Thursday, July 3, 2008

Antmoose, via Flickr (CC license) Are news biz layoffs really a reason for doom and gloom, or just part of a business cycle?

Yesterday the LA Times announced that it is cutting its 876-person editorial staff by about 17 percent (to about 700). This is remarkable only in that it is unremarkable.

Across the continent, yesterday the Tampa Tribune also announced major cuts: 11 newsroom employees now and 10 more by early fall, as part of a 20 percent cut in news staff to an editorial department of 200. These cuts count an additional 29 who took buyouts, according to the report.

But wait, there's more! A June 25 Reuters roundup catalogued another bloody week:

• Tribune Co. will cut 100 jobs at The Sun in Baltimore (60 in the newsroom) and Hartford Courant another 60. (Fellow Tidbits contributor Tish Grier notes that the Courant says it's adding staff to better monitor their message boards. She's checking whether news staff are being shifted to these jobs.)
• Cox Newspapers announced 300 job cuts at the Palm Beach Post.

The LA Times also plans to merge its Web and print departments into one operation with a single budget.

Editor editor Russ Stanton was quoted as saying: "We're great about putting out a paper; we're getting a lot better at putting up a Web site. We're not very good on TV or radio, and we don't do mobile at all. We need to do all of those things going forward."

And how are they going to do that with less of a staff? I'm not sure that old-line print media ever will "get it." It is still virtually impossible, for example, to enter reader comments on news articles on major newspaper sites. People want to talk back, to have a say, to join the conversation.

Wednesday's crazy bulldozer attack in Jerusalem (unnervingly close to where my son was in summer camp) which left three dead and dozens wounded, was all over YouTube and media-savvy sites like BBC long before even the NY Times got to it.

Let's not get too apocalyptic: The U.S. economy, led by a drop in real estate, is sinking right now. This kind of economic slowdown hits newspapers first in areas such as classified advertising. Newsprint, ink, and transportation costs are skyrocketing at the same time. But these things are cyclical. I'm old enough (53), and entered the jobmarket at a bad enough time (1976-77 recession), to know there are good times and bad times.

For media workers, these aren't necessarily bad times. For every job shutting down at LAT, there is probably one (albeit less well paid, less prestigious, and more nose-to-the-grindstone) opening up in new media. However, for media veterans, this downturn does feel similar to the widespread closures of coal mines and steel mills 25-30 years ago. What can we do with our outdated skills?

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Wednesday, July 2, 2008

thedenverchannel.com When jazz singer Rene Marie mashed up the national anthem with a civil rights anthem, tweeting the breaking news could have helped one Denver TV station.

Yesterday morning, while I was working in my home office, I had Twitter running. One of the nearly 200 Twitter users I follow is DenverChannel -- the Twitter presence of the local ABC affiliate, KMGH-TV Channel 7 News, to help keep local news (especially breaking news) on my daily radar. Around 10 a.m., DenverChannel posted: "We will be livestreaming Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's State of the City speech at 11 a.m. on our various online platforms."

I thought that was great, so I immediately sent an "@" reply to DenverChannel, asking them to post a link so interested Twitter users wouldn't have to search for this live coverage. They promptly obliged -- which was great. Unfortunately I then got caught up with some business phone calls and didn't watch the live video coverage.

This morning, I learned via instant message from my friend Michael Kirk that an interesting controversy erupted at the beginning of that event. Local jazz singer Rene Marie stepped up to the microphone -- but instead of singing the Star Spangled Banner, she sang the lyrics of "Lift Every Voice" to the tune of the national anthem. Here's a video from the Denver Post:

Popularly known as the "black national anthem," Lift Every Voice was written in 1899 as a poem by James Weldon Johnson and set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson. It was first performed in 1900, and gained popularity through the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Understandably, Marie's surprise performance has sparked a heated local controversy -- especially since Barack Obama was speaking today in Colorado Springs.

Channel 7 News streamed Marie's performance live online -- but according to senior news manager Wayne Harrison (who runs the 7 News Twitter presence), no one in the newsroom paid attention to the video feed until Hickenlooper started talking. So the news staff missed the controversial performance -- and thus, the opportunity to alert Twitter users (and, in turn, their followers) who might want to tune in online or on TV while she was singing.

I can understand that in a city with relatively few African Americans (according to 2006 U.S. Census data, Denver is 68 percent white, 35 percent Latino, and only 10 percent black), and that didn't play a leading role in the civil rights movement, local journalists might not immediately recognize the words or significance of "Lift Every Voice." However, when something obviously and deliberately different is happening with a deeply symbolic aspect of a public ceremony, that's when your news radar should kick in. And especially if you already happen to be streaming live coverage, that's when your Twitter radar should kick in, too. (I wrote more about using Twitter to reach minority communities on the Knight Digital Media Center's Total Community Coverage blog today.)

All it would have taken from DenverChannel would be a quick tweet saying, "Live: Local jazz singer appears to be changing lyrics of the national anthem at Denver Mayor's speech," followed by a link to the video stream. Had I or any of DenverChannel's followers seen such a tweet, I'd bet at least some of us would have clicked over to watch -- and then probably told our respective Twitter posses to check it out. Ripples (and pageviews to the 7 News site, TheDenverChannel.com) might have spread fast. Just by taking a few seconds to tweet.

That's the value of your secondhand Twitter posse (your follower's followers): When news breaks and you're on the story live, these people have the power to drive lots of traffic fast. And it takes so little to get them started.

Currently, DenverChannel has only 152 followers on Twitter -- which certainly doesn't seem like much of an audience from the traditional perspective of a TV news organization. Why so few? Harrison told me that he launched his station's Twitter presence just four or five months ago, so it hasn't had much time to grow organically. In addition, 7 News apparently does little (if anything) to actively promote its Twitter presence.

Despite the ease of posting to Twitter, it's not a top priority for 7 News. Harrison explained that when news breaks, posting to the 7 News Web site (not Twitter) is his first task -- in part because the site has a much larger overall audience than DenverChannel on Twitter.

That makes sense... until you consider how easy and fast it is to post to Twitter, and who those 152 followers might include, and who they might be able to spread word to just as quickly and easily.

A news organization's Twitter presence, even though it may include relatively few direct followers, can prove surprisingly influential -- locally, nationally, and around the world. This is especially true when you're followed by several active Twitter users (people who generally tweet every day). Active Twitter users tend to enjoy sharing breaking news -- which means when news breaks and you tweet about it, they're especially likely to "retweet" (forward your post) to their followers. Consequently, active Twitter users may be especially likely to follow news orgs via Twitter.

I took a couple of minutes to check out the first 20 of DenverChannel's 152 followers. This selection includes 12 people who tweeted at least twice in the last 24 hours. Collectively, these 12 followers (just 13 percent of DenverChannel's total Twitter posse) have 8,618 followers of their own!

That selection includes one major outlier: BreakingNewsOn, a Netherlands-based news aggregator that often retweets what it gets from news orgs via Twitter, which currently has 5,356 followers. For the sake of argument, let's set aside that outlier (even though BreakingNewsOn would be especially likely to retweet breaking news to its large global audience). That leaves a group of 11 fairly normal active Twitter users -- just over half of the selection of 20 I surveyed. Collectively, these followers represent a potential secondhand posse of 3,262.

Extrapolating the amplification potential of ordinary active Twitter users out across DenverChannel's entire direct Twitter posse, it's possible that the station might have 25,000 people or more Twitter users in its secondhand posse. That's a significant audience, especially when you factor in their ability to spread ripples of breaking news even farther.

It's also significant that 7 News attracted this valuable traffic-driving resource with a bare minimum of effort. Too bad they're neglecting that resource so far, by not making social media updates their very first task in their strategy to promote breaking news coverage.

Twitter (and similar social media such as Facebook and Friendfeed) are all about what's happening right now. Many (if not most) active users of these services tend to be attracted to breaking news -- and they have a surprisingly strong ability to spread breaking news, as the Sichuan earthquake proved. That's why your secondhand social media posse can be an especially valuable tool for driving traffic to your site. For most news organizations, the reason for participating in social media is to drive site traffic. So if you don't make it a top priority to tweet your breaking news coverage fast, why bother being there at all?

Where do Twitter and other social media services fit in with your breaking news processes? Does your news org even have an active Twitter presence? (Red66 is keeping a list.) Do you know how large your secondhand social media posses are? Do you care? Please comment below.

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Tuesday, July 1, 2008

tysongay.net Tyson Gay, world-class sprinter. Accept no substitutes.

Today, Mary Ann Akers reports in her Sleuth blog on WashingtonPost.com that OneNewsNow, a site run by the conservative Christian American Family Association, has been having some issues with its filter. Specifically, when it published a June 29 Associated Press article about sprinter Tyson Gay, the site's automated filter substituted "homosexual" for almost every occurrence of "Gay."

...Which led to hilarious absurdities, such as:

"Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.

"His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn't count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind. Here's what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he's certainly someone to watch in Beijing.

"'It means a lot to me,' the 25-year-old Homosexual said. 'I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me.'"

OneNewsNow has since fixed the article. News director Fred Jackson told Akers, "We took the filter out for that word," he said. ("Without uttering the 'G' word," Akers noted.)

One thing I really like about Akers' post: She includes a rundown of the bloggers who spotted and initially covered this story, with links to the relevant posts. This is not only the ethical thing to do (crediting the people who really broke the story, and sharing their insights) -- it also makes the story much more interesting, by allowing readers to dig deeper.

Plus, when you link to original blog posts, readers also get to see the conversation happening in the comments -- which in this case are absolutely priceless.

(Thanks to Maria Cereghino, publicist for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, for the tip.)

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Monday, June 30, 2008

maps.google.com Local is no longer just about where you are on the map.

Asking whether local is better in journalism is the wrong question (Reportr.net): "What does local mean in the 21st century? Geographical proximity is still a factor in news, as people are interested in what their neighbors are up to. But perhaps we should pay more attention to the notion of cultural proximity."

Online, all journalism is potentially local (Online Journalism Blog): Online, however, all journalism is potentially 'local.' Local context is compiled by the reader: It is disaggregated and re-aggregated from many sources. 'Local' is all about our networks, not about our geography."

Are Free Magazines the Future of Publishing? (FolioMag.com): Rising price of paper and postage makes the cost of acquiring and keeping paid circulation too high compared to the revenue it generates. Consumer mags will eventually move to a controlled free circulation model."

Ads Give Moviegoers Chance to Interact (Adweek.com): I typically hate movie theater ads, but what if news orgs used this technique to promote local news and content to local audiences? "A deal struck earlier this month between Verizon Wireless and cinema-advertising network Screenvision combines mobile and social-networking applications to test an interactive polling program in American movie theaters."

Adding technologists to a journalism classroom (MediaShift Idea Lab): "Honestly, in most newsrooms, Web developers and news editors aren't likely to head out to happy hour together after work. What would they talk about? Headlines? SEO? Newsrooms the world over would benefit from social networking."

Copyright Office discovers web forms, online submissions (Ars Technica): "On Tuesday, the Copyright Office will launch the 'electronic Copyright Office,' or eCO. The system has been in beta for months, and it allows creators to submit copyright registrations and even some actual works directly through the tubes."

Twitter Conversations Come To A Screaming Halt; Users Simply Move To Friendfeed (TechCrunch.com): "Why aren't Twitter users screaming about the reply feature being gone? Because this time, they're just heading over to Friendfeed to have those very same conversations."

Google and Creator of 'Family Guy' Strike a Deal (NYTimes.com): "Google will syndicate the Family Guy spinoff program via its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a 'Cavalcade' video clip." Hmmm... what if we did something similar with news video content?

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Friday, June 27, 2008

nl.wikipedia.org The Dutch edition of Wikipedia recently agreed to remove information about a former politician's fraud conviction.

(UPDATE JUNE 28: After this article was originally published, Wikipedia reinstated the entry discussed here.) Patricia Remak, a former conservative member of the Dutch parliament, recently asked Wikipedia to change its entry about her -- and got it her way. This act has become a major controversy in the Dutch blogosphere. Of course, the potential impact is much larger.

From 1998-2002, Remak was a member of parliament for the People's Party for Democracy (VVD). This allowed her to receive a government allowance. However, against the rules, she failed to report other income sources. For this, a Dutch court sentenced her to one year in jail. That punishment was reduced on appeal, but the conviction stood. This case was widely reported in Dutch media.

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Remak asked the Dutch shock blog Geen Stijl as well as the Dutch version of Wikipedia to remove information about her social security fraud and court sentence, claiming privacy concerns. Earlier this week, Dutch police invited Geen Stijl to a police station to discuss Remak's formal complaint, and does not intend to give in. However, Wikipedia did agree to change the entry, causing a major uproar.

Dutch journalist and blogger Henk Blanken wrote (translated to English here), "I hope Wikipedia will decide to fully reinstate the entry about Remak. And I hope Geen Stijl will continue calling for journalistic freedom. And I hope Patricia Remak will go to court, so she will really learn what the privacy regulation means."

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Jared, via Flickr (CC license) GPS devices are showing up in all sorts of places. So is locative media.

Millions of people are listening to music, traffic and news on their car radios. Millions more are going about their daily lives with earbuds sprouting from their ears. Coming soon, you'll be able to get multimedia content delivered to cars and portable devices based on your geographic coordinates.

In the world of digital content, video is hot right now (think YouTube, Hulu and MySpace). But recent news, and some work by graduate students at the Medill School of Journalism where I teach, have me thinking that audio storytelling is poised for a resurgence thanks to location-aware electronic devices.

Here are a few recent news developments that suggest that location-aware mobile devices are about to take off:

• Apple's new iPhone 3G, to be released in July, will include mapping based on real GPS (not just cell phone tower triangulation).
• Microsoft has just announced a new operating system for people who develop applications for personal navigation devices
• Automakers are beginning to offer real-time traffic alerts via in-dash GPS systems
• ABI Research predicts dramatic growth in the number of GPS-enabled mobile devices and says that the microprocessors powering portable devices will increasingly include GPS as a standard feature.

As my Tidbits colleague Barb Iverson recently wrote, a team of Medill master's students recently experimented with "locative storytelling" triggered by GPS coordinates. One of their key takeaways is that on portable devices (not to mention car radios), audio is the optimal storytelling mode. The students' locative journalism included photos, but these were mostly a distraction, while audio could be powerfully immersive when connecting a user to a specific location. For more on the students' work, check out their class blog (Lojoconnect.com) and their final report, which includes recommendations for journalists, news organizations, media companies and journalism schools.

The success of National Public Radio and its local affiliate stations suggests that there is an audience for audio journalism. However, few NPR stories focus on local content. And while some audio podcasts are building audiences successfully, I don't think podcasting will meet its potential until the day when audio can be delivered wirelessly, direct to electronic devices of various kinds.

There's growing evidence that this day is coming -- and fast. It's also clear that there is a real shortage of available geo-specific audio content. This kind of content is what local media such as newspapers are best positioned to provide, especially if they can collaborate with local people who have interesting stories to tell. Also, marketers are predicting huge opportunities for location-aware advertising, which might mean there's considerable money to be made.

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Summize.com News orgs may try to hold news for ethical concerns or for respect -- but it WILL get out.

Here's a NYTimes.com piece that every editor should (no, must) read: Delaying News in the Era of the Internet. It's about how when NBC newsman Tim Russert died, the network decided to hold onto the news for a short while until his family could be alerted to the bad news. The other major networks agreed to do the same.

Of course, we live in an era in which big news holds for no network, and news crept out the door at NBC and was spread all over the Internet well before NBC acknowledged that Russert had a heart attack and died in its offices. The New York Times article, by Noam Cohen, focused mostly on how Russert's Wikipedia page was updated with news of his death before the official network announcement.

One thing that Cohen underplayed was Twitter, the popular microblogging service, which I believe makes holding on to news pretty much an untenable act from here on out.

Here's the deal with Twitter as it applies to fast-breaking news: All it takes is one person with knowledge of a big-deal news event (in this case, anyone in the NBC building who learned about Russert's death) to instantly blast it out via Twitter to blow apart any notion you may have of holding back the tide for a few minutes.

You can easily imagine what happened when the first Twitter post about Russert's death was published. That person's Twitter followers repeated it to their followers, and viral effect took off. Others may have spotted it via Twitter aggregators like Summize.com.

It's News 1.0 thinking to believe that you can still squelch a big story when it's so easy -- and so inevitable -- for someone with knowledge of an event to start blabbing about it.

I don't mean to fault NBC executives' noble desire to hold the news until Russert's family learned the news through proper channels. It's the humane thing to do. I would not wish it upon anyone to learn that a loved one has died through the media. It's an unfortunate "inconvenient truth" that you can't hold back news anymore.

So should NBC News have acknowledged this reality and blasted out a headline before even notifying the Russert family? There are sound ethical reasons for holding on to news like that and making those phone calls to family members. Bravo to NBC News for taking the ethical high road.

But NBC executives were being naive if they thought that the news wouldn't get out until they decided to post the news.

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

56.com It doesn't look like it right now, but 56.com is China's third largest video host. For three weeks now, the home page has shown only this notice that it's offline for server upgrades. Right.

China's State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT), the official regulatory body (some say the censor) of traditional audio-visual media, has been booking remarkable successes in curtailing that country's tremendously popular video hosts.

Watching and making videos has quickly become a true mass medium in China. According to official figures, 160 million Chinese net users actively make or watch videos, out of 250 million net users total there. Also, these users have been skipping other tools -- like podcasts, which have never taken off in China.

The larger video hosts -- all privately owned and often heavily funded by foreign venture capitalists -- implemented their own self-vetting systems to avoid confrontations with the censor. Smaller video hosts have been less rigorous and featured both porn and heated online discussions to increase market share. But since this struggle is more about power than about content or principles, SARFT has been looking for way to take on the larger players.

Initially, SARFT was rather unsuccessful in gaining power over this online mass medium. It issued regulation after regulation, but these were virtually ignored. Still, for the censor (just like for media organizations), gaining control over the booming online sector is a matter of life and death.

Consequently, SARFT has been developing a new strategy. Three weeks ago it took the third largest Chinese video host, Guangzhou-based 56.com, offline -- and it remains offline as of this writing. Earlier SARFT tried to do the same with the largest video host, Tudou.com, but could not get away with it. But when the government went after 56,com, China was still preoccupied with the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, so protests against its closure did not help. 56.com's home page currently says the service is down to upgrading its servers -- but after almost three weeks that excuse is obviously not credible.

At the end of last week SARFT made a new move, issuing 247 licenses for video hosting services -- except for the top three (Youku.com, Tudou.com and 56.com).

Chinese Internet watcher Danwei concludes: "SARFT may just let these sites run dry and expire. Or perhaps they will reach an accommodation soon enough to make sure some of the money, technology and know-how invested in Youku.com, Tudou.com and 56.com remains for the good of Chinese netizens, and for the Chinese government's own nation-building purposes.

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