News

Just two weeks after the Spanish courts ruled that a press-clipping service could not republish articles from other newspapers without prior permission, the Spanish press is starting up a new lawsuit, this time against online news aggregation. The press is hoping that the courts, which ruled that newspapers have intellectual property rights, will uphold those rights in an online forum as well. You can read the Editors' Weblog post here…….Continue Reading Spanish press to sue news aggregators

A new Indiana law adjusts the terms of the publication of government notices in the newspaper. Such notices typically reveal budget figures and other information about how money is being spent. The new law allows newspapers to raise the rates for these ads by 2.75% per year, whereas before this rate increases had to be legislated. The new law, however, eliminates a requirement that salary ordinances and a few other types of information be published. You can read the Herald Bulletin article here…….Continue Reading Indiana revises rules for government notices

As Tribune Co. restructures under bankcruptcy, a new plan may transfer ownership of the media conglomerate from Sam Zell to the banks and investors that hold $8.6 billion in debt. The plan calls into question whether Zell will continue to head the Tribune's operations, or if the new owners would seek a new leadership team. The proposed debt-for-equity swap is still being negotiated. You can read the article from the Chicago Tribune here…….Continue Reading Tribune restructure may oust Sam Zell

The fourth annual Beyond Broadcast conference began Wednesday at USC's Annenberg School for Communication with a keynote from Henry Jenkins, the Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts. Thursday, the panels included discussions of ways to monitor new media's impact, public media around the world and social messaging within entertainment. Webcasts are available from the day's panels. Friday's panels will be streamed live on the Beyond Broadcast website. Visit the Beyond Broadcast website…….Continue Reading Beyond Broadcast at USC begins today

Newspapers may be constrained in their ability to charge for content by U.S. antitrust law. Yet two columnists in the Wall Street Journal use the music industry as a template for the possibility that newspapers could work together to charge for content. The model would essentially involve newspapers charging sites for the reproduction of their content, just as songwriters make money from the playing of their songs on the radio or at nightclubs. To be successful, the newspapers would need an intermediary to monitor the online replication of their articles, and thereby legally ensure payment for their content. You can……Continue Reading Music industry may be guide to avoiding antitrust impropriety

Bill Day writes on PaidContent.org that online advertising needs to be dramatically transformed. Day rejects a pay model, but says that advertisers and publishers must make ads more effective. Among his suggestions: (1) limit the number of ads on the page, (2) target and adapt ads to the user, and (3) make the calls to action more sophisticated. Read the PaidContent.org post. — June 4, 2009……Continue Reading A call to revamp online advertising

Tim Windsor at Nieman Journalism Labs discusses how he kept informed about a symposium at the University of Maryland about how journalism would fare if newspapers died. Windsor's conclusion: "Reporting, apparently, still gets down." Despite the absence of any reporting by the Balitmore Sun, he stayed informed through tweets ("missjames: miller is obviously not a believer in future of online. #localnews"), blogs and local community news sites. You can read the Nieman Journalism Lab post here…….Continue Reading The news without newspapers

News Corp has said that it will establish a paid model for its online content, and its new chief digital officer suggests that the company, "is willing to take a lead position to push for change." Jonathan Miller says that News Corp is interested not just in providing additional revenue for itself, but also in developing a model that will help the industry as a whole. One of his ideas is to bundle content — offering some of News Corp's New York media, or a group of their newspapers, together for a fee. Miller argues that bundling needs to be……Continue Reading News Corp may lead the industry towards a new model

Journalism students at Northwestern University have teamed with their peers in computer science to develop several applications that produce and organize information. One generates sports stories from box score and play-by-play information. Another one is suited for an iPhone, and organizes the news into 5-minute, 10-minute, or 20-minute chunks. And yet another would allow journalists to fact-check their stories in Microsoft Word without switching to an Internet search. The groups will meet with journalists in the industry to discuss their applications next week. You can read the study published by Northwestern University here…….Continue Reading Northwestern students develop new journalism tools

As an important conceptual step, Advertising Age reports that the New York Times no longer considers its customers to be readers, but users. More pratically, the paper is trying to make its website and online content more interactive. The paper has opened up its application programming interfaces to allow outside developers the chance to create news ways of viewing and reacting to the data. One example is the NYTExplorer, which offers an alternative search feature to the current search options on the site. You can read the Advertising Age article here…….Continue Reading New York Times offers more to its users