BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Tag: newspapers

  • Hands across the pond

    2 comments on Hands across the pond
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    The Guardian’s new opinion-and-blog site, CommentIsFree.com, is up and running and there on the front page is the creator of its foremother, Arianna Huffington.

    I am frequently asked if the rise of the blogosphere is the death knell for Big Media. My answer is that Big Media isn’t dead; it’s critically ill but will actually be saved by the transfusion of passion and immediacy of the blogging revolution. Blogging and the new media are transforming the way news and information are disseminated, as evidenced by the number of traditional media outlets, like this one, dipping their collective toe into the blog pond.

    Speaking of ponds….

    It’s very British, as well it should be. But I think Comment is Free will make a great launching pad into the U.S., where The Guardian has become an antidote to FoxNews and an opinion leader.

    (Full disclosure: I write for Media Guardian and consulted there last month.)

  • Guardian Column: Newspapers and search

    1 comment on Guardian Column: Newspapers and search
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    My latest Media Guardian column — this one about the foolish publishers trying to shut themselves off from Google … and thus the public — is up here (and here). A snippet:

    The World Association of Newspapers is portraying Google as an enemy of news. I wouldn’t say that. I’d call Google something between a necessary evil and a friend – and if news organisations are smart, they will learn how to befriend the beast. …

    At this month‘s Online Publishers Association conference in London, WAN managing director Ali Rahnema asked: “Could this content exist if someone else wasn’t paying to create it?” Well, in the quaint Americanism of my hillbilly roots, I’d say Rahnema got this bassackwards. Instead, we soon will be asking, “Could this content exist if someone else wasn’t linking to it?”

  • Change-agent Rupert

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    Rupert Murdoch is making it a habit to give barnraising speeches about the explosion of media. He gave this now-legendary speech to American newspaper editors and he just gave another to the wonderfully named Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers:

    Rupert Murdoch last night sounded the death knell for the era of the media baron, comparing today’s internet pioneers with explorers such as Christopher Columbus and John Cabot and hailing the arrival of a “second great age of discovery”….

    “Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry – the editors, the chief executives and, let’s face it, the proprietors,” said Mr Murdoch, having flown into London from New York after celebrating his 75th birthday on Saturday.

    Far from mourning its passing, he evangelised about a digital future that would put that power in the hands of those already launching a blog every second, sharing photos and music online and downloading television programmes on demand. “A new generation of media consumers has risen demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it,” he said….

    “It is difficult, indeed dangerous, to underestimate the huge changes this revolution will bring or the power of developing technologies to build and destroy – not just companies but whole countries.”

    The owner of Fox News added: “Never has the flow of information and ideas, of hard news and reasoned comment, been more important. The force of our democratic beliefs is a key weapon in the war against religious fanaticism and the terrorism it breeds.” ….

    “I believe we are at the dawn of a golden age of information – an empire of new knowledge.”

    But he combined his new-found enthusiasm for the digital future with a “change or die” message for the monolithic media empires of the 20th century.

    “Societies or companies that expect a glorious past to shield them from the forces of change driven by advancing technology will fail and fall,” he warned. “That applies as much to my own, the media industry, as to every other business on the planet.” …

    : And here is one of Rupert’s hacks, the political editor if Sky News, extolling the wonders of technology and journalism.

  • Too big

    4 comments on Too big
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    Big city newspapers are in trouble. Witness:

    : McClatchy, buying Knight Ridder — for a price that will not make other newspaper companies jump for joy — announced that it is turning around and selling 12 of them, precisely the ones that used to be crown jewels but now are zirconia:

    The McClatchy Co., which today said it will buy Knight Ridder Inc., plans to sell 12 of Knight Ridder’s 32 newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Daily News and the San Jose Mercury News, saying that those papers don’t fit the company’s longstanding criteria of buying newspapers in growing markets.

    Ouch. This says that smaller papers are worth more. I don’t think that will continue to be the case forever; the problems will trickle down. But the problem with big papers is that they’re too big: They try to be all things to all people; they have very high costs; there is no growth in the market and no growth in the business. Not pretty.

    : See now the State of the News Media report on big papers:

    The species of newspaper that may be most threatened is the big-city metro paper that came to dominate in the latter part of the 20th century. The top three national newspapers in the U.S. suffered no circulation losses in 2005. The losses at smaller newspapers, in turn, appeared to be modest. It was the big-city metros that suffered the biggest circulation drops and imposed the largest cutbacks in staff. Those big papers are trying to cover far-flung suburbs and national and regional news all at the same time — trying to be one-stop news outlets for large audiences. In part, they are being supplanted by niche publications serving smaller communities and targeted audiences. Yet our content studies suggest the big metros are the news organizations most likely to have the resources and aspirations to act as watchdogs over state, regional and urban institutions, to identify trends, and to define the larger community public square. It is unlikely that small suburban dailies or weeklies will take up that challenge. Moreover, while we see growth in alternative weeklies and the ethnic press, many small suburban dailies have shrunk.

    : The bottom line is that the bottom line is looking worse and worse. Big newspapers have to get smaller. The first step in that is cutbacks. Reality.

    Last week, the Washington Post announced that they’re cutting 80 newsroom jobs. Some lament this as a kick into the kidneys of journalism. I say it depends on what they cut. There is undoubtedly fat in newspaper organizations.

    And there is also fat in the product — stuff that is there only to try to be all things to all people, which just isn’t economical anymore. So the LA Times joins its sister Tribune Company papers as well as papers in Atlanta and Denver cutting back on stock tables and Nikke Finke says (and I have no inside info on this) that the NY Times will do likewise on April 1.

    About friggin’ time. The Star Ledger did this in June 2001 and, I’m told, suffered a net loss of circulation of about 25. Yes, 25. Think of all the millions these papers could have saved in the meantime if they’d had the balls to make a decisive decision. But they’re too big. They lumber.

    How much more of a wakeup call do they need?

    : See also Michael Zielenziger’s piece in the UC-Berkeley alum mag about the diminishing role of newspapers in their communities.