Category: News

The Twin Cities' newspaper, The Star Tribune, will offer premium content to print readers before publishing it online. Editor Nancy Barnes wrote in a column that this move would reward those who purchased a hard copy of the paper. The Star Tribune will continue to publish breaking news on its website free of charge. You can read the paidContent.org article…….Continue Reading Star Tribune aims premium content at subscribers

Glam Media has launched another site that seeks to profit from Twitter and other microblogging platforms. Tinker.com acts as a microblogging filter for events and other breaking news. Tinker also has widgets so the conversations can be posted on websites or blogs. You can read the Venture Beat article here…….Continue Reading New site will act as a Twitter-filter

As their newspapers shut down or lay off workers, some former newspaper reporters have joined the ranks of their local public television stations. In Seattle, where the Seattle Public Intelligencer quit printing two weeks ago, 20 journalists now advise KCTS-TV. In St. Louis, the number is 14. Though these journalists are currently working as unpaid advisors, they are helping to provide context to local stories and deepening the local coverage that these stations provide. You can read the article in Current here…….Continue Reading Former newspaper reporters assist public broadcasting

The Bottom Line, a segment on Boston's WBUR National Public Radio station, compares the current state of journalism to the technology market, suggesting that we'll see many start-ups in next 10-20 years. Many of those start-ups are funded by foundations, such as the Knight Foundation or the Kaiser Family Foundation. Such ventures include Spot.us, Placeblogger, or Everyblock.com. You can listen to or read the story from The Bottom Line here…….Continue Reading Many start-ups rely on foundations

Two weeks after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped printing its newspapers and switched to an online-only site, traffic on the site has dropped by 20 percent. About 1.7 million viewers looked at seattlepi.com in January; the number now is closer to 1.3 million. A former Seattle PI reporter via paidContent.org attributes the decline to the dramatic reduction in staff. The Beyond Search blog argues that once the newspaper is gone, marketing the online content has to become the first priority…….Continue Reading Seattlepi.com drops in viewers after paper's close

Jack Shafer of Slate questions whether newspapers are really so vital to democracy. He argues that citizens would get their information about government from other venues if newspapers went under. "American newspapers have never been so loved as the moment when they appear to be dying," he writes. You can read the article on Slate here…….Continue Reading Doubting newspapers’ impact on democracy

In a study of 18-30 year-olds, Crawford, Johnson & Northcott found that young people have both a strong interest in local information and a willingness to see such information on their social networking sites. Thus, local news might be able to find a following on Facebook or MySpace that wouldn't normally be a part of their audience. You can read the post from Broadcasting and Cable here…….Continue Reading Social networks could showcase news

After the editor of News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., proposed that news sites charge micropayments for users who wish to comment on their stories, the Editor's Desk blog follows up. The media experts interviewed seem skeptical of the idea, which might limit public discourse. At best, they say it would work only for a few online sites. You can read the Editors' Desk post on their blog.. Postscript (7/13/10): This week, The Sun Chronicle, a news website that had begun charging for users to comment returned to a free platform for its users…….Continue Reading Micropayments for commenting?

Liberal news blog The Huffington Post is launching a new initiative to fund investigative journalism, called the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. The non-profit news organization will pay journalists for original content, which in turn can be posted anywhere online. The fund will be distinct from the online news site in both legal terms and in editorial content. You can read the PressThink blog entry and Arianna Huffington's announcement of the HPIF…….Continue Reading Huffington Post to fund investigative reporting

Twitter is hoping to start turning a profit by offering a premium version of the site for commercial users. The plan remains short on specifics. Some have criticized the site, which reaches 7 million unique users accounding to a Nielson estimate, for being slow to find a profit model. Twitter just hired its first staffer to focus on monetization this month. You can read the Editors' Weblog post here…….Continue Reading Twitter seeks new profit model