When pressed at Monday's briefing, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs expressed concern over the failing newspaper industry, but stated, "I don't know what, in all honesty, government can do about it." Even as Sen. John Kerry begins holding hearings this week on the state of the newspaper industry, it appears that the White House is not planning imminent action. You can read the article in the Huffington Post here…….Continue Reading White House wary of involvement in journalism
News
Newspaper to go on the air
The Detroit Free Press has partnered with a local CBS affiliate, WWJ-TV, to launch a morning news show. The program will air two hours each weekday morning, and feature content produced by the newspaper's journalists, in addition to updates on weather and traffic. You can read the announcement by the Free Press on their website…….Continue Reading Newspaper to go on the air
Automated tweets supply news
National Public Radio combined computer code, archives and Google Hot Trends to create an automated Twitter account NPRBackstory. It goes like this: the code automatically detects frequent search terms, checks within the NPR archives for related stories and posts the link on Twitter, all without any human involvement. The goal of the project is to provide some backstory and context to breaking news, and to make full use of the online NPR archives that date back to 1995. You can read the Nieman Journalism Lab post here. And you can follow NPRbackstory on Twitter …….Continue Reading Automated tweets supply news
MTV to share revenue with social networks
MTV is promoting its new show, What You're Watching with Alexa Chung, by taking advantages of new media. Yet the television channel is taking the unprecented step of sharing the ad revenue from the show with Facebook and Twitter. While many companies and industries, including CNN and Us Weekly, have used these two sites to promote their projects, this is the first time that either site will receive revenue for hosting the organization. You can read the post on Paid Content here…….Continue Reading MTV to share revenue with social networks
Tips for creating a community information hub
Mark Glaser of PBS' MediaShift has read 600 ideas for how to best serve community information needs, and has distilled them into an eight-step plan to get the job done. Step One: Crack open government data and access.Glaser's project is in connection with a big effort from the Knight Foundation to identify community news and information needs in an era when legacy news organizations may be greatly diminished. You can read Glaser's article on PBS' MediaShift. You can also follow Mark Glaser on Twitter …….Continue Reading Tips for creating a community information hub
Readers spending more time on newspaper websites
There's good news and bad news for newspapers in a new report by USC's Jeffrey Cole, one of the world's leading authorities on Internet trends. Cole found a significant increase in the amount of time readers were spending on newspaper online sites. Simultaneously, it found a large chunk of Americans had quit their newspaper or magazine subscriptions because they could read the same material free on the Web. You can read the USC Annenberg news release about Cole's research here…….Continue Reading Readers spending more time on newspaper websites
Surprise: Newspaper online ad share firms up
A new report by Borrell Associates suggests that a four-year decline in newspapers' share of local online revenue has ended. The somewhat surprising finding is attributed to the strength of feet-on-the-ground sales forces during an economic recession. You can read Paid Content's report here…….Continue Reading Surprise: Newspaper online ad share firms up
Patron-funded news
Sharesleuth.com is an investigative journalism site devoted to exposing corporate misbehavior and securities fraud. The projects are funded by Mark Cuban, entreprenuer and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. The site acknowledges that Cuban sometimes makes investments based on the information uncovered by the reporters, but that this activity will always be fully disclosed to allow readers to determine any conflict of interest. The patron-funded model of journalism raises some ethical questions for journalists as they try to find a way to fund their work. You can read the article from Poynter Online here…….Continue Reading Patron-funded news
The Op-Ed model of journalism
Edward Wasserman, in the Miami Herald, argues that online journalism seems to focus mainly on the op-ed model – -where contributors are not employees of the site, hold some knowledge about the topic for which they write, and are paid little if at all. These contributions are edited by full-time editors of the news source. Wasserman sees this trend as a continuation of journalism's tradition of relying on subsidies to prosper. Yet he also worries about potential conflics of interest, which seem almost inherent in the op-ed model. You can read the Miami Herald piece here…….Continue Reading The Op-Ed model of journalism
Credible source of news? This NGO says absolutely
Can Human Rights Watch, the NGO that's eyeing a significant role in the world of journalism, muster the credibility needed to deliver the news even as it acts as advocate for human rights? That's the kind of question journalists sometimes ask when they hear that NGOs like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others are aspiring to fill some of the void created by the shrinkage of news operations. But it's not a question that concerns Carroll Bogert. "I would say that in general, we do much more than journalists do to assure we have the facts right," said Bogert,……Continue Reading Credible source of news? This NGO says absolutely