newsrooms with sibling KSL TV and Radio; both are owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints's Deseret Management. That company's head is no stranger to trying to shake up newsrooms: Mark Willes, the former controversial publisher of the Los Angeles Times.
Unlike USAT, where the emphasis is on changing from a print-centric organization, Deseret News CEO Clark Gilbert missed just about every opportunity to show his new organization in a cross-platform light. Also unlike the Gannett flagship, the publisher and editor are leaving amidst the shakeup.
For instance, despite the 43 percent staff cuts (57 full-time, 28 part-time) Gilbert claims the newly combined newsroom will be the area's largest—but doesn't mention being better positioned to serve readers with breaking news or the usual bits we hear as justification for digital-age shakeups. The creation of Deseret Connect—essentially a freelance network—mentions writers and editors but not connecting local blogs or the like. All we know about digital's role is this has to be done because technology advances are killing papers—and the new digital team is "cutting edge."
The changes in content emphasis for in-depth coverage focus on values that Gilbert says fit the marketplace and are in keeping for a company owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: the family; financial responsibility; excellence in education; care for the needy; values in the media; and faith in the community. Playing down the digital-mobile emphasis in many newsrooms making changes may also reflect the marketplace, or the perception that their readers care more about the steady influence of a print paper than apps and sites.
The main reason is likely the way Willes set up the companies after his arrival in spring 2009, transforming them into "real" businesses and separating out the digital operations into a new company, Deseret Digital Media, with the notion that dividing the operations as the best way to succeed. He brought in Gilbert this past May to run the paper and the digital operations this May, signaling the end of the current leadership. The result sounds like a disconnect between the two goals, a continuing daily paper and a successful digital media business.
How Saudi Arabia's print biz has remained stunted
Senior journalist Ashraf Padanna brings up two news items from Arab News, one from 2003 and the other from 2009, to highlight the pathos of the English newspaper scenario in Saudi Arabia.
At bookstores -- Revenue hemorrhage
Borders sees sharp fall in revenue
Borders book retail chain suffers sales fallBy David Teather/Guardian
The continuing woes of the book industry were underscored
USA Today to slash jobs, end print focus
USA Today to Remake Itself to Stress Digital Operations
By Jeremy W Peters/NYT
The history of USA Today is full of firsts for the newspaper business: the first general-interest national paper of its kind, the first to use color widely in charts and photographs
Still reading newspapers? You must be 40-plus
Don't miss the last two paras.
Joe
+++
News Corp. plans national newspaper for tablet computers and cellphones
By Dawn C. Chmielewski/ Los Angeles Times
News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch is embarking on an ambitious plan for a new national digital newspaper to be distributed exclusively as paid content
At Trinity Mirror, journos strike for axed colleagues
Don't miss the last two paras.
Joe
+++
Mirror journalists to hold series of strikes after ballot vote
By Roy Greenslade/Guardian
Staff at Trinity Mirror's three national newspapers are to hold a series of two-hour strikes,
Joe
+++
Mirror journalists to hold series of strikes after ballot vote
By Roy Greenslade/Guardian
Staff at Trinity Mirror's three national newspapers are to hold a series of two-hour strikes,
Press photographers: Not quite in the picture
*Six Mirror photographers must depart, leaving just four behind*
*By Roy Greenslade/Guardian*
Trinity Mirror has decided that six of the 10 staff photographers who take
pictures for the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror must go.
*By Roy Greenslade/Guardian*
Trinity Mirror has decided that six of the 10 staff photographers who take
pictures for the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror must go.
Playboy still limps: Print woes are the cause
Playboy Slims Loss, Revs Drop 10 Percent
David Kaplan/paidcontent.org
Playboy Enterprises posted slightly better-than-expected results in Q2, as company watchers continued to wonder about Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's bid to take to the company private and the counter offers. Meanwhile, digital revenues continued to improve, but the total publishing
Sign of the times: Barnes & Noble mulls sale
Barnes & Noble shares jump on sale consideration
BBC
Shares in Barnes & Noble, the largest US bookstore chain, have jumped 20% after it said late on Tuesday it was considering putting itself up for sale. The chain
Befitting: Newsweek sold to 91-year-old
Newsweek magazine is sold by Washington Post
BBC
The Washington Post is to sell Newsweek magazine to Sidney Harman, 91-year-old founder of audio equipment firm Harman International Industries. He won Newsweek in an auction that included Fred Drasner, ex-publisher of the New York Daily News, and OpenGate Capital,
Airline drops mags to save on weight: Papers are next
SIA to offer e-magazines
AFP/Straits Times
SINGAPORE Airlines said on Friday it is to introduce an electronic version of its inflight magazines as part of its plans for paperless planes. The carrier said it had engaged SmarttPapers Aviation Ltd to
Media health update: Low on cash, deficient in trust
Finanially-challenged media industry has been diagnosed with another ailment -- crumbling credibility.
This one was spotted by ToI colleague Ananthakrishnan G.
Joe
Trust in Indian media is waning over the years: Edelman Trustbarometer Survey
Exchange4media.com
Edelman, an independent PR firm, has released its 2010 Trust Barometer Survey in India. According to the survey, Indian media has been losing its credibility and trust among the people.
Local council's cost-saving idea: Stop newspapers
Council cuts down on newspapers to save money
By Roy Greenslade/Guardian
Local authority spending cuts could affect newspaper sales if the latest decision by Aberdeen council is replicated across Britain.
End is nigh for cinemas, bookshops and broadcasters
A new journalism on the horizon
By Andrew Marr/BBC
As people find new ways to access news in a post-print world, so the demands on those that deliver it is changing, says Andrew Marr, and this new media age could
By Andrew Marr/BBC
As people find new ways to access news in a post-print world, so the demands on those that deliver it is changing, says Andrew Marr, and this new media age could
As ads dry up, Conde Nast wants readers to pay more
Condé Nast Is Changing Its Blueprint
By Jeremy W Peters/NYT
Is the era of the $12 magazine subscription coming to an end?
Conde Nast, publisher of titles like Vogue and Vanity Fair that are wildly expensive to produce yet cost subscribers as little as a dollar,
Breaking news today -- by WikiLeaks, not old media
Website Releases Secrets on War
By Julian E Barnes, Siobhan Gorman & Nathan Hodge/The Wall Street JournalWASHINGTON—Thousands of secret military documents were released Sunday by a Web-based organization, a gigantic leak of classified information that appeared to present a bleak view of the Afghanistan war and could
Decline of Fourth Estate -- everywhere bar three nations
The growing irrelevance of the Fourth Estate with the emergence of the Fifth Estate has been traditional media persons' best-kept secret for a while. The beans are now being spilled by traditional media houses themselves. The Hindu has an (inadvertant?) editorial today that exhorts India's governmental agencies to "wholeheartedly" adopt the new media (and forget the redundant Fourth Estate?)
And a Guardian story on Thursday reminds us that Facebook is the "biggest social network in every country except Russia, Japan and China".
+++ Joe
Press Association raises pay -- and cuts staff
PA cuts jobs but partially lifts pay freeze
By Mark Sweney/Guardian
The Press Association is understood to have reduced its staff by as many as 30 as part of a cost-cutting drive, but has reintroduced pay rises for lower-paid employees.
The great paywall test: Times loses 90% of online readers
This story in today's Guardian captures the Catch-22 predicament of media: When it is home-delivered in print they don't read, when it is provided online they don't pay.
Joe
+++
Times loses almost 90% of online readership
By Josh Halliday/Guardian
At Amazon, e-books overtake hardcovers
Amazon: Kindle Sales Growth Tripled Since Price Cut; E-Books Pass Print
By Joseph Tartakoff/paidcontent.org
Amazon still isn't saying how many Kindles it's selling, but that isn't keeping the company from shouting how well it's doing. The latest specifics and non-specifics from the company: "The growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled" since it cut the price
For UK Sunday papers, circulations fall after poll
ABCs: Quality Sundays slip back after election boost
By James Robinson/Guardian
The Sunday quality press saw sales fall back in June after a May that was dominated by unprecedented post-election events. Last month's sales fillip was partially reversed
Career Dialogue - Social entrepreneurs gearing to change India
| ||
BBC Monitoring suffers budget cut
BBC Monitoring faces 'grim' cuts
By James Robinson/Guardian
BBC Monitoring, the Home Office-funded body that translates media coverage from around the world, faces budget cuts and significant job losses as part of the coalition government's austerity measures.
Chris Westcott, director of BBC Monitoring,
Chris Westcott, director of BBC Monitoring,
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Requiem for journalism: K.Balachandran
My mailing on the media scene has evoked varied responses from friends.
Here's an unusual one by long-time journo K Balachandran, who feels journalism is truly on its last legs.
Below are his thoughts about journalism, and the requiem he has written for the profession:
Joe Scaria
Post offices and magazines: Two of a vanishing kind
A Prospective Raise in Postal Rates Riles Magazines
By Jeremy W Peters/NYT
Magazine publishers are preparing to go to war with the United States Postal Service over an emergency rate increase that the postmaster general is expected to ask for on Tuesday.
Good news: Ads are back. Bad news: Not for papers
Bounce in Ads Returns, but Skips Newspapers
By David Carr/NYTThey say that bad news comes in threes, but it's really just a convenient trope that journalists use as a crutch to avoid writing an actual lead. Then again, it's a nice way to cluster all the bad news about one's profession so as not to dwell on it. Suffice to say that the in-box contained some sign
Freelancing now means working for free
California Freelancers Find Work, Decent Pay Harder To Come By
By David Kaplan/paidcontent.org
While the layoff news at newspapers and magazines seems to have slowed this year — PaperCut's tally for 2010 shows 1,823 job losses, while there were roughly 14,783 in all of 2009 --- things haven't gotten much better for freelancers. It's hard to say whether California is a microcosm of
Print's demise: Now playing in the Middle East
A Kippreport and the Khaleej Times, report the imminent demise of the print version of Dubai-based business paper Emirates Business 24X7
woman president, cancer cure, world war, nuclear attack
Americans expect woman president, cancer cure, but also world war, nuclear attack by 2050
By Randolph E Schmid/AP/Washington Examiner
WASHINGTON — Americans remain a generally upbeat lot, but all the skepticism, snark and dismal rhetoric being bandied about may be taking their toll.
WASHINGTON — Americans remain a generally upbeat lot, but all the skepticism, snark and dismal rhetoric being bandied about may be taking their toll.
In US and UK, paper circulations fall like ninepins
For long-term prospects of quality journalism, read the last para.
UK and US see heaviest newspaper circulation declines
By James Robinson/Guardian
UK newspapers have suffered the most dramatic circulation declines of any country outside America since 2007, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. A detailed study published by the OECD paints a bleak picture of the industry.
Mario Garcia: Tablet edition is the future of print
Interview: Mario Garcia: 'Print Is The Mother Milk Of The Tablet'
By Staci D Kramer/paidcontent.org
Dr. Mario Garcia is dapper, elegant—and as blunt as a sword that has been used to hack a tree when it comes to what it will take to change some newsroom attitudes. "We will probably have to wait for many editors to die, some may be younger than me," he said
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More indigestion at Reader's Digest: 10% staff to go
Reader's Digest Association Cutting Global Workforce 10 Percent
By David Kaplan/paidcontent.org
It's been several months since the Reader's Digest Association eemrged from bankruptcy. The publisher is laying off 10 percent—roughly 270 positions—of its worldwide staff. In a memo obtained by Mediaweek, President/CEO Mary Berner said the job cuts are necessary to keep the
Statutory warning for media aspirants: Be ready to live in debt
Pay, the big headache for graduates seeking jobs in journalism
Posted by Roy Greenslade/Guardian
Gary Andrews enters the debate about the problems that journalism graduates face once they try to get a job.
After passing on an anecdote about a journalism graduate being offered a job in London for £10,000, he writes:
Prolonged pain: The Times to axe 20 more edit staff
The Times prepares for 20 more job cuts after 40 take voluntary redundancy
Staff told they will know within 48 hours if their posts are at risk, as paper seeks to cut 10% from editorial budget
Staff told they will know within 48 hours if their posts are at risk, as paper seeks to cut 10% from editorial budget
By Steve Busfield/Guardian
Forty editorial staff have taken voluntary redundancy at The Times, with the remaining staff
Explaining newspapers' structural collapse
Redundant Regional Editor: Newspapers Getting Crushed By Their Own Weight
By Robert Andrews/paidcontent.org
The editor of Trinity Mirror's Birmingham Post was amongst 40 to take redundancy in October, going on to set up his own business news site for the region.
In a speech he's due to deliver to West Midlands' CBI this Thursday, Marc Reeves paints a frank assessment of why the news biz is in trouble: "But don't feel too sorry for it."
Here are some highlights…
"I spent the last 15 years of my newspaper career regularly attending industry conferences in which the threats and opportunities of the internet were endlessly discussed and analysed. Pretty much everything that has come to pass was predicted, but what did the big newspaper groups do? Very little that was right, it turns out.
"Saddled by a shareholder base that had grown used to the cash cow returns of a monopoly, the regional newspaper industry in partiular was structurally incapable of adopting the entrepreneurial approach that is the only option available when almost every aspect of your business model is rendered obsolete.
"The internet hasn't fixed the newspaper business model – precisely because it remains the newspaper business model ... Despite all the slash-and-burn cost-cutting of the past few years, the newspaper business is balanced precariously atop extraordinary pensions obligations, massive ongoing capital bills for print plants, and debt that was affordable when cashflow was fuelled by lorry-loads of classified revenues but is now raping the bottom line.
"So even 'forward thinking' online-minded, digitally enabled newspaper groups are trying to fight with several limbs tied behind their backs."
Reeves says News Corp.'s paywall strategy is "such a wrong-headed argument I hardly know where to start to demonstrate to you its folly" because, even in print, "your 70p goes absolutely nowhere to meeting the full costs of what you're reading".
Ideas to save journos' jobs: A gadget tax, perhaps
FTC Mulls Taxes to Save Traditional Journalism
By Michael Cohn/WebCPA
The Federal Trade Commission has posted a staff discussion draft paper on how to preserve newspapers and traditional journalism outlets in the Internet age, including some eye-opening suggestions on taxing consumer electronics and wireless spectrum.
It's not exactly news that the newspaper business is in trouble. Media companies have been among the hardest hit in recent years, even before the recession, and newspapers and other journalism outlets have been paring their staff drastically to compete better in the digital age. Newspaper revenues from advertising have fallen about 45 percent since 2000, according to a report from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism cited in the FTC document.
The discussion document does not contain any recommendations endorsed by the FTC, but instead presents a set of suggestions collected by the FTC staff in preparation for a roundtable discussion at the National Press Club later this month.
Among the ideas cited are journalist tax credits, a "News Americorps," "Citizenship News Vouchers," and a "Citizenship Media Fund."
Other suggestions include a 7 % tax on commercial radio and television broadcast spectrum, a 5 % tax on consumer electronics (already dubbed the "iPad tax" by CUNY journalism professor and Entertainment Weekly founder Jeff Jarvis), a tax on the auction sales prices for commercial communication spectrum, a 2 % sales tax on advertising, and a 3 % tax on monthly Internet service and cell phone bills.
Other proposals include industry-wide licensing arrangements for the news, statutory limits to the fair use doctrine in the Copyright Act, and federal "hot news" legislation to keep various Internet outlets from poaching on the news-gathering efforts of traditional wire services and the like.
All in all, an interesting set of proposals, but one that's already beginning to stir up controversy in the blogosphere. Anyway, it's all for a good cause, I'd say: keeping us journalists employed.
Newspapers have a future -- as iPad wrappers
Today's newspaper, tomorrow's (iPad) chip wrapper
(From the Monkey blog)
Monkey exclusive: iPad to save newspapers! Oh... you've already heard that? About a 100 times, you say?
Right. But do you know how it's going to save newspapers? Here's how: Japanese commuters are buying newspapers... to fold around their iPads on the underground, to stop them being swiped. Brilliant! Back in the day, once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, when all this was just fields... Monkey used to buy the Sun for a similar purpose – to disguise furtive reading of the Economist on the tube. Honest.
Le Monde, La Tribune: Tales of media's French crunch
France's Le Monde Seeks a Buyer
By Max Colchester/Wall Street Journal
PARIS — The management of French daily newspaper Le Monde said Thursday it wanted to sell a majority stake in the company, ending nearly 60 years of journalist control.
Le Monde was founded in 1944 on the principles of political and economic independence, and its journalists control a majority stake in publishing company Le Monde SA through a complex shareholding structure. They have the power to dismiss the editor-in-chief and the publisher.
Amid falling circulation and ad revenues, Le Monde last year borrowed €25 million ($30.6 million) to finance its operations. Between 2012 and 2014 it must repay a further debt of €69 million, the newspaper's publisher, Eric Fottorino, wrote in a front-page editorial. The newspaper recently axed 130 staffers.
"A page in the newspaper's history is about to turn," Mr. Fottorino wrote. "Since 1951 the independence of the newspaper has stemmed from journalists' control of its management and editorial line."
Mr. Fottorino said investors were being invited to take a majority stake in the group by mid-June. Lazard banker Matthieu Pigasse, Xavier Niel, the billionaire founder of telecommunications group Iliad SA, and Pierre Bergé, partner of the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, had expressed interest in investing, he wrote.
However, French media and defense conglomerate Lagardere SCA, which owns 17% of Le Monde's publishing company and 34% of Le Monde's website, has said it won't invest further in the company.
French newspapers have been hit hard by the economic downturn. Ad revenues have declined, and paid national newspaper circulation fell 4.9% in 2009 compared to the previous year. France's newspapers have traditionally sold less well than those in Britain and Germany, in part because French people prefer to read weekly magazines.
The quest to find investors in Le Monde comes two weeks after French media baron Alain Weill gave away a 78% stake in French business daily La Tribune to its managing director for €1, plunging the paper's future into question.
Le Monde is particularly vulnerable to a downturn because, unlike most other French national dailies, it isn't owned by a large business group. Serge Dassault, owner of business-jet and combat-aircraft maker Dassault Aviation SA, controls Le Figaro, the country's biggest daily paper by circulation. Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, bought the country's leading business daily, Les Echos, in 2007.
In his editorial Mr. Fottorino stated that the publishers of the paper would require potential investors to guarantee the paper's independence.
Why iPad won't, repeat won't, save newspapers
Is iPad really digital saviour of newspapers? Don't bet on it
By Roy Greenslade/London Evening Standard
Thousands of people lined up in London last week to acquire an iPad. Apple tends to create such devoted fans and I'm happy to declare that I share their enthusiasm, but only up to a point. I like to think I have a sense of proportion because I'm neither a geek nor do I believe that Steve Jobs, the company's hugely talented co-founder, walks on water.
That sense of proportion also means that I am totally unconvinced by media visionaries who seem to believe that Jobs will prove to be the saviour of the newspaper industry by bringing us the iPad.
There are five reasons for their belief. First, though people do appear to be reluctant to pay to obtain online news through straightforward subscriptions, the iPad - being so much like a mobile phone - will encourage people to stump up. Second, paying for applications to download material is a more natural act than subscribing for access to a website on a desktop or laptop computer.
Third, the portability of the iPad makes reading text material much more like the newspaper experience. And fourth, the 9.7-inch screen is big enough to make it easy and pleasurable to consume lengthy amounts of text and, just as importantly, high quality advertising content.
Then there is a very different fifth reason for the fervour - the iPad blessing administered by Rupert Murdoch. He said in a speech a month or so ago: "It may well be the saving of the newspaper industry."
As we in the journalism business know well, when the chairman of News Corporation speaks, the media world not only listens, it treats every sentence with reverence. No Apple PR could have come close to securing the kind of positive press reaction that greeted Murdoch's statement.
Publishers and editors, stressed by years of declining newsprint sales and worried by the difficulty of creating a sustainable online business model, lined up to nod in agreement. At last, rescue was at hand. If Rupert says it will work, then it must.
At this point, it is as well to remind ourselves that Murdoch was not talking about newsprint being saved, but the newspaper business itself. The vision is of iPads - or, in fairness, other e-readers from competitors - becoming the reading, listening and seeing device of choice for the coming generation of adults.
That will lead to that moment when printing becomes uneconomic, terminating the need for presses, newsprint, ink and trucking. Content will become so much cheaper to distribute through e-readers. And, of course, it comes with all the benefits of online journalism, such as interactive journalistic participation.
It's fair to say that this vision existed long before the advent of the iPad because plenty of digital gurus argued years ago that computers were the future of news publishing. But Apple's new innovation has convinced Murdoch, and many other mainstream publishers, that they might have found a way to make commercial sense of the inevitable move from print to screen.
In the US, where the iPad has been available since April, app take-ups have supposedly taken news organisations by surprise. Reuters news agency claims that its readers are spending three times as long inside their new iPad app than on its website. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times also report high usage of their apps that allow people to navigate maps, play games and read books. Magazines are said to be pleased with the response too. American GQ, for example, is said to have sold 57,000 apps since it was launched in December 2009 and expects the iPad to boost that number substantially.
So why am I so sceptical about the iPad being the newspapers' saviour? For a start, the numbers don't stack up. As Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis has pointed out, though 10 million people pay for a daily newspaper, at a rough estimate of £30 a month, "there will not be 10 million people spending £30 a month on the iPad any time soon."
Then there's the mistaken notion of what "the iPad experience" really means. There is no doubt that people will enjoy using the tablet, but not necessarily for reading news.
In essence, the iPad changes nothing. Publishers are fooling themselves if they think it circumvents the current problem of persuading people to pay for something they have grown used to getting without paying. Why should anyone except a fanatical Times reader cough up £9.99 a month for access through its app when they can browse the net for nothing on the same iPad?
We are back to the same conundrum we have faced for the past five years or so. How can we find a cast-iron way to fund the journalism we believe so essential to the public?
Writers, journos relax: Almost no one is reading you
The end of an era in publishing
Garrison Keillor/Khaleej Times
Call me a pessimist, call me Ishmael, but I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea. We live in a literate time, and our children are writing up a storm, often combining letters and numerals (U R 2 1derful), blogging like crazy, reading for hours off their little screens, surfing around from Henry James to Jesse James to the epistle of James to pajamas to Obama to Alabama to Alanon to non-sequiturs, sequins, penguins, penal institutions, and it's all free, and you read freely, you're not committed to anything the way you are when you shell out $30 for a book, you're like a hummingbird in an endless meadow of flowers.
And if you want to write, you just write and publish yourself. No need to ask permission, just open a website. And if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you've got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75.
Back in the day, we became writers through the laying on of hands. Some teacher who we worshipped touched our shoulder, and this benediction saw us through a hundred defeats. And then an editor smiled on us and wrote us a check and our babies got shoes. But in the New Era, writers will be self-anointed. No passing of the torch. Just sit down and write the book. And the New York Times, the great brand name of publishing, will vanish (POOF) whose imprimatur you covet for your book ("brilliantly lyrical, edgy, suffused with light"—NY Times). And editors will vanish.
The upside of self-publishing is that you can write whatever you wish, utter freedom, and that also is the downside. You can write whatever you wish and everyone in the world can exercise their right to read the first three sentences and delete the rest.
Self-publishing will destroy the aura of martyrdom that writers have enjoyed for centuries. Tortured geniuses, rejected by publishers, etc., etc. If you publish yourself, this doesn't work anymore, alas.
Children, I am an author who used to type a book manuscript on a manual typewriter. Yes, I did. And mailed it to a New York publisher in a big manila envelope with actual postage stamps on it. And kept a carbon copy for myself. I waited for a month or so and then got an acceptance letter in the mail. It was typed on paper. They offered to pay me a large sum of money. I read it over and over and ran up and down the rows of corn whooping. It was beautiful, the Old Era. I'm sorry you missed it.
Garrison Keillor is the author of "77 Love Sonnets," published by Common Good Books
'week' in title is asking for trouble -- as in Newsweek
A cultural Artifact, on the Block
By David Carr/NYT
This Wednesday at close of business, the first nonbinding letters of interest are due for Newsweek.
If I were at the Washington Post Company, which is selling the weekly after owning it for almost 50 years, I wouldn't be waiting at the mailbox. Certainly there will be interest, but if a check is going to be written for Newsweek, it may be written by the seller.
How can it be that Associated Content, a content farm that has zero brand recognition, went for a reported $100 million this month to Yahoo, yet Newsweek, a huge part of the national conversation since its founding in 1933, might be valued at less than zero?
It's a cold fact of economic life that the value of a business is an expectation of future growth. If Associated Content will deliver 15 percent annual growth in earnings and Newsweek offers only compounding losses, the smart money will forgo the admired publishing enterprise led by a Pulitzer Prize winner, and instead opt for a business of link-bait stories churned out by people you've never heard of.
That doesn't mean Newsweek is worthless. It is a shiny wonderful name, one that brings to mind Jonathan Alter, Evan Thomas, Fareed Zakaria and its editor, Jon Meacham, all of whom are prominent in important conversations and can be seen all over television sharing their opinions.
But in the current digital news ecosystem, having "week" in your title is anachronistic in the extreme, what an investor would call negative equity.
And in a publishing landscape filled with the lame and infirm, weeklies are the most profoundly challenged. A weekly schedule, with its tight turnarounds and frenzied production, is costly as a matter of course. Monthlies can still do step-backs for readers who don't expect to see what happened five minutes ago, and daily newspapers have co-opted the newsweekly formula to build in real-time analysis. And according to the Publishers Information Bureau, advertising revenue at Newsweek was down a whopping 30.4 percent in 2009.
That math, combined with plummeting subscriptions — an important source of revenue for weeklies — make them a kind of a stepchild. TV Guide, once a huge, robust weekly, sold for $1 back in 2008. (And the seller quietly lent the buyer $10 million to help service some of the obligations that went with buying the magazine.) Business Week went for all of $5 million, and that was to a strategic buyer in Bloomberg.
And who might be the strategic buyer for a weekly with a large footprint in national and international news and commentary? Thomson Reuters is not interested, the big national newspapers would seem to have their hands full and the nascent Web news sites like The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast have no interest in expensive print publications.
But we still care, partly because the prospect of something simply vanishing that we watched our parents read — my dad still loves the magazine — and may have adopted ourselves, seems unthinkable.
Newsweek posted an operating loss of more than $41 million in the last two years. On the plus side, operating losses have been reduced drastically: Losses were $2.3 million for the first three months of this year, down sharply from $17.4 million during the same period in 2009, according to PaidContent. But those savings were achieved in large part by trimming the rate base, the number of copies printed and promised to advertisers, to 1.5 million from 2.6 million. And that's a magic trick that can happen only once. So unless someone is looking for a machine that makes money disappear very quickly, why would they buy Newsweek?
There could be three classes of buyers, all long shots.
THE RICH GUY Pro sports franchises give magazines a run for their money in terms of losing dough, but people still line up to buy. And rooters for Team Israel or autodidacts about immigration reform dream just as vividly about getting their hands on a big megaphone.
ANOTHER WEEKLY If you are a stand-alone property like TV Guide, which is owned by OpenGate Capital, being able to spread back-office and production costs over another weekly would have significant upsides.
THE DIGITAL BUYER Some in the digital peanut gallery have suggested that a buyer could get out of the printing and shipping business, turning Newsweek into a pure digital play. But with a subscription liability — money already paid for magazines not yet received — of more than $40 million, according to two people briefed on the property who would not speak on the record about a sale process that is just getting under way — Newsweek would still have to come out and be delivered for 18 months or more.
Newsweek has already been reinvented, downsized and digitized in almost every way imaginable. If there is a move left on the board to avoid a checkmate, it's hiding in plain sight.
Weep, moan or cry, but don't show this to PR pros
Daily Newspaper Reading (Print or Online) Down to Two in Five
By Jack Loechner
(Research brief from the Center for Media Research)
According to the findings of a new Adweek Media/Harris Poll, of 2,136 US adults surveyed online between December 14 and 16, 2009 by Harris Interactive, the era of Americans reading a daily newspaper each and every day is coming to an end.
Just two in five U.S. adults (43%) say they read a daily newspaper, either online or in print almost every day. Just over seven in ten Americans (72%) say they read one at least once a week while 81% read a daily newspaper at least once a month. One in ten adults (10%) say they never read a daily newspaper.
| Frequency of Reading Daily Newspaper (% of Age Groups; Base: All U.S. adults) | |||||
|
| Age Group | ||||
| Frequency | Total | 18-34 | 35-44 | 45-54 | 55+ |
| At Least Once a Month (Net) | 81% | 71% | 83% | 85% | 88% |
| At Least Once a Week (Subnet) | 72 | 59 | 72 | 76 | 82 |
| Almost every day | 43 | 23 | 36 | 44 | 64 |
| A few times a week | 17 | 19 | 23 | 23 | 10 |
| Once a week | 12 | 18 | 14 | 9 | 9 |
| A few times a month | 9 | 12 | 10 | 9 | 5 |
| A few times a year | 9 | 12 | 9 | 9 | 5 |
| Never | 10 | 17 | 9 | 6 | 7 |
| Source: The Harris Poll, January 2009 | |||||
One reason for the dying of the daily newspaper, says the report, is the graying of the daily readership. Almost two-thirds of those aged 55 and older say they still read a daily newspaper almost every day. The younger one is, however, the less often they read newspapers. But less than one quarter of those aged 18-34 say they read a newspaper almost every day while 17% in this age group say they never read a daily newspaper.
One potential business model that newspapers are exploring is charging a monthly fee to read a daily newspaper's content online. This model, however, seems unlikely to work, as 77% of online adults say they would not be willing to pay anything to read a newspaper's content online. While some are willing to pay, one in five online adults would only pay between $1 and $10 a month for this online content and only 5% would pay more than $10 a month.
The report concludes that the struggles of the daily newspaper will continue as Americans have more and more ways to find the news content they need and want. The challenge for newspapers will be discovering a way to get their content to people and make money doing so. One area they were intently exploring was charging for online content, though it appears they need to find another way.
Sorry, the iPad won't save newspapers
Why Apple's iPad won't save the newspaper world
The iPad won't deliver newspapers the revenue streams they dream of because it's seen as more than just a news device
By Peter Preston, The Observer/Guardian
Salvation arrives next week as the iPad goes on sale in Britain – and Mr Rupert Murdoch, no less, sets it high among his pantheon of technical wonders that may rescue newspapers from oblivion. Meanwhile, a recent blog from Professor Roy Greenslade at City University poses a plangent question: Would Murdoch have spent Pound 650m on a printing plant if the iPad had been around?
There are two answers, and both stretch way beyond touting yet another Apple product that may, or may not, revolutionise the media world – in this case a portable touch-screen computer that didn't exist when News International had finished building its new colour presses two years ago.
The first answer majors on simple maths and draws on some heavy figuring by Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis. How many national UK newspapers are sold each day? he asks. Say, 10m. And how many iPads – at £429 and up – will be bought in Britain over the next three years? Somewhere between 1m and 3.6m, depending on a myriad of unpredictable factors.
But how many of those purchasers will actually use their machines for news-reading purposes? And how many of them will then pay for that privilege in any case? Evans, straining every sinew, reckons total revenue, at best, would end up in the £200m to £250m range – and that's before Apple takes its 30%. Set that against the £1.2bn in revenue brought in by quality newspapers through 2008, or the £1.9bn raised by our mass-market tabloids, and what have you got? A trickle of cash that may help a little but won't truly change anything.
We're talking bits and bobs, not salvation. Add in similar calculations for iPhone life and the answer is still the same. The iThis and the iThat are useful, often fascinating, tools. But even if they'd been invented when Mr Murdoch found his green field in Broxbourne, he'd still have needed his giant presses, speeding lorries and full-colour units. There wasn't a big enough alternative revenue stream in prospect then and there still isn't today.
But any second answer goes beyond immediate profit and loss. It deals, crucially, in concepts. It wonders, for starters, what an iPad is.
Evans begins to round out a definition here: "The iPad is not just a news device – it is a multipurpose device." And increasing American testimony, once the rush of a million units bought in the first month begins to abate, supports that broader conclusion.
Alan Mutter, a respected new media consultant and blogger, found that the three most highly rated news apps came from France 24, the BBC and National Public Radio. In short, from broadcasters who could spice their offering with large (free) helpings of video and graphics. These broadcasting companies left newspaper apps from USA Today, the New York Times et al far behind on satisfaction scales (and news companies who charged for their apps, such as Time magazine, at $4.99 a week, were right out of the hunt).
Chuck Hollis, an influential marketing blogger, bought his first iPad the other day and found his wife and kids commandeering it immediately. Within hours his wife was sitting on the back porch with a long drink, playing with the photo app and sending long overdue pictures to friends. Within half a day his kids, home from school, were squabbling over who could have first turn.
Which chimes with one non-blogging New York family I quizzed. The wife lies in bed before sleeping (or breakfast) with iPad primed. The children take it to their rooms and squat with it on the floor. They use it for entertainment and diversion, for games, for socialising, for watching and browsing. They do not see it as a news medium. Least of all – following rather lumpen press logic – do they treat it as a sort of news magazine because it shows you a page the rough size of a magazine.
The iPad – plus heirs and successors, perhaps – isn't some surrogate digital newspaper waiting to rescue Fleet Street. It's different, with a different appeal. It will surely a find a money-coining slot in the digital spectrum. But salvation? That's something else (even before your wife goes upstairs to bed).
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