Filed under: Ways To "Save" Journalism? | Tags: doom-and-gloom, New Jersey, New York Observer, New York Times, newspapers, NJ, NYT, print, Star-Ledger
An article in the New York Observer described the turmoil in the newsrooms of the once-great New Jersey Star-Ledger. Aptly titled, “In New Jersey, Papers Bleed but Survive,” the story is full of the usual doom-and-gloom of staff cuts, closed bureaus and poor coverage.
There’s a sort of mutualism between young whippersnappers trying to break into the field and flailing newspapers. Newspapers have a diminished budget, so they can only afford to hire less-experienced journalists who are willing to work for less than the seasoned veteran. Good for the new kids on the block looking for a job, good for the publishers who don’t have to turn the lights off just yet.
But not so great for the newspaper.
A lot of the senior people who understood the issues and who had long histories are gone,” he said. “They’ve replaced them with these younger people, and when I talk to them about environmental issues or technical issues, you see that their eyes are rolling and they just don’t understand. They’ve already got two stories to do, and then they turn a complex story into a he-said, she-said with a couple quickie quotes.”
–Jeff Tittel, Director, NJ Sierra Club
It’s apparent that multimedia skills are more important than ever, but it may not have occurred to journalism students to take a biology class or two in addition to the broadcast one. Having a concentration in politics or business in addition to the journalism major will prove useful if one eventually lands a job at National Geographic or the Wall Street Journal. But what if you’ve got to work at a fashion magazine?
In conclusion: You’ve got to be a jack-of-all-trades in order to “make it” and be of the greatest service to journalism.
Filed under: Ways To "Save" Journalism? | Tags: Google, J.O., journalism, Journalism 24/7, Journalism Online, journalists, micropayments, model, New York Times, News Corporation, NYT
Journalism Online is a service that will ideally help news publishers to capitalize on their online content. They don’t actually supply content–they are a kind of PayPal-like middleman between readers and online news providers.
Their model presents a centralized place to pay, instead of subscribing to each individual outlet. J.O.’s service “allows customers to have one easy-to-use account common to all the publishers’ websites.”
As of right now, J.O. has quite a lot of intererested publishers (like News Corporation, Google and I.B.M. to name a few, as reported by the New York Times), and a press release in September by J.O. reported that they had recieved over 1,000 letters of intent from various magazines, newspapers and online news sites.
It looks like plently of news organizations are ready to set sail on the S.S. Journalism Online, with the fine details of costs and methods of charging yet to be hammered out. It’s a big risk for content providers, to be sure–but the fear of losing readers was one of the things that got them into this big mess to begin with, so I think that every media outlet should jump aboard.
It’s important that reputable news outlets are all in solidarity about charging for their online content–otherwise, many consumers will just keep subsisting on the free stuff. I think the informed ones among us would agree that we just can’t live without good, quality news. If there’s no substitute for it, we’ll undoubtedly pay for it. For right now, however, it’s just a matter of smart personal-spending–one doesn’t want to pay for something if they can get it somewhere else for free.
In conclusion: If they would agree, I would agree. Journalists unite!
Filed under: Ways To "Save" Journalism? | Tags: CNN, crowdsourcing, Jigsaw, model, New York Times, NYT
“Jigsaw’s Business Model Is Based On Crowdsourcing,” by Jim Lohr for the NY Times
From the article:
Jigsaw offers discounts and essentially barter arrangements for contributors. An individual member, for example, pays $25 a month for access to 25 contacts or, alternatively, can contribute 25 contacts. For corporate members, who often want unlimited access to the Jigsaw database for their employees, the monthly rate is typically $99 a user if the company does not share data, and $79 a user if the company does.
If this was to be applied to an online newspaper or a news channel’s website, for instance, a consumer would pay by the article/video/etc. accessed. The method of micro-payment has been examined before, but it also combines a bit of give-and-take. Since Jigsaw is a business database, it logically accepts business data as currency–Cash and more desirable material that make the site more comprehensive make it successful.
What if this were applied to a hypothetical news provider? A consumer would pay a monthly price of, say, $30 that would allow access to content until the money ran out (like a gift card). Another option would allow unlimited access for $20, and in addition, the consumer must provide 10 unique pieces of content for the outlet to use.
That last option would allow everyone to be a content producer in exchange for viewing the site’s articles, videos, blogs, whatever. The obvious problem with this is that the organization would probably get a lot of useless and poor-quality material in return–Like how someone might give a fake e-mail or phone number for a raffle entry.
Even if the second option were only open to people with credentials, even the most accomplished journalist needs an editor. Ideally, the website would operate as it always had and without requiring new staff.
Plus, I think most journalists empathize with news sites requiring payment and would cough up a few bucks anyway.
Perhaps a model like this one could best be applied to a news provider with a niche audience–A dog news provider, for instance. Aside from being a fantastic networking tool (Imagine–all dog-lovers of the world unite!), this site could establish itself as the one-stop-shop for all things dog-related in the news sphere–Dog owners, veterinarians, dog walkers, dog groomers, dog photographers, all providing original content… But how many veterinarian journalists do you know?
This is probably why the beat reporter was invented.
In conclusion: Jigsaw’s model wouldn’t work for the New York Times or CNN’s, for example, websites.
