You needn't look far to find skepticism about the potential of foundations and philanthropists to bankroll the work that newspapers have long done. Conventional wisdom is that funders of nonprofits can make only a marginal difference, that the real answers will come from private sector innovators. But these skeptics aren't much found in evidence at the nation's leading investigative reporting nonprofits. The Center for Public Integrity (CPI), ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting are all on the move, all seeing growing opportunities for nonprofit investigative work, all hopeful about future funding…….
Day: May 12, 2009
Past newspaper strike may give glimpse of the future
Jack Shafer in Slate discusses the 1962-1963 New York newspaper strike, and considers it a case study in what people do when the newspapers shut down. He argues that, despite today's oft-stated assumption, democracy and government did not appear to suffer too much under the 114-day strike. Instead, people turned to other news sources for information — television, news magazines and books. Meanwhile, the circulation of newspapers not involved in the strike rose dramatically. You can read the Slate article on their website here…….
MediaNews revamps its online strategy
The MediaNews Group has set up its new strategy to revitalize its newspapers. The company's vision includes three major changes: First, MediaNews will begin to charge for its online news. Subscribers to the physical newspaper will have free online access, but all others will be directed to a pay vehicle. Second, the company will move to differentiate the newspaper from its online version. It will continue to utilize material from its printed source but "will also have user-generated content, community involvement and third party content." Finally, it will create a locus of local information with various resources, including shopping information……
Twitter surpasses newspapers in traffic
Perhaps because of all the media hype, Twitter had more unique visitors in the month of April than did the online versions of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Twitter had 19.4 million visitors, compared with 15.6 and 12.2 million for the newspapers, respectively. These findings are consistent with previous announcements that Twitter gained 5 million new users in March. You can read the Huffington Post article here…….
Times Wire shows newest NY Times news
The New York Times has launched Times Wire, a minute-by-minute update of the newspapers' articles and blog posts as they are posted on the web. While TechCrunch worries that the new feature won't do anything to address the problem of the newspaper's slow reporting speed, it does admit: "As an overview of the entire NYT site, it's actually quite interesting." You can read the post from TechCrunch here as well Times Wire website here…….
Thomson Reuters moves towards charging for mobile apps
Thomson Reuters is revamping its mobile applications. They will include video and market data as well as headlines. The applications are adapted to better suit the needs of iPhone or Blackberry users — the former supplies more video and the latter focuses on business data. While the overhauled apps will remain free for now, the company has indicated that this is the first step in a transition to charging for the mobile content. You can read the Finanical Times article here…….
NY Times considers how to charge readers
The New York Times is re-evaluating its TimesSelect experiment, which introduced micropayments for some of the paper's content, and thinking of instituting a tiered membership scheme. The idea is akin to the American Express model, with different levels, from platinum to gold. The paper is also investigating other types of revenue, such as selling research to Fortune 500 companies. As of now, the newspaper has rejected raising the endowment or seeking individual donations as viable options. You can read the post from Editors' Weblog here…….