Category: News

Eric Gertler, in The Huffington Post, writes that newspapers should focus less on producing content that they can charge for online and instead work to leverage their brand. By creating new ventures like resume services, membership clubs and classes, newspapers can start to make money off their brand. Newspapers need to hurry, though, as other online competitors, from Yelp to The Huffington Post, continue to take over spaces where newspapers traditionally dominated. You can read the blog on the Huffington Post website here…….Continue Reading Using the brand to make money

Richard Tofel, ProPublica general manager, praised the substantive work that the nonprofit news organization has been able to produce, citing the coverage of health care for contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet Tofel noted that ProPublica could not alone fill the gap in investigative reporting brought on by dwindling newsrooms. Tofel also argued that the organization's next big challenge will be to find a sustainable business model, so it can persist after the grant that began the project runs out. You can read the Poynter article here…….Continue Reading The future of ProPublica

PBS MediaShift has put together a compendium of local watchdog news sites, including a description of the sites like MinnPost and the Arizona Guardian. You can view the list complied by PBS's MediaShift here…….Continue Reading A look at online watchdog news sites

Umair Haque suggests that the New York Times might save itself by buying Twitter. The NYT could use the timeliness of Twitter to disseminate the news. Haque suggests that Twitter offers the newspaper viral distribution, context, relational capital, and the ability to experiment with business models. You can read the blog post on the Harvard Business Publishing website here…….Continue Reading Using Twitter to save newspapers

After the close of the Rocky Mountain News, reporters and investors sought to launch InDenverTimes, a news site funded by subscribers. Their goal was to have 50,000 subscribers by April 23, in order to fund their launch in May. As of today, however, the site has enlisted just 3,000 subscribers, causing the site's three investors to reevaluate the project. Some reports have suggested that the investors are withdrawing their support from the project, but the Westword blog suggests that they are simply readjusting their business model. You can read the Westword blog post here…….Continue Reading InDenverTimes misses subscriber target

The Department of Homeland Security has stopped its subscriptions to general-interest publications like The Washington Post, Newsweek and the New York Times. Any future subscriptions will have to have prior approval. The department noted that employees would still be able to keep up with today's news, as these publications offer access to the content online. You can read the article from the Associated Press here…….Continue Reading Federal agency stops its newspaper subscriptions

The chairman of The New York Times Company spoke to shareholders today, but revealed no new plans for the future of the newspaper. He admitted that the website does not make enough money to support the newsroom, but offered words of comfort to shareholders that the New York Times will not fail: "It is this commitment to excellence that will get us through this turbulent time," said Arthur Sulzberger Jr. You can read the full article from the New York Observer here…….Continue Reading Chairman says New York Times will continue