News

The New York Times has launched a new, customizable widget called "My Headlines." Viewers choose from the NYT list of sections and features to create their own list of news that appears alongside the other headlines on the site's homepage. This is the latest in the increasingly customizable world of online news. You can readthe Editors' Weblog Post hereand get an overview of the NYT's My Headlines page here…….Continue Reading New York Times lets you customize your news

Peter Scheer discusses the legal factors involved in instituting pay walls for online content, specifically the concept of "fair use." He argues that the current interpretation of fair use — which enables people to rewrite the first few paragraphs of a story while maintaining the central ideas, as aggregators often do — will hurt some new sources more than others. Those that will suffer have news contained in the lead paragraphs, like wire services and major metropolitan dailies. Long-form journalism, such as that practiced by the New Yorker and hyperlocal sites, will fare better under this definition of fair use…….Continue Reading So-called fair use will hurt some more than others

An editorial in the Los Angeles Times makes the case for a federal shield law to protect journalists from prosecution if they are protecting their confidential sources. Though many states have such a law, the federal government does not currently offer such protections for reporters. The House recently passed a shield law, and the Senate has an alternative on the table. The editorial finds some of the Senate measures, particularly the definition of protected journalists as one who engages in journalism, as superior to the House version. You can read the editoral from the Los Angeles Times here…….Continue Reading LA Times says U.S. needs a federal shield law

Jack Shafer at Slate says journalists should stop criticizing The Huffington Post for copying and rewriting their original content. Shafer notes that such antics are a long-established tradition in journalism, from Pulitizer's blatant theft of Hearst's copy to Time Magazine's deft rewriting of the newspapers' news. Aggregation and substantial borrowing are simply part of journalism. You can read the article from Slate here…….Continue Reading In defense of the Huffington Post

Last month, Time Inc launched a new experiment with Mine, a customizable print magazine. Joshua Benton of the Nieman Journalism Lab reviewed his copy today. Though Benton thought the experiment worthwhile, he was confused by the nearly two-year-old content in the magazine, and was slightly uncomfortable with the adaptions of the Lexus advertisements that funded the project. You can read the post by Nieman Journalism Lab in its entirety…….Continue Reading A review of Time’s customizable magazine

Even as newspapers around the country close, New York City is getting another daily Spanish-language newspaper, called NY Al Dia. The paper will launch on April 20, and sell for 40 cents at 1,800 locations throughout NYC. The daily is staffed by 13 former employees of Hoy New York, which closed in December. The new newspaper will compete with El Diario/La Prensa, the existing Spanish-language daily in New York. You can read more about NY Al Dia in this article from Portada…….Continue Reading New Spanish-language newspaper to launch

Clint Reilly worries that media monopolies would endanger the public good that news outlets are supposed to protect. He suggests that, as newspapers consolidate, we impose three methods of oversight over the news media: a council of citizens to monitor the news, incorporating citizens on the newspapers' editorial boards, and a state newspaper regulatory board appointed by the governor. These three mechanisms would serve as a check to ensure that newspapers continue to serve as the public's watchdog. You can read Clint Reilly's blog post here…….Continue Reading Checking the power of media monopolies

Just as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer experienced a drop in viewership after the newspaper went online only, a finanical newspaper in Finland has seen a similar trend. According to researchers at City University London, when Taloussanomat switched to an online-only format, it initially saw a small uptick in viewership. Five months later, however, the site found that their unique viewers had dropped by 22 percent. Two British newspapers saw their websites' unique viewers increase by significant margins during that same period. The Finnish newspaper has since gained in viewers, in part due to the global economic crisis. You can read the……Continue Reading Online-only newspaper sees dip in traffic

CBS anchor Katie Couric strongly defended her 2008 campaign interviews of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, telling a Los Angeles audience Wednesday that her questioning of the GOP vice presidential candidate struck a blow for "old-fashioned" journalism. Expressing concern about the growing popularity of opinion journalism on TV — which she said amounted to "ideological convection" — Couric said the interviews worked because she kept ideology out of it. "I did it the old-fashioned way," she said. Couric accepted a Cronkite Award at the University of Southern California for her Palin interviews. Other Cronkite awards, presented by the Norman Lear Center,……Continue Reading CBS; Couric defends Palin interview

According to L. Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal, it isn't just the business models for news that need reevaluating, but journalism itself. Crovitz furthers the thesis of a former WSJ editor Bernard Kilgore: "It doesn't have to have happened yesterday to be news." During his tenure, Kilgore forced the newspaper to adapt — by explaining the implications of the financial news for its readers, rather than just reporting yesterday's facts. Crovitz suggests that newspapers today need to adapt to online breaking news in a similar fashion. You can read the Wall Street Journal opinion piece here…….Continue Reading News that focuses on the future