Archive for the &;death-of-newspapers&; Category

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LA Times Brings BackTV Listings

June 11, 2010

Gary Scott reports that the LA Times, after three years, is actually bringing back the Television Times weekly listing section.  Cutting it was yet another bad decision for the Times, as with a universe of hundreds of channels broadcasting 24 hours a day, (and no Cable Guide for your $100 a month) one has little ability to determine what one wants to watch or record days ahead. The Times seems to have realized that telling readers to create and print out their own listings was a non-starter. The impenetrable prose of the press release claims that starting June 13, in a &;tiered roll out,&;&;newstand and eventually subscription readers (wrong order of things, Times) will get a &;44-page tabloid section&;with 24-hour daily grid listings spanning morning, afternoon, primetime and late-night programming, four pages of alphabetized TV/cable/satellite movie listings, a full-page cover story, a TV-related crossword puzzle, episode highlights and synopses, and a dedicated sports programming page.&; Did they admit they made a mistake when they killed the section 3 years ago and left thousands of angry subscribers?  Nah&; But then, the barely alive print TV Guide apparently had to be shamed into putting back the daytime (&;I want my stories!&;) listings, so stupidity loves company.

Tags:LA-Times, TV-Guide, TV-listings Posted in death-of-magazines, death-of-newspapers, Television | Leave a Comment &;

New Media Publishersas Scum

April 29, 2010

The publisher-writer relationship has always been loaded with antagonism.  Publishers think writers are greedy, flaky, unable to understand assignments (or deadlines) and above all, lazy.  Writers think publishers are exploitative.  As my father-in-law (a publisher of what were called &;pennysavers&;) used to say, &;Writers are a dime a dozen.&;  Or as the publisher of a marijuana publication put it, &;You&;re just a writer.&; Unfortunately, in the world of the Internet and new media, the rapacious nature of publishers is more true now than ever.  Now even once-respected news organizations are SYSTEMATICALLY devaluing the worth of a writer&;s work.  &;More major media companies are looking for ways to find cheap content&;Thomson Reuters, Cox Newspapers and Hachette Filipacchi have run articles supplied by Associated Content, one of several companies, such as Demand Media and AOL&;s SEED, that mines reporting from masses of freelancers for as little as $5 a story,&; notes AdAge.  Five dollars a story!  As a writer I&;ve been paid a dollar a word, sometimes more.  Even at 50 cents a word, writers weren&;t getting rich.  I used to say that if you wrote two 500 word stories a week, at 50 cents a word, at the end of the year you&;d have made $26,000.  These shameful &;partnerships&; in devaluing the contribution of the writer (content creator) can be blamed on exploitative new media &;publishers&; like Associated Content&;s Patrick Keane.  And indeed, note this loathesome comment, &;The evolution of the content cycle has cheapened,&; said Associated&;s CEO Keane. But just as much blame attaches to editors who should (and do) know better, as in Reuters publishing Associated stories on the economy or  &;USA Today&;s recent deal with Demand Media, which is using its network of freelancers to supply pieces for a new Travel Tips section on USA Today&;s website.&; Particularly craven is Keith McAllister, global online editor for Thomson Reuters. &;This was not a business decision, but entirely an editorial one,&; said McAllister. &;We want to fill out the online offering as much as possible. We&;re building Thomson Reuters to be a content candy store.&;  He should have said &;We&;re building Thomson Reuters on the backs of less-than-minimum-wage-paid-freelancers to be a content candy story.&; The AdAge &;trend&; story notes, &;Associated Content boasts more than 350,000 freelance contributors who have supplied more than 2 million articles. Associated pays its contributors anywhere from $5 to $30 per article, sometimes upfront &; and in some cases pays a performance fee of up to $2 for every 1,000 impressions the story generates within Associated Content&;s site. ..anywhere from $75 to $120 per article. Full-time staffers or even traditional freelancers working directly with publishers cost considerably more.&; Yes, perhaps even a living wage. 

Patrick Keane 

Tags:AdAge, AOL-SEED, Associated-Content, exploitation-of-writers, freelancers-devalued Posted in death-of-journalism, death-of-magazines, death-of-newspapers, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;

Another PublicationDown

December 10, 2009

Actually two; Editor and Publisher and Kirkus Reviews, one of the few publications today still wholly devoted to reviewing those quaint things called books. But Editor & Publisher is probably even a greater loss, not just for the job advertising it offered but for its justifiable boast, after 125 years, &;America&;s Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry.&; Pageviews or paper, journalism&;and journalists&;are in trouble. No newspaper industry=no Editor & Publisher.

Tags:book-reviews, death-of-books, death-of-journalism, death-of-newspapers Posted in death-of-newspapers, Journalism | Leave a Comment &;

Will Page Views Pay forJournalism?

December 8, 2009

Not likely, according to Brett Arends in Marketwatch today.  His math is worthy of the &;dismal science&; of economics, saying that at 2 cents per page view (apparently the advertising value) a reporter would need 11,000 page views per day in order to be paid $40,000 a year, hardly a princely sum.  To earn $100K a year, you&;d need 27,000 page views. &;So long as news tries to live off online advertising alone, the future for journalists is not bright. Journalism may become like acting or being a musician: There will be fewer full-time jobs, and they will pay poorly. A lot of news writing will end up being done by amateurs, those with day jobs or by kids just out of college, sharing rooms in Brooklyn, N.Y., before they go on to &;real&; careers. &;What that may portend for the quality of reporting is another matter. If we end up living on a content diet of propaganda, celebrity gossip and free blogs, too bad.&;

Tags:death-of-journalism, Marketwatch, page-view-journalism Posted in death-of-newspapers, Journalism | 1 Comment &;

Daily News GetsNarrower

December 3, 2009

The Daily News (motto: &;Serving the San Fernando Valley&;) is getting narrower.  No, not culturally or politically; it&;s hard to imagine a newspaper more parochial in its worldview and outlook.  For example, the AP stories that dominate the sports and news section are edited only to reflect its quaint home town focus/bias: &;Dodger Randy Wolf (El Camino Real of  Woodland Hills) denied arbitration.&; It&;s getting physically narrower; the trim size is an inch narrower and an inch shorter than the Wall Street Journal.  Written on a fourth-grade level, the Daily News is a broadsheet in name only. No more calls for Valley secession for this rag.  One more round of editorial cuts should finish it off.

Tags:Daily-News, San-Fernando-Valley, Wall-Str Posted in death-of-newspapers | Leave a Comment &;

LA Times Kills Las VegasBlog

November 5, 2009

Another day, another bad decision at the Los Angeles Times, this time killing their Las Vegas entertainment blog, A Movable Buffet, the only LA Times blog I read every day. Las Vegas entertainment journalist Richard Abowitz had contributed his informed, well-written observations on the likes of Perez Hilton, Paris Hilton, (who he wrote was popular among Las Vegas club workers because she brought the crowds),  Playmate Holly Madison (below), and his bete noire, magician Criss Angel of Believe. Las Vegas was built on millions of people from Los Angeles coming to the casinos to gamble in the desert, and more recently to sample the fine dining and the many entertainment options there.  Historically this has been a huge source of advertising to the Times as well, with many pages in the Travel and Entertainment sections.  There&;s also a major crossover with the Hollywood lamp the Times is trying to steer its sinking ship by. Obviously, the paper couldn&;t find a way to monetize The Buffet, so the handful of dollars the Times paid Abowitz and his photographer, Sarah Gerke, were seen as a cuttable expense item.  Especially on the Internet, a newspaper won&;t grow by cutting off its fingers and toes.

Tags:A-Movable-Buffet, Criss-Angel, death-of-newspapers, Holly-Madison, Las Vegas, Los-Angeles-Times, Paris-Hilton, Perez-Hilton Posted in death-of-newspapers, Los-Angeles-Times | 2 Comments &;

Columbia Cuts Environmental JournalismProgram

October 21, 2009

Is the force of gravity finally hitting journalism schools?  Unbelievably, as newspapers and magazines make cut after cut (incidentally also hurting freelancers like me) journalism school enrollment keeps going up. I understand the romance of journalism, but what are these people thinking?

Now one of these pricey programs has bitten the dust.   The Columbia School of Journalism announced the &;suspension&; of the two-year, $89,000 environmental journalism program.  The program directors &;cited falling employment in the field, the rising costs of education, and a lack of financial aid for students.&; The program actually sounds quite valuable, offering graduates two master&;s degrees, one in environmental science, the other in journalism. These would be ideal tools to investigate critical issues of our time, like global warming, carbon emissions, rainforest deforestation, the decline of the fisheries and the persistence of radiation from the Cold War, just to name some &;top of the head&; topics.  Graduates could also take on the appalling anti-science movement of groups like the anti-vaccination crowd. Unfortunately,  in the Darwinian struggle for news outlets to survive,  only two of 9 recent program graduates have gotten journalism jobs.  Meanwhile,  &;many newspapers with reputations for strong coverage&;from the Sacramento Bee to the Columbus Dispatch, have let go of talented specialists.&;  Of course, if Rush Limbaugh had his way, there might be an opening at the New York Times.

Tags:anti-vaxers, environmental-journalism, journalism-schools, New-York-Times, Rush-Limbaugh Posted in death-of-magazines, death-of-newspapers, investigative-journalism, Journalism | Leave a Comment &;

What Will Finally KillNewspapers

July 17, 2009

Newspapers have been taking a pounding.  Display advertisers, following the lead of the depressed car companies, department stores and furniture stores, are dying, drying up or disappearing.  Craigslist.org has hammered away on the classified ads.  And subscribers and newsstand buyers are dropping off, politically offended or just angry at the reduced product they&;re being asked to pay more for&;when they can get it for free on the Internet. Only one thing keeps local papers publishing.  On a foray to Beverly Hills, I picked up a copy of Beverly Hills Weekly from someone&;s lawn, saving it from the gardener&;s throwing it in the trash.  The free weekly is a rag of the first order, featuring random interviews with local non-entities and a boosterish write-up of how well the Beverly Hills High School touch football team played in a 7-on-7 tournament. What keeps this compelling read in business?  In the 20-page issue I perused, there were 5 pages of service directiory ads for truly local businesses; rooters, roofing, plastering, maid service, trainers and the like, lured by the un-Beverly Hills price of 10 weeks for $250.   But the real money-maker for this rag and so many like it has to be the legal advertising and public notices.  They should supply a free magnifying glass with every issue; one page had more than 80 fictious business statements and public notices! When public notices can be published on the Internet, newspapers will themselves be a &;fictious business&;, and the publishing game will finally be over.

Tags:death-of-newspapers, death-of-print, fictious-business Posted in death-of-newspapers, newspapers | Leave a Comment &;

LA Times: John Lennon Buying in HancockPark

May 25, 2009

No, it&;s not a descent into the world of the Weekly World News, merely a copyediting error in Hot Property  (below.)  In other words, not deliberate, just incompetent. When does the newspaper as public trust become a public joke? Hot Property

&;Reno 911&; actor John Lennon buys Hancock Park-area house for $2,175,000. Hot property photos

Tags:death-of-copyediting, John-Lennon, Los-Angeles-Times, Reno-911, sloppy-journalism, tabloid-journalism Posted in copyediting, death-of-newspapers, tabloid-journalism | 1 Comment &;

Cartoonists Squeezed by NewspaperDemise

May 25, 2009

Lalo Alcaraz Lalo Alcaraz did the above cartoon about cartoonists being squeezed out of newspapers.  As a freelance writer struggling to [continue to] find paying work, I hear you, man.

Tags:Cartooning, death-of-newspapers, death-of-print, freelancing Posted in death-of-newspapers | Leave a Comment &;

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