the newspaper business

The Daily News and a lot of other papers, still run a box in some stories that say “On The Net” with URL’s for the links to the subject that is the focus of the story.

For example, today the hot story is the jet pack demonstration. In the 32 inch AP story (with photo) we ran there were three URL’s listed:

• www.martinjetpack.com
• www.jetpackinternational.com
• www.tecaeromex.com

True, only two inches were devoted to the URL’s. It was the only story in the A Section that had URL’s listed. Seems kind of silly…

1. Everybody knows how to find more information via search engines
2. Only one story was deemed worthy of this special treatment.

Television stations are much smarter. Anchors will refer viewers to the television station’s website for more details. The details are usually just a bunch of links.

The Daily News didn’t even have the story on our website because aside from an AP widget that pulls headlines and some video feeds, we only post local stories.

Isn’t that a disconnect? Our online newspaper doesn’t have the story, but our print newspaper is sending people online?

This one is student produced.

This summer, the School of Broadcasting and Journalism at Western Kentucky University hosted a workshop in conjunction with the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund that helps students learn to produce content for the web.

Story: Text and art

Video: High quality, well produced

Map: Interactive

Graphics: Chart

Timeline: Interactive with photos and text.

Congratulations to Nick Bergus, Olivia Hubert-Allen, Mathilde Piard, Michelle Rindels. Just one thing missing… and “about us” page!

There are three other multimedia stories here.

Here’s the gadget that newspaper executives are hoping will save the newspaper business.

Philips-LG is developing an electronic display which uses color E-Ink first used by the Sony E-reader (remember those? no, I don’t either.)

News is gathered, sent to the thing-a-ma-jig, and is read.

Hearst Corporation, more a magazine company than newspapers, is spending money on a startup called FirstPaper to move the gizmo along.

How many hurdles can you think of in 60 seconds. BIG hurdles.

I’ll have a personal transporter before this gets into testing.

Ah, convergence. The buzzword that was so hot five years ago and so quickly faded once the newspaper business in South Florida went south. One couldn’t pick up a trade rag, or read a trade blog without reading about Tampa and their “universal news desk” and the fantastic new building that would magically make TV reporters and newspaper reporters mind meld into robo-reporter.

At the same time, dreams of creating a new-style ‘multimedia reporter,’ adept at both television and newspapers, have fallen flat. After three years, only one print reporter regularly produces stories for the TV station, the top-rated in the market.       

But that hasn’t dissuaded the people in the Tribune company.Their PR machine is crowing.

Tribune Company today announced that it will join the broadcast and interactive operations of its Miami television station, WSFL-TV (CW39), with those of its Ft. Lauderdale-based newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, under a single roof to create a media powerhouse serving readers, viewers and advertisers.  

Thats right… a powerhouse consisting of the CW and the Ft. Lauderdale newspaper is going to take over Miami as the leading news source. 

“This strategy is unprecedented in a major U.S. market,” said Howard Greenberg, Sun-Sentinel president and publisher. “This gives our print, broadcast and interactive operations the opportunity to work together to develop unique content and programming in a variety of areas. Plus, with this combination, there will be no better way for advertisers to reach more people with a consistent message.”  

Blah, blah, interative, blah, blah, reach, blah, blah, excited, blah blah, efficiency…

The Tennessean.com (Nashville), News-Press.com (Ft. Myers), DesMoinesRegister.com, and maybe others, I didn’t check them all, have made the transition to the same website design.

Courier-Journal.com is in beta. Login: louisvil-beta Password: louisvil

Coming soon to your Gannett city.

I like the design, and if it works, why not roll it out nationally. Takes out the problem of ad placement for national advertisers, centralizes design/support staff. Lot of advantages. I don’t see any downside.

During opening remarks at SNPA’s recent Key Executives Conference, Reid Ashe, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Media General, examined six myths about new media. Ashe is chairman of SNPA’s Marketing Committee, which sponsored the conference.

We may need a completely different sales model for the Internet. It might include telesales or even self-service advertising. Much of Google’s $16 billion in advertising revenue, for example, is never touched by a sales rep.

(emphasis mine)
The stubbornness of newspaper executives to change just astounds me. He lays out all the ways newspapers are different than online, but we only MAY need to change our sales model?

We’re fooling ourselves, though, if we think everything works like newspapers. If we let it, our lens of experience can produce a myopic view.

Yeah, I think I first hear that about eight years ago? Turn of the century? Methinks somebody is stuck.

Websites catering to niche markets are popping up and taking local content that newspapers should have owned. Like local search, high school sports, and college sports. A Forbes dud says…

Why do these sites even exist? The newspaper industry should have owned these local niches, especially anything pertaining to local sports and entertainment. And even when they had the foresight to get in early, they lacked the smarts to stay with it when the payoff wasn’t immediate.

We have local search, and local sports, and local college sports on our site. And for a two person operation, we do it pretty well, with occasional slide shows and video.

We have the Amplifier to supplement our coverage of Arts and Entertainment.

The two sports niche sites here haven’t been updated in ages. At least two free web only classified sites have launched and failed. Craigslist is pretty puny compared to our classifieds.  There is no other entertainment site for this area.

Forbes also says…

Instead, the vast majority of newspapers own just one Web site organized exactly like a print newspaper with the expectation that readers want the same one-stop-shopping menu of local, national, international, sports and entertainment news that they traditionally got from the print paper.

I agree. But newspaper site traffic is growing, newspapers are recognizing the shifting of how media is consumed, so we’ll get there.

We agree on one thing: newspapers are not moving fast enough. Including this one. But we’re working on it. There still is a hesitation here not to put breaking news on the website. We do it, but not daily.

It will come sooner rather than later. Do I wish it would have happened a year ago? Yes. But I don’t run the newsroom.

Mitch Joel says:

Print publications need to embrace the new reality that they have become Multimedia Publications. The big wins are not going to happen by putting their print materials online.

Chris Houchens says:

But, with all things, moderation. While I wholeheartedly agree that a media outlet needs to develop and nurture an online presence that goes beyond the abilities of their traditional counterparts, there also needs to be a master plan for both.

Read more here and here.

Chris said newspapers are in for a painful transition. I agree.

This sucks. If I want to read an OrlandoSentinel.com story, I have to register. Once I register I have to agree to be spammed.

If you do not wish to receive any e-mail from OrlandoSentinel.com, you will have to unregister from our service. Please note - if you decide to unregister, there are certain areas on orlandosentinel.com that you will not be able to access. For more information on how to unregister, please visit https://www.orlandosentinel.com/services/site/registration/show-unregister.register

Once you unregister, you will no longer enjoy benefits such as:

• Full access to today’s news, photo galleries, audio clips, videos and multimedia presentations
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For the “Big Game” Sunday, Ottaway Newspaper announces today that they have a great new website that has everything a fan will want.

Uh, why?

The site includes reporting from award-winning reporters from the Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, MA), the Times Herald-Record (Middletown, NY), the Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, PA), the Portsmouth Herald (Portsmouth, NH), and The Standard-Times (New Bedford, MA). With reporters in Arizona and throughout the country, newyorkversusnewengland.com provides the very best and most up-to- date news.
At newyorkversusnewengland.com visitors can read blogs from fans of both teams and offer their own thoughts at the Giants’ or Pats’ Boards.
Fans can weigh in on who is the better quarterback or which coach will put together the better game plan by voting in one of the sites many polls and see how they stand with other fans.

No longer will they have to wander the Internet.

Emphasis mine. Wander the internet. Hmmm, I can’t think of a single sports website/blog that might be covering this game from end to end. I can think of fifty!

I think they are after an award with this site. It sure can’t be traffic or revenue.

At least the site I own: SaleEndsSunday.com can be used 52 times every year.

Note to self: Change redirect. done.