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

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,

Website Releases Secrets on War

By Julian E Barnes, Siobhan Gorman & Nathan Hodge/The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON—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

Social entrepreneurs gearing to change India

BANGALORE: Social entrepreneurship is expected to be the next big thing to influence India as the country juggles to achieve a balance between a growing GDP growth, ensuring inclusive growth

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,

1 yr. Technical Writing Course under Govt. of Kerala

Let people know:

A full time, in-depth course in Technical Writing for the first time in India, I presume.

Here itcomes from C-DIT under Govt. of Kerala.
for more details: 0495-4010045, 4010046 (C-DIT Off-Campus, Kozhikode)
================================

Source: The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2010/07/07/stories/2010070761750200.htm)

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.

Bounce in Ads Returns, but Skips Newspapers

By David Carr/NYT

They 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

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